Volcanic caves

For our last full day in the island, we (finally!) went to visit the caves that we hadn't been able to see on Thursday. They're open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, starting at 2.30PM, so it's easy to miss them if you don't pay attention to the schedules.

But before that, we did a hike starting from the first cave, the Gruta do Natal (Christmas Cave). We had read the reviews for the hike (Gruta de Natal & Mistérios Negros) and it sounded quite challenging, with a lot of mud and some climbing, but it wasn't that difficult at all and it was in fact really fun and beautiful. It crossed a lovely magical forest and continued over some volcanic rocks. Short before the end we stopped to have some bread and cheese that we had got before starting, although there aren't really any places to sit down and have a snack.

After the hike we visited the Gruta do Natal. It's a small cave and it's good that they gave us helmets, because both Dean and I hit our heads on the rock several times. Then we drove to the second one, Algar do Carvão, a much larger (and more crowded) cave.

I was quite tired after the day and was feeling like having something sweet, so we headed back to Angra and stopped at O Forno Pastelaria for a coffee and a pastry. Dean wanted to go for a walk but I went back to the hotel to lay down for a bit.

For dinner we went to O Pirata, a bar with some artisanal beers that Dean wanted to check out. It wasn't as exciting g as we had hoped and we were out of some of the beers that he wanted to try, but the burgers we had for dinner were good. On the way back it was extremely windy and some signs looked like they could fly away at any moment.Læs mere