The local bike shop managed to patch up my bike, and with a working bike again we looked at the map and made a route around the biggest crater on the island.
The local bike shop managed to patch up my bike with a new derailleur but they did not have a replacement for the brake lever, they just had some scrap parts and made my front brake kinda work again till a new lever would arrive.
With a working bike again we had a look at the map and made a bike route. There was a small gravel road going up and around the biggest crater Caldeira, it’s huge and really impressive.
The lonely gravel road was nice to follow. Not too steep, more like slowly working its way up and no cars except for one tractor. It’s so peaceful biking like this, makes the bike journey so much more joyful. It was mid April and we thought the weather now would offer more sunny days. We were wrong. Faial’s weather was rough and we were constantly fighting strong winds and on and off rain.
I really admire my girlfriend Juliana, she kept pushing on her heavy bike with the boards working like a sail that tossed her off the bike several times. Luckily nothing happened to her or the surfboards.
We reached the peak of the route and for a moment the fog disappeared and a beautiful view of the sea and the 10 volcanoes appeared in front of us. Sweaty, tired and wet, in one second it all makes sense why you go through what you do.
The wind slowed down and changed direction and we made it as a goal to make it down to the surf beach Fajã Praia Norte. The way down to the beach was long and fast and we just couldn’t stop smiling. Most part of the world when you arrive to the main surf beach there will likely be some surfers out. Here not.
Far out measured from the beach was a head high wave breaking. I was a bit nervous paddling out alone to a new wave but I had to do it, otherwise would have been hard to go to sleep. This night I didn’t have any problems going to sleep.
We woke up the following day, the wind had increased and the waves were not as good. So we took down our tent and packed our stuff.
The west part of the island had a lot to offer and see. First we had to bike up again to the main road and that was a good 270m climb. In 1957 there was a volcanic eruption that made the island bigger. The lava cooled down and a peninsula was created. The old houses got destroyed but the old lighthouse remained and turned into a museum about the eruption.
The good thing about Faial was that it was a much smaller island than São Miguel. If you want you can bike around the island in two days.
I was still waiting for a new brake lever so there was no point in rushing. On the north east part of the island there was a bike park that the locals had built. For us that was a great place to spend some time while waiting. We set up a base camp and started to get familiar with the bike trails. The locals had put in a lot of effort in the trails with cool gaps and jumps all built by wood and all marked up very well.
At this point we had spent two weeks on this island and still no spare part. It takes a long time to get stuff over to the islands so I gave up. I could brake, even managed to ride some trails, bit sketchy but it worked. We decided to bike back to the main city Horta and bought a boat ticket back to São Jorge.
