MOPTA.3

Today there were no interesting talks at the conference so, after breakfast, I did a little work and workshop admin, as well as phoning Air France to confirm that our booking had been restored. 

After lunch at the conference there was the final tour - to Sete Cidades, at the west end of Sao Miguel island. Hence we saw the last of the island's three major lake-filled caldera. We stopped at this viewpoint, where the shallow part of the lake is green, and the (much larger) deeper part is blue. The hydrangea at the viewpoint aren't ornamental: they grow wild all over the island.

When the coach dropped us off in the village, we had 100 minutes to spend in the area. A and the three other women in our group hired kayaks, and I went with PhD student B and developer F on a walk. The original idea had been to go up to the rim of a minor caldera and back the same way, but I assessed that we'd have time to complete the circuit of the caldera. Moving more quickly, we made it in time for an ice cream before the coach left.

After stopping off at another misty viewpoint, we were soon back in Ponta Delgada. There the seven of us had ice cream, before retiring to our accommodations to relax before going out for dinner together later.