VILA NOVA, TERCEIRA, Azores — There are ways to look nonchalant when you stand on a street with nothing between you and a 2,000-pound bull but a few skinny guys with a rope.
Strike a vigorous stance with hands on your hips, for one. That projects machismo. Hands in your pockets can make you look fairly unruffled, too. Talking loudly and unconcernedly with friends shows you’re fine with a little danger.
Crossing your arms, however, isn’t recommended. That might stray just a little into nervous territory.
Regardless of the preliminary posturing, the cool and collected looks invariably vanish this evening in an instant. For the men (and it’s all men, not a woman on the street to be seen) taking part in this Terceira village’s traditional touradas a corda, translated literally as “bull on a rope,” everything changes when the bull executes a 180-degree turn at the far end of the street and comes barreling at them.
Instant scattering, as fast as cockroaches under a switched-on light. Men leaping over temporary barricades set up along the side of the street that protect the saner people of the village. A raised stage area next to the street becomes a refuge, with strong hands helping stragglers up to safety.
And some of the men simply running (and screaming) as fast as they can.
It’s my first visit to Terceira and my first time at a touradas a corda. I feel sorry for the teased and antagonized bull, although he isn’t hurt — and will receive great acclaim and a long life if he is “brave” — but I am fascinated by the event. It’s a microcosm of an island culture that holds on proudly to its traditions and yet is very much a part of the 21st century.
I feel that way for much of my weeklong stay earlier this summer on the island, absorbing the rhythms of a place steeped in history but much influenced by the large number of expatriates — many from the San Joaquin Valley — who return in a flood each summer. Plus, there’s just general “progress” to contend with. The world is a much smaller and more connected place than decades ago when people from the Azores emigrated en masse to such places as Manteca, Tulare and Fresno, Calif., and Providence, R.I.
Villages hold the bull events throughout the season, from May to October, as part of individual festivals. Terceira is the only island on which they occur, a point of pride.
The blend of the old and new at the event is striking.
For one thing, this doesn’t look like a period movie. Except for the pastores, or rope holders, who are dressed in an official looking uniform of gray pants, baggy white tunic and proper black-rimmed hat, the dress code of the evening is distinctly casual: jeans, shorts, T-shirts. (I’d be wearing padded clothing if I were out there.) Azoreans from centuries past would scratch their heads in amazement.
And, frankly, Vila Nova (translated as New Town) isn’t the most picturesque or authentic-looking village on Terceira in which to watch the bulls run. It looks, well, new. Not quite the charm of the villages of Biscoitos, Altares and Serreta up the coast. (But this is where the bulls are tonight.)
Perhaps the most striking thing is how much American English I hear around me along with the distinctly accented Azorean Portuguese.
We are on Terceira to visit a journalist friend who is spending the summer watching her beautiful white Labrador retriever turn green from diving into cow water.
Diana Marcum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times, is on book leave (under contract with Amazon’s new publishing arm, Little A, with her book set for a spring 2017 release) for a year writing about the Azores, one of her favorite places in the world.
Her book is titled “The Tenth Island,” a reference to the nine islands of the archipelago plus the extensive diaspora of Azoreans elsewhere in the world, some of whom return each summer.
With Marcum as Azorean-phile host — and fellow glutton with me each morning for the island’s wonderful fresh bread, probably the most tempting clump of carbohydrates I’ve ever tasted — I get a feel for Terceira through a newly baptized acolyte’s eyes.
I see the island as she does: the spectacular rocky vistas; the quaint villages; the fresh swordfish and octopus; the patchwork patterns of fields separated by stone walls.
We visit the beautiful major city, Angra de Heroísmo, a UNESCO heritage site, on the southern coast, with its 16th-century buildings and charming streets paved with white limestone and black basalt. We eat more fish. We explore the center of the island and visit the Algar do Carvao, an ancient lava tube studded with stalactites with a lake at the bottom, and the Gruto do Natal, a volcanic cave where you pay your admission fee, are handed a hard hat and walk-slash-crawl through a subterranean adventure.
Did I mention the fish?
Most of all, thanks to Marcum, we meet some of the wonderful people of Terceira. They are used to an influx of visitors. When I say I’m from California, I am asked several times: “Oh! Have you ever been to Turlock?” (Not San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Diego.)
And they are friendly, hospitable and keenly proud of their island. When people find out we first visited São Miguel, the most populated island, before coming to Terceira, the inevitable response is: We are much better, prettier, happier, etc.
Indeed, with a summer crammed with festivals and late celebratory nights, Terceira considers itself in a league of its own.
“The saying goes that there are eight islands and the party that is Terceira,” Marcum says.
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