Our time on the Azores

They are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean so green, colorful, and one of the most beautiful islands I have ever seen. You are wondering what islands I am referring to? Of course I am talking about the Azores! I flew from Cuba to Germany because of some medical problems and then to the Azores to go onboard the Thor again. While looking through the window of the airplane, I was awe-inspired by the scenery. The coast was quite rough, and all the hills were green. That was my first impression of the islands.

I thought it could not get more romantic, but then I saw the port of Horta. If you have ever been there, then you know what I am talking about!
The special thing is that the whole harbor is full of paintings from every yacht and ship that had sailed over the Atlantic Ocean and landed here on the island Faial. It is a tradition that is supposed to bring luck and serves as a promise to return. Every pier, sidewalk, and wall of the harbour is colored. Of course, the Thor has followed this tradition too, and every year KUSis, have painted their own picture on the floor, same as we did. So if you taking your time, you can find every Thor picture since 2009.

So what have we done here for the last ten days? For me, the time here started with my arrival at the Thor, being welcomed by Mateo asking: “Anna? You’re really back here, Anna?” and then, everybody else also stepped on the pier and hugged me. You could see the happiness on their faces. Everyone was so kind. Once I got to the mess hall, I was instantly handed a hot chocolate and five people came and wanted to know everything about my voyage here. The next days were quite relaxing with many hot teas and cozy moments in the library. That was because of a rough storm moving the ship forward and backward. However, something quite special about our journey is that the weather is often enough exactly we need it to be. On the Atlantic, it was very sunny, same as on Christmas. In Horta, it also got better after a few days, so we were able to start our expedition in three smaller groups, including eleven to twelve students and two adults each. Every group got a waypoint, some money for transportation, camping gear, and food from the ship.

I was part of group yellow – or as we called us: “monkey gang”. In total, we walked 60 kilometers and the second day, our leg was quite intense. Let me tell you a little bit more about this day! After the first restful night in our tents, standing between wine vines on a field, we woke up and instantly cooked porridge for breakfast. Afterwards, we started freshly energized into the new day, our ten-kilogram backpacks always with us. The day before, we had taken a break every hour, so we were really slow – but not on the second day! Gradually, we got faster and faster and were quite surprised as we reached our goal of the day earlier than expected and were still fit. For lunch, we cooked couscous and some vegetables on our portable stoves called Trangia. Everybody passing us was quite curious why 13 people were sitting in a park making food on Trangias, but for us it was pretty normal. Afterwards, we decided to not end our daily trip at twelve kilometers but to add eight more kilometers. The forest we were walking through in the afternoon was a fairy tale forest with moss all over the trees and the air was extremely humid. It was a strenuous walk and very exhausting for me, but the mountain lake at the end was definitely worth the effort. The best experience of the trip was the dip in the cold water of the lake.

When our group later thought back to our expedition, this was our highlight from the three days – the lake, the nature, the relaxed people, and the animals made it unique.
The Azores offered us a very restful time, and the islands served as a pretty good restart for me. They are one of the places we have visited during our trip that I want to return to.