Right Start Tour (Part 1)

So, there is this thing called Right Start. It's basically the Air Force way of introducing you to your new surroundings. It's mostly briefings about what not to do, and what you should be doing while here. But another part was a cultural tour of the island. It is this tour that is the subject of this post.



We started our tour at about 8:30 in the morning. It was a crappy and rainy morning, but the forecast promised a ray of sunshine at some point in the day. We got on a 'school bus' (literally a school bus, just not yellow:) and started off to the north, heading toward Vila Nova, quickly passed Quatro Ribeiras and finally were able to get off the bus at Biscoitos. The villages of Vila Nova and Quatro Ribeiras were really quaint. Very steep slopes gave way to people's walled in gardens and houses build straight into the rock face. Well kept houses lined the cobble stone and some paved streets.



We did run into a heard of cows being 'transferred' from one pasture to another. The street was maybe wide enough for two mid size cars, and it was being filled with a school bus and about twenty cows who have not grasped the meaning of 'two way street' just yet. We safely made it past the cows and stopped at a little cafe in Biscoitos. Since it had been raining all morning, we were not able to stop and get out of the bus for most of the first leg of the trip. On the way to Biscoitos we were all looking at the ocean and just as everyone spotted what looked like a huge spot of boiling water right off the coast line, our tour guide clarified that it was a permanent whirl-pool. It had been there forever, and was the result of the rock formations that trap the incoming waves and turn them into this ginormous death trap. It was quite exciting to see something like that firsthand, because it's normally the kind of thing you read about in books like "Moby Dick". I don't have a picture of the whirl pool, but I do have one of what just plain coast line and waves. No less impressive.

That is what the entire coastline looks like. People here have either made swimming holes in the rocks, or dredged up sand from the ocean's bottom off the coast and dumped in to make a beach. I think there are only two sandy beaches on the island. Both man made.
We proceeded to make our way into Biscoitos, which is reputably the 'summer villa' capital of this island. And no question as to why people with money buy houses here. It's strikingly beautiful. It really is a shame that there were not a whole lot of picture opportunities in Biscoitos....stupid rain.