Despite having visited the Azores 8 or 9 times now, we still hadn’t been to the Grutas do Carvao, a 5 km long, 10,000 year old lava tube cave that is within the city limits of Ponta Delgada. When we told the family we had tickets to the cave, we discovered none of them had ever been there either so we didn’t feel too bad.
The cave was interesting enough but we had gone with the short visit as opposed to the 3-4 hour tour where they allow only six people per week and you get to scramble through a couple kilometres of the cave. Ours was the mass market visit where they hammer through a thousand people per week and you only get to dip into the cave a very short distance. The visit was fine, but the most vivid memory I’ll take away from it was the one American amidst our group of 15 people from many countries. Look man, we have so many cool American friends, but honestly, who do you think was the one person who loudly told the group she was proudly from Seattle, asked all sorts of dumb questions, and insisted on touching the cave walls when instructed not to? Considering how the US has been treating most of the rest of the world lately (particularly Europe), you would think as an American it would be an opportune time to take a low profile.
From here we drove to the public library and regional archives to try and track down a play Ana’s grandfather had written in 1951.
Let me back up a bit.
Last year sometime, Ana’s mom casually mentioned that her father had been an actor and playwright. Ana’s mouth dropped. As the most enthusiast supporter and builder of arts and culture in our community, you’d think somebody in the family would have mentioned this before. But we should be used to it. Her mom drops this little fact bombs at regular intervals and it’s quite funny watching Ana get all crazy. Anyway, Ana brought this topic up yesterday during our 8-hour afternoon and evening eating and drinking session around the dinner table. Ana’s tio Manuel didn’t just remember this, but he repeated the first few stanzas of the play which he had memorized as a child of 13 years of age….75 years ago. Mouths dropped. Eyebrows rose. Bewildered looks. None of the cousins knew this about their grandfather. The elders of this family are a devious bunch.
The search was on for a copy of the play, which was based on a true story about a young local boy who was tending to his family’s cows and somehow got tangled up with a bull and was dragged through the village to his death. We were told the play was printed and performed many times throughout the island. So the first stop would be the city archives. Next stop would be searching through aged boxes in the house of Tia Maria de Luz – Ana’s mom’s older sister.
The helpful librarian couldn’t find the play in the archives, but we didn’t have much in the way of details for her – just the approximate year, the approximate title of the play, and even the approximate name of Ana’s grandfather, as there was a lengthy discussion the previous night on this topic. The Azoreans like to play fast and loose with names, so just when you think you know somebody, you discover their actual name is something completely different. For example, I didn’t even know that Ana was called “Paula” by her entire family until after I’d known her for over a year. The librarian did provide us with a large book containing the 1951 and 1952 weekly Oriental newspapers, Sao Miguel’s primary daily newspaper since 1835 right until today. We flipped though it, page by delicate page, looking for any mentions of the play, Ana’s grandfather, the death related to the actual incident, but we could not find anything. There were a lot of ads for fancy hats though.
We had our fill of academic research pursuits for the day so turned our attention to wandering the historic cobblestoned streets of Ponta Delgada and finding somewhere for lunch. Adega do Mestre Andre suited the bill just fine so we saddled up for a power lunch, surrounded by the top echelon of Ponta Delgada business folk. Turns out an Azorean power lunch takes a damn long time, as it should, and nobody was in a rush to go anywhere. Everything about the place seemed classic, from the fado instruments hanging from the wall, to the bottles of wine on shelves, to the servers older than us who had probably been there for many years or decades, and the cowboy saloon doors leading to the kitchen that swung outward and twice clobbered a patron returning from the WCs down the hall.
Our meals were excellent. We met the gentleman beside us, Miguel, who was a local guy enjoying a fine solo meal and looked as typical Portuguese as any person I’ve ever met. Ana dazzled him with her fluent Portuguese and I surprised him too with a line or two of the local lingo, which wasn’t great, but he just didn’t expect anything of the sort to come from a dude who looks like me.
We cruised back to home base and picked up Ana’s folks to visit John’s younger sister Tia Ana at the care home then we stopped at Santa Barbara beach for a look at the massive waves crashing in from the north winds, then proceeded to Ribeira Grande for a coffee in the town square. We were going our best to encourage Ana’s mom Maria to walk as much as possible as her mobility hasn’t been great of late and we felt the exercise would be good for her.
Back at home base cousin Natercia, hubby Paul Fernando, and beautiful daughter Leonore had arrived, so we made a communal dinner of spaghetti and slapped-together meat sauce with chorizo and garlic bread which all turned out rather well. The conversation meandered from here to there and landed on dentures, as it often does in the company of octogenarian island folk. Tio Manuel has dentures but hasn’t worn them much in the past decade as his gums have taken on teeth-like properties, enabling him to chew onions and bread and rending falsies unnecessary. Both John and Maria recently got new chompers (courtesy of the government of Canada, Long Live the King!) and suspected Tio Manuel’s dental situation might be improved with the use of Polygrip. Tio Manuel wasn’t too sure and worried if the glue would be strong enough. Paul offered his thoughts.
“Manuel, that stuff is super strong. In fact, you won’t be able to get the teeth off without the help of a goat to kick them out.”
Somehow he decided to try it anyway and he and John disappeared into the bathroom for twenty minutes, like they were smoking joints. Tio Manuel emerged with a prize-winning smile and markedly better enunciation. John said he was going to charge him for the use of the Polygraph – five bucks for the top and five bucks for the bottom.
Later, the subject of funerals came up and the Azoreans told us you could get a full funeral, coffin, burial, and the whole shebang for about 1,700 euro.
“1,700 euro?? That’s a fraction of what it costs in Canada!” Ana said. “What a deal!”
I added, “It’s like they say. The Azores is a great place to live…and an even better place to die.”
But hopefully, not for a long time.
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