I feel like I'm on Cloud 9- Literally!

Our first day in Faial started at 9 am. We woke up to a pleasant surprise because the lady who owned the house (who lived upstairs) came down and brought us cornbread and cold coffee without sugar. It was not the best thing in the world, but she it was kind enough for her to bring us anything. The day was absolutely gorgeous and we decided to use the tourist guide to help us plan our day. We decided to start our day by going to the caldeira, which is basically a volcano that has collapsed on itself. It was a massive crater that literally looked like a huge meteor had come down and impacted the earth. To get to the caldeira, we had to take a taxi to get all the way to the top of the island, this was the point where there were clouds…literally I was in a cloud. We got out and we couldn’t see anything except for the pale white cloud. I have never been in an actual cloud before (fogs don’t count!) and it was so unique and so cold. The cloud was incredibly misty and though it was a gorgeous 80 degree day inside Horta (the city we lived in at Faial), up here in the cloud I was freezing cold. We decided to climb and go around the caldeira so we could grasp the whole thing, and our long trek began. I thought climbing Mount Brasil was bad, but climbing the caldeira was not only incredibly trecherous (as in one wrong move you could fall into this pit) but also very, very exhausting. The worst part was, the higher we got, the colder I got (I was definetly not prepared for this and was wearing shorts!) After a trek of about an hour ( the notice board said it would take 2 hours to get through the whole thing….that was a LIE), I definetly could not do it anymore and I felt like it was pointless since the cloud was not clearing and all we saw was white with every step. So we split up into two groups- one group would continue the trek, the other would go down and wait ( I was obviously in the second group!) So me, Katrina, and Anya started our trek downwards and it on our way we ran into a German brother and sister who were making the trek too. It’s very interesting to note how different the English accent is in Germany, and we all talked on our way down and got to know each other. Just when I thought the trek up would be bad, the trek down was even worse. We got off the trail, so even though something looked like grass if you took a step onto it there would be a pitfall right below your feet. I was worried I would get my ankle twisted, and by the end of it I was crawling down this steep hill because I couldn’t walk it. It was like a taste of being on the show The Amazing Race! Once we got down, the cloud started clearing and we could finally see into this massive crater. It was the MOST BEAUTIFUL and serene thing ever. It was so green and lush and inside this massive crater there was an even smaller crater- a point where the volcano collapsed! I never knew such beauty even existed (and I am not an outdoorsy kind of girl) but imagine the grand canyon, only all green….and deeper…that is the Caldeira. Who knew such beauty could exist in the middle of the Atlantic??? After about a zillion pictures, we decided to take a taxi because we were so hungry and head down to Horta….while our other friends Matt, Aleks, and Jenny made the trip across the caldeira, a feat that took them 4-5 hours…what troopers!

-Advaita