The magazine National Geographic says: ”It is one of the most beautiful places in the world!”
At first I couldn’t really imagine that. I thought how could those little rocky cold islands be as beautiful as the white Caribbean beaches or the colourful rainforest in Panama?
When we arrived in Horta on the isle Faial the first thing I noticed was the beautiful landscape. There were great cliffs, rocks and green meadows with cows all over the island. The Thor Heyerdahl was in the harbour of Horta very close the Peter Cafe Sport, a meeting place for sailors coming from all around the world. There we spent much time with drinking hot chocolate or with eating the very popular and delicious chocolate cake. In Horta there were sweet little streets, a nice church, a post office and the most important thing for us: a supermarket. Nearly everybody went there for going shopping. Most of us bought sweets, fruits and milk because of these three things we don’t have much at the Thor Heyerdahl.
On the first and second day we had our last school lessons. Then on the third day we took the ferry to the next isle called Pico early in the morning. At Pico we met our three guides, one came from Germany, and climbed on Volcano Pico with them. Volcano Pico is a volcano like the name already says. It is 2351m high so it’s the highest mountain of the Azores and even of Portugal. The weather wasn’t perfect so it was a bit foggy on our way up to the top but when we were on the top of the mountain the sun was shining and we had a very great view.
On the next day we were allowed to sleep until late and had a delicious brunch because everybody was quite a bit tired. At one o’clock Pedro came to our ship. He gave us a lot of information about whales in general and whales especially at the Azores and answered all our questions about whales. We already knew a lot about them because of Sammy’s presentation but it was still very interesting. After we had learned so much about these giant animals we split up into three groups and went into three speedboats to go whale-watching. We didn’t have to wait a long time ungot till the first dolphins jumped out of the water. Then a bit later we were very lucky: we saw two groups of Finwhales and many Spermwhales coming up to the surface near our boat. On the way back there were many dolphins again that jumped out of the water and played directly next to our boat. We also had a breathtaking view up to the cliffs because we took a way through the rocks near the coast. Because it was very shaky on the little speedboats a few of us got a bit seasick.
After these days with many great experiences I changed my point of view completely and now I’m able to understand why National Geographic wrote something like that.