By Victoria Simon

There are three things you need to know about driving on the island of Terceira: manual transmission, hills, and cows.

Terceira is part of Europe, Portugal specifically, and most people in Europe drive manual transmission. In fact, if you want to rent a car with an automatic plan on spending at least three times as much money as you would on renting a manual. However, if you are renting a car with a stick shift, you better know how to drive one.

That leads me to the second thing you need to know about driving on Terceira – hills. This is a volcanic archipelago which means there are steep hills, unpredictable hills, narrow hills, wet hills, and hills approached as blind as the peak on a roller coaster. This involves quick thinking, quicker shifting, and a bravado as deep as the ocean that surrounds the island.

And then there are the cows. Lots of cows. Terceira has more cows than people. Before I visited I had heard that cows were an occasional roadblock but I did not know it was because they were intentionally herded down the road by dog and man. Also, road obstacles are not just cows but cars, people, chickens and I’m sure there were more we did not see. The pace of life is slow on the island so if there is a need to park a truck in the lane to go check on a herd or visit with a neighbor, it is perfectly acceptable.

In fact, once in the middle of the day on a one-way street in downtown Angra we saw a car stop in the middle of the road blocking traffic completely. The driver hopped out and went into a store for at least 10 minutes. He came out with two bags of candy and a bag of nuts. There were 6 cars lined up behind his, culminating in a police car. We watched on the sidewalk, enjoying our virtual popcorn, as he waved an apology, hopped in his car and drove away trailed by friendly, understanding locals. We were definitely not in the U.S.!

Once you’ve mastered manual transmission, hills, and cows it seems as if you are good to go but I left out one minor detail. Parking. At some point you will stop driving and need to put the car somewhere. We asked lots of advice on parking and got very little. Most city streets were free in the evenings and on weekends but daytime required learning how to operate the parking meter. The first time we had to feed the meter we had two locals who didn’t speak English helping us and they got into a pretty heated argument about how much we had to pay and when we could pay it without waking up early in the morning and running to the meter – which I wound up doing anyway.

After a long day touring the island toward the end of our trip we returned to the city as day gave in to darkness. We were tired and hungry and just wanted to be done with the car. Our options were to find a city street close to the hotel or drive all the way through town and park in a free lot at the marina and walk back. Anxious to be out of the car, we opted for close to the hotel. We turned down a narrow one-way street on a very steep hill close to our hotel found a parallel spot between two cars. Perfect!

As we approached I saw a young man in a bright yellow shirt on the right side of the road. He was clearly a local and I wondered if he was curious when he saw visitors like us in the off-season. Mindi whipped the car, nose first, deftly into the spot but didn’t quite make it. She tried to back up and the car stalled. A car came down the hill toward us. She cursed and restarted the car. She tried to back up again and the car slid forward nearly hitting the car in front of us. She cursed and the car stalled again. The other car stopped in the road a “polite” distance behind us.  I tensed up, not daring to breathe a word, thinking fast. She tried again to back up but ol’ Betsy didn’t want to cooperate. We rolled an inch and stalled. Karen helpfully asked if she put it in reverse. Mindi confirmed that, yes, she knew that backing up required reverse – and she cursed again. I glanced at the car behind us. He honked. Mindi cursed. I knew hopping out and walking was not helpful but, I have to admit, it was the instinctual response I had to fight.

There was a knock on the driver’s window. “Can I help?” said a young man in a yellow shirt. Mindi hopped out of the car as if it were about to explode. The stranger handed her his backpack and cell phone and hopped in the driver’s seat. Karen and I were now in a car with a strange man who was an unapproved driver behind the wheel of the rental car we were liable for. None of that mattered. In the moment, the man was a savior. He put the car in reverse and two-stepped on the gas and clutch and Betsey threatened the car in front of us, once again. The car behind us honked. I held my breath. Where was the local patience for road obstacles now? He said, “This car no good.” Karen and I laughed nervously. “We know!” I rolled down my window – “Do you want him to park or just get it out of here?” knowing my inclination was to get out of dodge and find a flat surface.

“Park it,” she said. “I can’t deal with it.”

He tried. He tried and he tried. He said, “No.” I told him that was fine but if he could just get us off the hill we would find another spot. He braced himself and adjusted his feet. The car behind us backed up a modest five feet. Another car behind him was stopped in the road a dozen yards back. Again, I held my breath. Karen stayed surprisingly quiet. He eased off the brake and hit the gas and he popped the car out of our 45 degree angle into the single lane of road and drove down the hill stranding Mindi on the sidewalk with his belongings. He pulled over in a “do not park area” while the two cars blew past us and Mindi walked quickly down the hill and hopped into the back seat of the car we rented.

“I sorry,” he said. The three of us spoke over one another with our gratitude at helping us out of our tense situation. He started to drive again. “My English not good. I try. I like British English.” He drove around the block but there were no empty parking spots.

“This car, no good. Tell car place no good. It not good when going back,” he said.

We agreed with him. Oddly enough, even though he was driving I felt like we had kidnapped him. I didn’t know where he was originally going or when he needed to be there but now we were blocks away driving around town. He said, “You know when you drive a car and they give you, that, oh, the word, that thing?” Driver’s license, we asked. “Yes, that. I have mine ten days.” Turns out a 19-year old, young enough to be one of our children and licensed for just ten days, rescued us with his driving.

I suggested we park by the marina and asked if he had time and minded walking that far. He stammered in broken English that he didn’t mind but was it too far for us to walk? Merely a half hour ago my sisters thought it was too far but suddenly they thought the marina was the best parking lot on the planet. He parked the car in easy, level, and free parallel parking just before the marina and we breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out he was on his way to our hotel to work out in the gym so he walked back with us. His name was João and he was a soccer player. He said his driving instructor told him Angra was a difficult town to park and the road we were on, he claimed, was one of the worst in Angra. Not only was João a soccer player but he was also a musician, playing both piano and guitar, and a dancer. He told us about his dreams to go to university and someday visit the United States and how his mother had battled cancer and was now immersed in depression.

At the hotel he wouldn’t accept our gratitude in the form of money but just wanted to take a picture with his new American moms.

Allow me to correct myself. There are four things you need to know about driving on the island of Terceira: manual transmission, hills, obstacles and the importance of trusting a handsome young soccer player who comes to the rescue when the other three let you down.