Vehicles

 Our balcony has a great view to the street below -- main waterfront road -- and the harbour beyond.  We watched today as two tugs did a 180 degree turn on a huge Norwegian LPG tanker that was almost too long for the width of the harbour.  We are very curious how long it will take before she unloads and heads out again.  Just love the technology that lets me type while sitting on the sea wall,  the name of a ship into a google search and find out who she is, and what she is carrying.

And the same harbour has sailboats, a three masted schooner, whale watching boats, fishing boats, a couple of snazzy looking motor boats and currently a container cargo ship and a military boat.  Yesterday there was a windsurfer zooming around and a sailing school for little boats operating at the end of the harbour.  There is always something happening.

The vehicles on land are also varied.  Most of the cars are smaller which is a good thing when you notice how narrow some of the streets are.  Motorcycles and scooters are very popular as they can run year round.  Ian loves to stop to check out all the different kinds.   There are a few pickup trucks and small flatbeds.  Yesterday they had to close a street for a concrete mixer and pumper truck that needed to get into town for a delivery.  On the day where there was a cruise ship -- one the second this year, there was a horse-drawn carriage to give the tourists a ride.  There are plenty of big buses and they manage in the narrow streets.  The island is well served by 3 bus lines and you can go just about anywhere by bus.  We plan to use it in the next few days to go to Furnas to see the camellias.

But of course, most of the vehicles are the cars.  In the past few years I had come to think that the plates on the cars reflected their age and Carolina confirmed this.  On the right ends of most of the plates are two numbers above and below a line.  It is the year (top) and the month that the car was acquired.  The oldest I have seen is about 1992.  No salt on the roads and not far you can go, so the cars last.  Carolina told us that she had just done an oil change on her car and the next change was in probably in about 2 years!

 

And don't forget the bicycles.  There are not many, but there is a bike share program which actually seems to be well used.  It rained this morning, so today was a walking day.  No problem.