Wanderlust Azores- A Tiny Street and A Very Nice Man

My Sunday started out as a day of random exploration. I took my Opel Corsa along with my 12-year-old out on the open road with no destinations in mind, going wherever and stopping whenever we feel like it. No GPS and just let the forks in the road take us on our island adventure.
We got on the road to this look out point. It’s a tiny little road (only one compact car can pass and with stone walls on both sides) through the hills. We kept on climbing and climbing through the hills. The angle became sharper and sharper to the point that it felt like we were on a rollercoaster going up. My little Opel was making all kind of noise because this automatic car drives like a manual pretending to be an automatic, not knowing when to switch gear.

At one point, I became concerned. I was in the middle of nowhere with a child, in a car that I was not completely familiar with, going up on an angle that is closer to 90 than 45 degrees. But I was at the point of no return…Can’t U turn and even if I could, I was not sure I wanted to head downhill. Voila! I did make it to the top and got this awesome picture.On the way down, I was all pumped and decided to go down this very deep decline via a narrow cobblestone road in the town of Ribeirinha. I was stuck. The road was not big enough to have two lanes. Instead of backing up to let the cars through, I went ahead and became stuck on a very tricky spot next to the wall and inside a pothole. The loud noise my car made drew attention and men came out from their houses and cars. They were yelling at me by this point! In Portuguese! Loudly!

I was this idiotic American woman who stopped traffic and didn’t know how to back up. I was a little embarrassed. This Portuguese gentleman sensing my distress quickly came out of his car. Without one word, jumped into mine, maneuvered out of the pothole, and back my car up all the way to the paved road, with my 12-year-old inside. That took him about 5 mins.

This is wanderlust in the Azores. I got my adventure and more. I was very thankful for the hospitality the Azoreans extended to a single traveling female with a child. I could have kissed him! Lesson learned: I have got to learn how to drive a manual vehicle.

This experience took place at Ribeirinha, Terceira Island in the Azores Archipelago, Portugal.