Weekend Getaways
Azores - If you haven’t drunk gin with tonic in the middle of the road between America and Europe, you know little about sailing.
On the world map Azores are just little points in the middle of Atlantic. Drifting on the ocean, the lonely islands bring up people who can only breathe with sea air and feel badly if they cannot see the line of distant horizon. You can meet here old people who look hopefully at the remote ocean. Most of them have spent there their lives being employed by Americans as whale hunters. For two years of bloody and dangerous work they got 100, 150 USD, sometimes nothing. They were cheap, hard working, strong and quiet therefore Americans appreciated their work. They taught the Yankees how to hunt for the defenseless mammals. In return they have learnt how much a killed whale is worth which is the oily mass that was used to produce ointments, lotions or candles.
The signs of whale hunting past can be seen in a little dark room in one of the buildings of the Horta port. Dusted cabinets hide images of beautiful sailing vessels and sad women who stay at the sea shore whispering a quiet prayer. On the ground floor of the same house the Sport Cafe is located – world famous meeting point of the sailors. Who has never had gin with tonic in this famous bar, knows little about sailing. The walls of the cafe are covered with ships’ and yachts’ ensigns. The sailors for the last hundred years have been leaving here letters for those who wander trough the Atlantic. In the Sport Cafe one can cure sailing loneliness, feed eyes hungry of other people. You can see greed in these sailing eyes. There is a reason why Horta has been called the city of adventure and a romance.
The gong signalizes the last chance for gin with tonic, then the words of fado, nostalgic Portuguese songs written by women when their men left for sailing, slip into the multilingual crowd. Only the yearning is left on the high cliff… the despair of great sadness.
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