Nine Islands, Three Plates

Polly came in low over a coastline of black volcanic rock, where green fields ran right up to the cliff edge and mist slid slowly across rounded hills further inland. This was São Miguel, the largest of the nine islands that make up the Azores, sitting alone in the middle of the North Atlantic. Salt air mixed with the smell of wet earth and cut grass, and somewhere below a rooster called out from a farm she could not yet see.

Polly je nizko priletela nad obalo iz črne vulkanske skale, kjer so se zelena polja raztezala vse do roba pečin, v notranjosti pa je megla počasi drsela čez zaobljene griče. To je bil São Miguel, največji od devetih otokov, ki sestavljajo Azore, sam sredi severnega Atlantika. Slan zrak se je mešal z vonjem po mokri zemlji in pokošeni travi, nekje spodaj pa je s kmetije, ki je še ni videla, zapel petelin.

The whole island exists because of a seam far below the ocean floor, a place where three of the great plates that carry the continents grind slowly against each other. North America pulls one way, Europe another, and Africa presses in from the south, and where the three edges meet, heat and pressure find their way up through cracks in the crust. Every island in this chain was built the same way, one eruption at a time, out of nothing but fire and cooling rock.

Ves otok obstaja zaradi šiva globoko pod dnom oceana, kjer se tri velike plošče, ki nosijo celine, počasi drgnejo druga ob drugo. Severna Amerika vleče v eno smer, Evropa v drugo, z juga pritiska Afrika, in tam, kjer se srečajo vsi trije robovi, si vročina in pritisk najdeta pot navzgor skozi razpoke v skorji. Vsak otok v tej verigi je nastal na enak način, en izbruh za drugim, iz samega ognja in ohlajajoče se kamnine.

Almost every field on São Miguel is edged by a hedge of hydrangeas, blue and violet and sometimes a soft pink, planted so thickly they look painted onto the landscape. Farmers brought the plants from Asia in the nineteenth century simply to mark the borders between pastures, never expecting them to become the island's signature. The volcanic soil, rich in minerals, turns their petals a deeper blue than the same flower grows almost anywhere else in the world.

Skoraj vsako polje na São Miguelu obroblja živa meja iz hortenzij, modrih in vijoličnih ter včasih nežno rožnatih, posajenih tako na gosto, da so videti kot naslikane na pokrajino. Kmetje so rastline v devetnajstem stoletju pripeljali iz Azije preprosto zato, da bi zaznamovali meje med pašniki, in nikoli niso pričakovali, da bodo postale znak otoka. Vulkanska prst, bogata z minerali, obarva njihove cvetove globlje modro, kot ta ista roža zraste skoraj kjer koli drugje na svetu.

Further inland, the green hills rose and folded around wide, quiet basins that Polly could not see into from the coast. Steam rose faintly from somewhere among them, thin white threads against the grey sky, and she turned her flight toward the high ground to see what was making it.

Bolj v notranjosti so se zeleni griči dvigali in gubali okoli širokih, tihih kotanj, v katere Polly z obale ni mogla videti. Nekje med njimi se je rahlo dvigala para, tanke bele niti proti sivemu nebu, in obrnila je svoj let proti višavju, da bi videla, kaj jo ustvarja.