Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Flower Island of Madeira


Camara de Lobo
 Anne had arranged for a private tour with Daniel’s Taxi, and Daniel himself showed us the sights. Anne had also found another couple (via Cruise Critic) to join us: Joan and Rudy from Colorado. We have been wanting to visit Madeira ever since our French friends, Eric and Helene, had recommended it to us years ago. We spent a full day getting a good overview of this island paradise.

We began at charming Camara de Lobo, a small fishing village Winston Churchill was fond of painting. Yes, “Winnie” Churchill was a devout painter, and spent a lot of time here on Madeira. Then, we traveled up to the top of Cabo Girao, the second highest cliff in the world. The scenery of Madeira is constantly changing from crashing waves to dramatic inland mountains and from small black sand beaches (volcanic) to pine forests. But there is one constant: flowers and lush vegetation are everywhere!

Bananas are the biggest export, and we were amazed to learn that it takes about 1 ½ - 2 years for a banana tree to produce one big bunch of bananas (about 100 lbs.) and then it dies. It does however leave behind “daughter trees,” so the trees continue to self-propagate. Didn’t sound like a very profitable undertaking, but it is big business here, exceeded only by tourism.


We could go on and on about the fabulous viewpoints and stunning geography. This is extremely mountainous territory, and we saw stairways all over the island, steep stairs carved from the rocky mountainsides that locals still use to walk from place to place. Many of the hillside homes have no roads, so the only way to get to your house is to climb on foot!

We ate lunch in an outdoor café surrounded by many Bird of Paradise flowers. We ate a local specialty called “espada,” a fish that is only caught off the coast here and in Japan. What makes espada unique is that it comes from 3,000 feet below the sea! (The poor things die on their way to the surface -- we guess they get the “bends” as they‘re pulled up). Anyway, the fish is served grilled with bananas, and it was delicious.


The beauty here is overwhelming with flowers everywhere: hibiscus, hydrangea, belladonna, bougainvillea -- and huge poinsettia trees grow wild! But Daniel also showed us the terrible hurricane damage. The island had received 7 times the normal rainfall, and when the hurricane hit, the water had nowhere to go. As a result, water, mud and huge rocks poured down these steep mountainsides. Daniel said it happened in seconds with no warning at all. We saw great swathes of boulders where homes used to be. Climate change is a scary thing.

Madeira is famous for its levadas, an extensive network of cut rock aqueducts or cement channels that carry water down from the mountains (to power electric turbines, to provide irrigation, and for drinking water). We only saw a small stretch of one, but we could see that following the levadas would make fabulous trails for hiking.

In case any of you were wondering, we did get to taste (and buy) some of the famous Madeira wine! Although we wish we had had more time to spend learning about this special wine. Oh, and this time, we had to turn our wine over to the “wine guy” when we got back on board the ship. Based on the number of bottles we saw passengers carrying onto the ship (us included), the ship must have one huge wine storage area!
Our little tour group: Daniel, our taxi driver (to the left) and Rudy and Joan (on the right) 

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