The final stop we made on Saturday while touring the island was to a place called Gruta De Natal (which translated means Christmas Grotto). It actually is a cave you can go into but we knew it wasn’t open on Saturdays so we just went up to explore the area since it was on our way home.
We saw a lovely pond.
And we saw an old volcano crater which actually comes with QUITE the story!
I suggested to Adam that we climb the volcano to see the crater and that it would only take 10 minutes. It didn’t look that difficult and I assumed it would be a very quick stop. Below is a close up picture of the volcano.
Adam was game to go and check out the crater so we headed up and got some great views of the surrounding area as we hiked. There was also a pretty good trail to get you to the top of where the crater was. See our little smart car at the bottom?
And here is a shot of the inside of the crater!
Really wasn’t much to see besides a lot of bushes and trees.
But it had great views from the top!
If we had been smart we would have just taken some pictures and headed back down the trail we had come. But sometimes I get a little adventurist itch in me and I suggested that we “keep going” along the rim thinking we’d get a great view from the other side of the volcano as well (where you could see the ocean). Plus I’d seen a trail leading up that other side, so we’d hit it eventually right? The answer to that was a big NO!
What ended up happening instead was that we lost all semblance of a trail and completely went off road and started blazing through bushes and trees, and thick THICK brush and ended up getting horribly lost on a super STEEP volcano and getting cut up by bristles and thorns while trying to get down this beast of a mountain in the DARK! It was seriously one of the scariest times of my life. I was just sure we were going to be stuck up there all night! If you look in the pictures below and above you can sort of see what we were hiking through. It was insane!
We stopped and said several prayers to get enlist the Lords help and then I continued praying in my heart every few seconds as well. I was getting really nervous and scared since it was getting so dark and we could barely see and because the mountain was so so steep. Adam was also in a t-shirt and shorts and it was getting cold and he was getting scraped up like crazy from the briars and thorns which made my heart hurt. This adventure thing had all been my idea, and boy was I feeling awful about it. I kept apologizing to Adam over and over again for suggesting we go further and have an adventure Boy oh boy was I eating my idea now! But you know what? That sweet husband of mine didn’t make me feel bad for even one second, and my darling Adam just kept saying that it would all be okay and we would make it down, and not to worry. He was my hero during that crazy scary night and I was so grateful that if I had to be going through something as scary and crazy as we were, that I had him with me by my side. He was the calm in my storm, and the reason I made it down that night without freaking out!
For awhile we just kept going around the mountain trying to stay at the same height or slowly go down, but the bush and trees just kept getting thicker and thicker and the briars and thorns worse. And we never felt like we were making progress, so in the end we ended up deciding just to go straight down. It was super scary and at times we couldn’t see or feel earth beneath our feet, but because everything was so thick there was also tons of things to hold onto. Branches, limbs, bushes, so we just slowly kept letting ourselves down the mountain using whatever we could hold onto and eventually we did make it out of the thick brush! And our shouts of joy I’m sure could be heard across the valley! It was a very happy moment!
We were cold, tired, and covered in jungle leaves, bark and debri and muddy from head to toe but we were alive and just so grateful to have made it off the volcano alive! We immediately said a gratitude prayer and then got in the car to warm up.
Adam thought we deserved a nice dinner after all that too, so we ended the night by going to one of Terceiras top seafood restaurants called Biera Mar where I got a nice bread bowl of hot seafood soup and Adam got shrimp and seafood shiskabobs! The food was Heavenly and tasted so good after a long crazy day of island touring and volcano repelling! We were both just so thankful to be putting warm food in our bellies instead of huddling together to keep warm in a briar filled jungle volcano!
Sure was an amazing day filled with lots of adventures and beautiful places!