This weekend, we went to the Azores, which is an island off of Portugal. Right when we landed, I saw how green the entire Island was. Everywhere you looked there were large trees and lush foliage. It was a little colder than I had expected. The weather changes dramatically throughout the day. It reminded me a little of Utah in that way. As soon as we got to our Airbnb we went to some hot springs on the mountains. As you came up the road everything turned into a beautiful tropical forest. The hot springs were surrounded by foliage and there was a waterfall that was surprisingly warm as well. Once we were all hot and ready to cool down, we took a taxi further up the mountain to Lagoa do Fogo. We were able to see almost the entire lake from where we were dropped off. As adventurous young adults, we decided to hike down to the lake. It only took us about 20 minutes to get down, so we wanted to see how far we could continue walking. We ended up walking around 5 miles down and back up again, but it was all worth it. Fog started to set in as we were climbing back up. It made for pretty cool pictures, but it was not too great to be hiking through.
Once we got to the top again we had two choices. Call a taxi that would be extremely expensive, or walk down. Because we are cheap college students, we decided to walk down. In total we walked about 15 miles that day. I thought my legs were going to collapse, however, it was a once in a life time experience.
The next day, one of the members from the branch took us on a tour to some of the bigger attractions on the island. We saw Sete Cidad, a cave, and more waterfalls. I couldn't believe how beautiful everything was. Words cannot describe everything we saw. I am so grateful for this member who took an entire day to show us around this amazing island. This weekend made me realize how much God created. While we were exploring, I couldn't help but think that God made this for us to experience, remember, and treasure forever.
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