Rain beat incessantly against the windows of our little car as we drove over the cobbled potholes of a narrow, winding road toward the trailhead promised to us by google maps. This was Lombadas Valley, of the island of Sao Miguel that sits nestled amongst the archipelago of the Azores.
The Azores are volcanic islands, formed by magma that rose from the boundary of the Eurasian, American and North african tectonic plates. Sao Miguel, the largest of these islands, was borne from the slow and ancient emalgamation of six separate volcanoes, the forms of which can still be seen from viewpoints around the island - towering cauldrons of volcanic earth that encircle the humble settlements within them.
These islands, as such, are defined by the liminal place between boundaries. It is in their essence that they emerged from the spaces in between - where magma spills out and the fantastic arises; bubbling hot springs, dark forests, hidden under the embrace of a thick and impenetrable fog. I felt this beautiful uncanniness nowhere more vividly than Lombadas valley.
Here, deep below ground, water heated by magma rises through layers of volcanic rock, absorbing minerals and becoming rich in iron. Once this water reaches the surface and bubbles out of springs, it reacts with the air and the dissolved iron oxidises, painting the landscape a striking orange.
I took a step out of the car and stretched my gaze over the scene that enveloped me. The walls of the valley glowed orange, carpeted with moss that seemed to sigh out a thick fog over the forest, interrupted by patches of grey volcanic ground. The rivers ran bright orange - I’d never seen such a landscape so alien, shining and bubbling with the breath of the volcanic earth beneath.
Beside the car stood the ruins of an abandoned factory that once bottled the famous water that sprung from this strange place. The water that runs here is naturally carbonated - immense pressure underground infuses the rising groundwater with carbon dioxide, fizzing out into the rivers and wells. I cupped my hands under an old tap that still pours to this day into the glowing river, pulling it toward my mouth and feeling the fizz bite my tongue - my mind could not wrap itself around this small miracle.
I made my way toward the trailhead, and begun a patient downward scramble over wet moss and perpetual drizzle, soiling my white shorts and the palms of my hands with the fertile, sopping mud beneath me.
The broken remnants of the trail had been weathered down and left what was, at best, a stuttering slide down to the bottom of the valley, which I navigated with half-swings from tree to tree ahead of me. I held onto clumps of the red moss on the mountainside to my right to slow myself, and continued on.
At last, the route met a tributary that ran through the bottom of the gulley I had been traversing. Mossy overhangs leaned above the running stream that ran a thick orange mud across wherever it touched, fed by hundreds of dripping channels carrying the rain that soaked through the forest. I stopped to dip my hands in the water, and felt the heat that radiated from the ground reach back at my fingers, bubbling from below.
Following the stream onward, the canopy finally broke open into the basin I was searching for. Upstream of the river, framed by great pine trees, ferns, cliffs of moss and volcanic boulders, stood the waterfall I was promised. A hundred meters high, roaring proudly against the rocky precipice it burst through.
I took off my clothes amongst the chilling wind and rain and clambered across the river, taking refuge in the bubbling thermal coves that harboured small pools of warm water. Onward, I scrambled; the song of the waterfall growing stronger, being washed through by her drenching spray.
Orange clay from the rock faces stained my skin as the rain picked up above me. I stood, finally, in the embrace of the crashing water. My heart pattered under my breath, staring at the giant that lay hidden in this valley - I was alone, but not, I was surrounded by life, by constant movement, by creation and wonder. Fizzing water bubbled below, wind howled above, red moss hummed and glowed while the forest drank up the life that flowed so vividly here.
A thousand miracles produced these islands; this weird confluence of geology and life that produced the beauty I stood a part of in that moment.