I paid ￡262 to rush home from the ‘amber’ Azores
Like the most mournful Fado, with a 4.30am wake-up call thrown in, I’m bewailing the end of a love affair with the Azores that has scarcely begun. Today sees yet another mass exodus of British holidaymakers the day before Portugal is downgraded onto our amber list. A slapdash retrenchment back to blighty, paying silly money for airfares and packing swimsuits dripping wet – all to circumvent 10 questionable days of self-isolation and rip-off PCR-test packages.
I’m being overly melodramatic here (isn’t every Fado?) because upon boarding a 7.30am flight today from the Azorean Island of S?o Miguel back to London via Lisbon, I’m only truncating my whale-watching holiday by a day. But I had little choice, because of work and personal commitments in the UK that would otherwise be lost to self-isolating at home. Hence, I must depart shouldering not only the resentment of an airplane ticket change costing ￡262 but also losing one final balmy warm day on this beautiful mid-Atlantic archipelago.
And if this latest government volte-face confirms the traffic light system is little more than a PR stunt offering Antoinette-ian crumbs to a travel hungry public, to the Azoreans it seems baffling. Granted, Covid-19 infection numbers have risen on mainland Portugal. Yet in the remote Azores, on the day I left, just 22 new daily cases were recorded, all on the largest island, S?o Miguel, where adults are expected to be fully vaccinated by September.
“We’ve controlled the pandemic very well from the beginning,” says Catarina Cymbron, owner of Melo Travel in Punta Delgada. “It’s a great surprise and feeling of injustice to learn the UK’s decision to include Portugal’s maritime regions, Madeira and the Azores.”
She highlights that our government’s unnuanced approach comes just as Ryanair relaunches its direct service from Stansted to S?o Miguel, enabling air-travellers to avoid transiting in Lisbon. Cymbron says they’ve felt the impact of this decision immediately, with nine holiday cancellations from the UK on the first morning alone after the announcement.
“With nine islands, quite isolated from each other, few inhabitants, and well-defined health-and-safety protocols, we can say visitors are very safe here,” adds Cymbron.
Since May 17’s lifting of restrictions to Portugal, the Azores has not seen a rush from British travellers, unlike the Algarve, and I meet no fellow nationals at all. Reporting ￡45,000 worth of cancellations since the announcement on Portugal last week, Chris Wright, managing-director of Sunvil, says bookings were about to ramp up to the Azores through June yet now this momentum is lost. The Azores are popular for hiking holidays and whale watching – where over one-third of existing cetacean species come to feed and breed during global migrations.
The whale-watching is spectacular. I spend a morning with local operator, Terra Azul, tracking sperm whales, one of the Azores’ iconic resident species. The launch is full but entirely of mainland Portuguese plus Azoreans, tempted to travel by discount inter-island airfares fixed at €60 on Air Azores. International visitors meanwhile are being offered an inducement of a €35 voucher to spend on food or activities, if completing the Azores pre-arrival health declaration online.
Miguel Cravihno, owner of Terra Azul, laments the decision as Britons form a significant proportion of his customers. “British visitors are nature lovers. It’s very sad to hear this announcement that will deprive us of a significant market.” He says his business lost 90 per cent of its revenue during 2020. “It’s frustrating because it has become a political virus,” he says. “I do not understand why the Azores is in the same category as the mainland?” Join the queue, Miguel.
Most Azorean itineraries involve island-hopping. From S?o Miguel I fly to Pico, an explosively scenic island dominated by its 7700ft eponymous volcano. On slopes that last witnessed an eruption in 1720, black basalt terraces nurture grapevines producing minerally white wines.
Showing me around Pico is Cecilia Jorge. She overwinters as a chalet maid in Verbier and was caught up with the mass outbreak of Covid-19 among skiers that spread like wildfire around Europe in March 2020. She contracted the virus and scarcely worked last year at her summer occupation on Pico of guiding tourists. “British visitors love the changeable weather, four seasons in one day, and our slow pace of life and delicious wine,” she says. “I don’t understand why the UK government decided this, but I think the ban will end soon as all Pico adults will be vaccinated by August.”
Alas, by the time you read this I may be in a long queue at Heathrow, ruing how understaffed Border Force appears to be and clutching an armful of paperwork and test results. And who knows? Perhaps I’ll be humming Loucura (‘Craziness’) by legendary Fado singer, Mariza, whom, I suspect, if she worked in tourism, would be relishing channeling her inner-angst into writing a melancholy Fado reflecting the folly of casting the Azores into a wilderness tainted amber.