Okay so a little background info. After Megan and I hiked the Nakasendou route in Japan, we planned another hiking trip for…May 2020. I had found a five day route on Santa Maria Island in the Azores. Called Ilha a Pe, it’s more hut-to-hut than inn-to-inn. But you can pay extra to have them transport a bag from hut to hut and provide dinner/breakfast. And for a hut they are pretty comfortable—solar hot water, composting toilet, mattress, solar lights and charging.

With the 2020 trip cancelled because of Covid, we decided to try again in 2025, partially in celebration of our 50th birthdays.

We met in Boston, stayed the night at the airport hotel, and flew the next morning on SATA airlines to the largest island, San Miguel.

After two nights on San Miguel (maybe I’ll write about those days some other time) we took a short twenty minute flight to the nearby island of Santa Maria.

I’d arranged for a taxi driver to pick us up, and he took us to our room at the youth hostel for the night.

We had dinner outdoors at a fabulous little wine bar.

That night we spent quite a bit of time repacking all our stuff into three bags: stuff to carry with us on the hike, stuff to have transported each day, and stuff to leave behind at the youth hostel.

At 9:30 the next morning we met the trip organizer for a Q&A session/overview of the hike. After getting maps and talking through the next five days with our host, we were off!

Day one was to be our shortest and easiest day. The first second was very dry, and perhaps reminiscent of the western US?

It was a beautiful day with calm seas, so our host suggested we could walk down to a small beach that’s only accessible by foot or boat. We were still getting our bearings and getting used to the map, so were confused on whether or not we missed the turn.

Eventually though we found the right path. Getting to the beach required descending a few hundred meters, and it was getting rather hot. The sun was beating down on us with no shade cover. We made it to the beach and cooled down in the ocean.

I was optimistic that from there we would walk along the shore to the next town. But no…back up several hundred meters. In the sun. And we still weren’t even at our lunch spot.

Eventually we walked back down to the little town and stopped for lunch at a natural swimming pool. Felt great to sit and rehydrate.

We continue on…and on…and on. It felt like we should be at the hut at any moment, but no. We were still getting used to the map and wayfinding and distances…we were hot and tired and ready to be done.

FINALLY we found the sign for a hut…but still…needed to find the actual hut. Guess what? It was further up! But eventually we arrived.

Just because we made it, we still had to heat dinner…shower…make our beds. What we thought would be an easy first day certainly was not!