Genta Sebastian ~ Author of Spicy Sapphic Romances

Vacationing on Terceira – 2024

I’ve vacationed on the island of Terceira a total of eight times, 2005, 2008, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and now in 2024. I’ve seen a LOT of changes over the years, some great, some really downright horrible. These are my thoughts, no one else’s.

My wife, Traf, and I left home for Boston on a late Thursday afternoon in early June after a lengthy delay because (get this) Boston was fogged in and they couldn’t cope with the weather. Whatever, come up with a better lie next time, Delta. I called the hotel for a shuttle, and they gave me crazy instructions to go up a level with all our luggage (six bags, two carry-ons, and two backpacks), down to door 104, out to the street, and wait there. After twenty minutes we found a working elevator, managed to truck two carts to the designated spot, just as the shuttle pulled up.

Racing over, I showed the driver my cell phone, asking, “Is this the right hotel?”

“Sure, sure,” he answered, more to himself than me. But he grabbed the luggage and tossed it aboard. Traf and I grabbed out backpacks, a seat together, and relaxed in the knowledge we’d be in bed within the hour.

Except, when we got to the hotel, there was no reservation. When I went to pull out my phone, I couldn’t find it. A frantic search began, but the damned thing disappeared. A kind man called the number for us repeatedly, but it wasn’t to be found. With horror, we concluded I’d left it in a luggage cart when juggling the suitcases, carry-ons, and backpacks onto the shuttle. Which meant our pre-paid $250/night room reservation couldn’t be confirmed, my brand new phone was irrevocably gone, and we were stranded at the wrong hotel without a reservation after midnight.

I started panicking, it was my phone, I’d made the reservation, and everything was screwed up royal. I asked the hotel crew to take us back to the airport, but the last shuttle left moments earlier and there wouldn’t be another until 4 in the morning. Holding back tears, I asked that they phone a taxi for me. One clerk, looking at me like I was a nut-job, pulled out his personal cell phone and called a taxi.

At that moment, Traf shouted that she found the phone tucked into an outside pocket of her backpack, rather than mine, a common marital issue. The world righted itself, the reservation was found (booking dot com had used my pen name), and we were in bed by two thirty, laughing with weak relief about such an adventurous start to our trip.

We flew in to Terceira the next night on Friday, well, technically Saturday as our plane was late and landed again after midnight. It took forever to get through customs and collect our luggage, but that’s nothing new. No, the nightmare began once we stepped outside the airport.

Traf’s nephew, the one who makes all the arrangements when we visit the Azores and the one we’d been dealing with about this trip for the last month, had a heart attack a week earlier. Devastating news! He’s only in his fifties, a calm, cool, funny guy that’s always the heart of the party. No one could have seen this coming, much less his wife, three grown daughters, or adoring granddaughter. Everyone is still quite traumatized.

He insisted on greeting us, and stepped out of the car weak, pale, a shadow of himself, with a horrible story of late ambulance drivers and an ER doc who insisted it was only a panic attack and told him to calm down. An HOUR later, another doc came through, recognized a heart attack when she saw one, and had him transported to the next island, Sao Miguel, with a more modern hospital. Over 30% of his heart was damaged during the prolonged wait for his ‘panic’ to recede. Now he must heal enough to decide if he needs a pacemaker or not.

Hugs and many reassurances later, they drove us to the place we’ll be staying for the next four and a half months, until late October. The location can’t be beat, literally across the street from Traf’s favorite fishing spots. The house hasn’t been lived in for years, but we’d have electricity, water, gas, and the internet (a necessity) included in the month’s rent, making the larger than usual price more affordable. Hey, with an ocean view, who could quibble, right?

Already one in the morning when we drove up, the house owners greeted us in a flurry of activity, showing us around a small but adequate kitchen with hundreds of linens and a few leftover utensils, a bathroom with hot water, an ancient, rust-stained bathtub, and a cabinet mirror falling off its hinges. We traveled a multi-level floor plan with two steps up from the kitchen to the small central dining room, and a tiny, just right for stubbing your toe in the dark, step up to the TV room. That led to an antique sitting room and a tall wooden staircase leading to two bedrooms. They didn’t take us up to see them, however, as they had no lights for the sitting room or any of the upstairs, no electricity at all, as the lines were severed years earlier to prevent accidental fires.

Yeah, I’m not kidding. There is no electricity in the front half and upstairs of the house at all. But I had no time to contemplate that. The homeowner, a quick, sweet, and flighty man, pulled one of three  220W electric plugs, and shoved it in the single outlet in the centrally located dining room, which lit the only ground floor, very damp, bedroom (done in pink!) where all six of our suitcases were now crammed. He dashed around, pulling out filled drawer after filled drawer, showing me more and more linens, explaining in quick Portuguese (which I understand dubiously when uttered in slowly enunciated words) they were treasured possessions they’d rather we didn’t use. The homeowners expected us to stay upstairs due to leaks in the master bedroom; they hadn’t emptied the only dresser’s drawers of his mother’s old linens, so please don’t use them, except for the top two quarter drawers, which he’d cleared out. Of course, one of them had a broken bottom and wouldn’t hold anything, but please disregard.

Instead, he turned and gestured at two wooden benches lining the back wall, different heights, one six feet long, the other five. He hoisted a suitcase to lie on top of one, indicating that the other five would stay on the benches and we could live out of them. He showed me a mildewed closet in the TV room with enough hanger space for five pieces of clothing.

By then I was aghast, but looking at Traf’s nephew, all worn out and hoping against hope we wouldn’t be disappointed, I put on my It’s-fine,-it’s-all-fine face, thanked one and all for everything, and wished them a goodnight. Once they left, though, I started ranting. It was the no electricity in the bathroom, and no place to put my clothes things that topped my list of dissatisfaction, but I let them all roll. 

Which is the exact wrong thing to do to a butch woman who is powerless to fix the situation. Especially a butch woman who’s brought you to the island of her birth and is equally horrified, but remembers growing up with no electricity, cooking on wood stoves, and no radio, phone, or televisions. Trapped between defending the land of her birth and recognizing the sub-par living conditions and the social ramifications of complaints, we argued for a while. Neither of us wanted to stress her nephew in the slightest, so we grudgingly agreed to live with it, at least for the time being. I went to the bathroom to wash up and discovered there was NO ELECTRICITY. I pee’d in the dark and we went to bed, totally exhausted, and thoroughly pissed.

The next morning, the arguing continued about whether the place was livable, but over a delicious breakfast of delivered-to-the-doorstep papseco rolls, fresh butter, and home-brewed espresso. Afterward, Traf huffed and puffed to the bathroom where the toilet stuck after she flushed, leaving the sound of water running. She had fussed with it the evening before in the dark, clearing the tank lid and checking inside. That morning, she hit it with her fist, and it stopped. Hello, Fonzi.

Somewhat triumphant, she walked into the dining area and spied a half-full water bottle sitting on the table, which she assumed was left over from our plane trip the night before. She twisted off the lid and drank deep, then choked and ran to the sink, spitting and spewing.

“Traf! What is it?” I yelled.

“I don’t know,” she yelled back, gesturing at the bottle. 

I grabbed it and sniffed. “Bleach!” My fear level amped up to high. When she’d fiddled with the toilet the night before, she’d brought the bottle from atop the lid out, and put it on the dining room table. It was a water bottle with a label that stated so, but it’s contents were poison.

“Make yourself throw up, right now!” I demanded. “Push your finger down your throat. Once you start, you’ll keep going.” I know her; we’ve been together for a quarter of a century. She hurls at the sight of vomit, her own or anyone else’s.

She did and kept on vomiting until every bit of her breakfast came up and then some. I kept a close eye on her, keenly aware I had no way of getting help, I can’t drive here; I’ve never learned, it’s too terrifying with small country roads, blind curves, and sudden drop-offs. We didn’t have any internet; there’d been a miscommunication and it wouldn’t be installed for three more weeks. Our nephew, distracted by his heart attack (go figure) hadn’t had time to arrange for a phone. I had no way of getting help for Traf, short of standing outside and shouting for it. I couldn’t even Google Mayo clinic.

There was nothing to do but watch her for signs of poisoning. Which is what we did all day while shopping for groceries, flashlights, batteries, and candles. We stayed awake most of the night, too, out of sheer anxiety.

And that was day one.

We’ve been here seven weeks and it turns out that was the easiest part of this vacation on Terceira. As I write this, I have a repaired tooth that cracked eating fried fava beans, a local treat. My right leg is elevated to relieve the pain of a twisted knee ligament, and I’m treating a sudden root-canal toothache with a mixture of wine and Tylenol following an eight day (and counting) wait for dental treatment. Meanwhile my wife is across the street fishing. (I still beat her two nights ago with not only the first, but the biggest, fish of the night, just sayin’.)

But the sex has been incredible. Yeah, we’re sixty-seven and seventy-six respectively, what’s your point? A romantic island is as good as it gets, whatever your age. We’re old, we’re not dead.

If you’re laughing with me, then you’re one of my tribe.

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Traf and Genta in Terceira-land, an experience rife with federal threats and complex local interactions, medical needs and treatment, the stresses and strains of female liberation, and the nightmarish traffic (and terrifying near-misses) on this once idyllic island. And a little about the sex, because…well, sex. And fishing, because…well, ditto.

It won’t take long for the next installment, I promise. I need to vent.

With all the patience in the world (yeah, right),

~ Genta