Our trip was almost over before it began!!! Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

Our plan was to leave at 9 p.m. tonight, head to Ponta Delgada (the main island) and fly to Flores 2 hours after we landed. Flores is an island of the Azores that is closest to the west. We were going to spend a few days there, go canyoning, do a few hikes, go to Corvo (a tiny island north of Flores) for a day, and then fly to Faial (another island in the middle of the Azores).

Michael noticed that there was a storm a-brewin, so he called the airline just to make sure the flight wouldn’t be delayed. Turns out the weather didn’t matter! The flight got in late last night so the “plane had to rest” for 26 hours, according to the very unhelpful lady on the phone. She said the flight would be delayed until 3 a.m… meaning we would be missing our flight to Flores.

Ok, fine. No biggie. We’ll just hop on the next flight to Flores, right? WRONG. The next flight wasn’t until July 23, which is the day we were supposed to be flying out of Flores to Faial! All other flights before that were completely booked up, and because we bought this flight separately from the flight from Toronto, they had no obligation to accomodate us on the next flight apparently. I guess we learned our lesson on that one, especially when dealing with Azores Airline. Expedia couldn’t even help us because the airline didn’t tell anyone (including the airport) that the flight would be delayed. Arghhhh!

So sadly, we had to completely change our plans for the first 3 days of our trip. We’re currently scrambling to find accommodation in Ponta Delgada for another 2 nights, and another night in Faial. Luckily we found a flight to Faial on the 22nd, so we can still go there and to Sao Jorge. Much better than our original plan of taking a 13 hour long boat ride to Faial…

Too bad our Flores accommodation won’t reimburse us; they’re blaming it on the airline. Hopefully Visa takes pity on us (not likely).

Oh well! Michael and I have booked very last minute trips before (read: rachelmichaelitaly.blogspot.com) so even though this has been a bit stressful, it’s nothing we can’t handle. Looking forward to some well deserved natas in 15 hours!