The Hillbilly Viking

When we woke up this morning, the weather had finally cleared, and a rainbow seemed to be emanating from the Catholic Church in town. Patty thought it might be a sign to try and go back to the volcano at Sete Cidades and atone for all the “taking of the Lord’s name in vain” that spontaneously occurred last time we were there. In my defense, if there is a god, I do believe He was actively trying to smite me that day and honestly deserved a bit of salty language. Patty was raised Catholic (don’t worry, she’s better now), so I feel she has more insight into these types of things, so I agreed to return, but I secretly hoped the church rainbow was a sign of the rapture, which could possibly result in a lot more open seats and room to spread out on our return flights next week.

We hopped in the rental car, which has recently started flashing a very ominous looking dash icon that reads “Immediate Service Required,” and Patty acted as my co-pilot because even God wouldn’t be caught dead in a Renault. Anyway, the trip up and over the volcano lip was considerably more enjoyable this time without the specter of being blown off the narrow, winding road by another pop-up typhoon.

Sete Cidade, as visited in a prior post, is a city built at the bottom of the volcanic crater that was created the last time the west end of this island totally lost its shit. There are two lakes there, as well, separated by a cobblestone bridge. The lake to the north has blue water, and it’s called Lagao Azul (Blue Lake). The lake to the south is noticeably greener and predictably called Lagao Verde. Personally, I would have went with something like Bert & Ernie, but that’s probably why I’m not a community planner.

Verde is the smaller of the two lakes and according to Google, has a three mile trail around its shore, rated easy to moderate. Apparently we disregarded the fact that this is the very same Google that recently assured us that a granola munching, goat farmer wanted to serve us breakfast nearby.

Same Google. Same bullshit.

The cobblestone bridge is kind of the starting point, and when you start off from either direction, the trail is a wide, gravel road that runs approximately 1/4 of its respective side of the lake. That’s the easy part. The half in the middle, however, is a testicle-busting slog through levels of hiking hell that would have made Dante give up and write fan fiction instead.

We climbed through fallen trees. Plural. We relied on faded, knotted shreds of waterskiing rope graciously installed by the Google suckers who came before us to keep from tumbling into ravines. We traversed ancient, rotted bridges marginally held together with chicken wire and good intentions. We reenacted the muddy embankment scene from Romancing the Stone. We scaled volcanic cliff faces like Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger. We exhausted all of our 80’s media references. I considered tumbling down the cliff into the freezing lake and swimming home. Patty wasn’t ruling out cannibalism.

That was the “moderate” part. Fuck you, Google!

Ultimately, we made it. Sweaty. Dirty. Patty twisted her ankle. I wanted to puke out my nose. But we made it. We finished the loop averaging about 2/3’s of a mile per hour, which is literally a crawl.

On the way back to our hotel to therapeutically dive into a bottle of Jameson and scrounge our carry-ons for any leftover Oxi’s from surgeries past, we encountered a group of men walking down the highway in ceremonial shawls. They are called Romeiros, and they are practicing a Lenten-season tradition from the 1600’s that requires them to walk completely around the entire island in a symbolic request for God’s mercy from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. At least that’s the official line. They may have just Googled “Nearest Starbucks” and this is the route they are following.

There are no Starbucks on Sao Miguel. Fuck you, Google.