A living island
We say ‘living’ because that’s the feeling you get when you stand on the earth in Sao Miguel. It breaths its own rhythm, and you can feel it. The forests couldn’t be more lush and leafy, the cliffs vault up from the sea and climb green and vertical to the sky, wild flowers colour the fields, and hill after hill, the paths draw lines between the multi-coloured colonial houses and villages.
Each town has a church punctuating the skyline, not too big, but beautiful, built from black volcanic rock. The clouds pass by, loaded and powerful, some of them getting caught in the higher points in the distance, adding to the dramatic atmosphere. We visit many lagoons. Each crater in this island, and there are so many, hides a lagoon. The colors are almost fluorescent, as if the rains have drawn the greens of the vegetation downhill to turn the water into an iridescent potion of emerald light. In the sunlight, it looked like a spotlight was shining from the bottom of the crater.
