Came down from the top of the volcano rim to the village of Furnas. In the middle of the village, there is an area which is pock marked by caldeiras like this. There are either a lot of water vapor escaping from holes in the ground or water boiling at the surface from the heat of escaping water and gas from below.

That is when you realize that you are literally walking on top of a dormant volcano!!

… Literally if they stepped a couple of feet back, they would have been about a few thousand feet below….

This picture is taken from the top of the volcano crater lip. You can see the Lake Furnas in the picture. Now look towards the bottom portion of the picture… Do you see some smoke coming out? If you zoom in, you will see a few small holes and that is boiling water and steam. The water is getting heated by the hot magma way underneath. (This is a dormant volcano).

Every morning, restaurants nearby start cooking meat by dropping the stuff in containers way inside the holes and let it be for nearly five hours. You need to make reservations early!!

This lake is in the crater of a volcano. There are three of them in Sao Miguel. After the volcano erupts and settles down, the top usually collapses. Over the years, rain water collects and forms these kind of crater lakes.

Fairly well taken, I must say…

There was this room inside the “Fabriea de Chai Gorreana” where a few ladies were separating tea leaves. I was not sure how genuine they were. I remember in Bali, they had these completely make believe activities going on to show as if they were the real deal. They were not. They were not acting it out…

Here, this room was in a complete corner and there was no guide – you just go around as you want. On the other hand, there was no earnestness with which these ladies were working. So, I could not come to a full conclusion.

They had no issues when I asked if I could take a picture. In fact, they did not even look at me. There was that tip jar though…. I put an euro in it and a small note saying “With a spot of milk”. I still think that is the best tip when it comes to drinking tea.

And it happens to be in the small island of Sao Miguel in the Azores Islands. We went there today and tried out their “Cha”! Indeed, in Portuguese, tea is the same as in China or India – “Cha” (or minor variants thereof).

This is the Tea Plantation of Gorreana.

(I could not find the name of the area)