Levada walking

Walking a levada
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Before you go to Madeira, everyone who knows anything about the island asks you the same thing: Are you going to walk the levadas? And then they give a wee smirk. And you wonder what on earth they mean by smirking. No-one, however, gave me any real notion of what this iconic activity would entail. Here, for anyone who ever wanted to know, is how I experienced it.

Levadas are irrigation ditches, ensuring that the rain which lands on selected spots on Madeira is used sensibly. Right now, they need to do more in this line, as they are already onto next summer's water supply and still allow 80% of their water to run into the sea unused. But these levadas are remarkable nonetheless, built at considerable risk to the labourers who made them. Each is about a foot wide, and beside it runs a maintenance path, sometimes in the soil beside the levada, sometimes on the retaining concrete wall. In either case, the path tends to be about a foot wide also for much of its length. This is what you walk along.

If you try walking along, say, a strip of newspaper about a foot wide, you should have no problems (unless you're drunk. Then it might be harder). But if that strip is above a sheer drop, so that you have water on one side and a view of the valley below on the other, it can be harder not to see the drop as well as the path. Remember, you have been told several times not to try to take photos or look at the view without first stopping, and to keep your eyes on the path. Sometimes your eyes feel as if they're on stalks with the effort of focussing. Happily, the steepest and most vertiginous bits are now protected by a fairly substantial fence consisting of two lines of plastic-coated wire rope suspended between iron poles concreted into the ground. Unhappily, on the Picos walk I described earlier, we saw one place where a rockfall had knocked a pole and its retaining concrete blob out of the ground, so that it dangled unnervingly above the abyss, still attached to the fence which, until then, we had all been clutching gratefully. A walking pole can be helpful in maintaining balance - particularly if the ground is wet - but it can also be a complete pest when the path is too narrow to accommodate it. Be warned.

Levadas are, by their very nature, completely horizontal, so you are contouring every bit of the way, covering miles of hillside, deep into valleys which you can reach no other way. When the hillside becomes too lumpy, they are in tunnels, some of which are so long you need a torch to cope with them. If you want to answer the call of nature - a delicate expression, I always think - you have to allow your compadres to get ahead of you and hope that no-one if following fast. Forget hiding behind a bush; just concentrate on not falling down the hill. If you want to stop for lunch, wait till you come to a place where the path is lower than and wider than the levada - otherwise you'll have to eat standing up.

Doing a walk like this lets you see some of the amazing plants of Madeira. Many of them are huge variants of familiar things - a dandelion with foot-long leaves, buttercups whose leaves are the size of water-lily pads, the heather trees already mentioned. It is incredibly lush, and the smells are amazing. We were completely unbothered by insects, and the birds were inquisitive and bold. Oh - and I learned how to make a fantastically annoying bird-whistle using the inner part of a montbretia leaf. I can't wait for summer to do it again...

Scrambles amongst the Picos

More mountains
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

In Madeira, it seems to me that you either sit in the sun drinking or you walk. We walked, covering about 45km and climbing a total of over 3,000' - sorry to mix metric and old money, but that's how my mind works - during our week there. This photo is taken from the same vantage point as the one on this post, on the summit of Madeira's highest mountain, Pico Ruivo (6,109' or 1,862m) Rather than look back in wonder at the day, I thought I'd relive it.

It is midday. We have descended from our starting point and traversed a somewhat vertiginous path round the contour to a second peak. Mr B still looks as if he wonders what malign fate has brought him to this place, but in fact has not succumbed to vertigo or decrepitude and is in fact climbing calmly. We have been promised lunch on the top of this peak, but the top is hidden behind a lump of reddish tufa. Mr B and I are quite alone - Adriano is back there somewhere helping the Gasping Lady, and the others went ahead when I stopped for a pee. We are in full sun, with clouds hiding the valley below. Buzzards swirl overhead. I think they may know something.

The trouble is the steps. Steep, red, rough steps of varying height cut in the volcanic rock to make the climb, well, possible. But I think they were not cut with a short-arse in mind, and some of them are 18" high. Each step is a huge effort. I stop after about ten of them and realise that I am panting uncontrollably. However, I don't feel that there is much air going into my lungs. We are at over 6,000' and - as I learn later - there is 16% less oxygen than at sea level. If it was a path over which I could pick my way it wouldn't be so bad, but here we gain height in a relentless and speedy fashion which is ... challenging. I feel a pain in my chest, under where my camera is hanging - I haven't taken any photos for about half an hour. Maybe I am having a heart attack. Mr B points out that there is nowhere suitable to expire here. I shall have to die standing up. I reflect that this would be a worthy and heroic end, much to be preferred to rotting in a home. But I don't die, and we crawl on, not a moment too soon finding the place where we can sit on a rock and eat our pieces and boiled eggs and look at the clouds below - and have our photos taken by a leprechaun in a green semmit.

For the rest of the day I feel invincible. There is a magic in walking all day above the clouds, and at the end I abandon my pack for the final Pico and float up. (That's artistic licence, by the way) A wonderful day.

There are two literary references in this post. Go on - you know you can find them!

Madeira, m'dear?

Sunset
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Going away on holiday brings with it the proof of the old saying: You'll pey furrit. I spent yesterday in a nightmare of washing, dangling damp summer clothes around the house (it was raining. Of course it was raining). I also had to buy food, teach "Hamlet", eat a couple of pancakes and go to choir practice. By the time that lot was done I couldn't face blogging or anything else, but I need to say a few more things about Madeira... just a few.

For a start: why do so many old, decrepit or wheelchair-bound people go there at this time of year? It can only be for the wonderfully balmy climate, for there must be little they can do, other than potter on the prom - provided they can get there and back. Madeira has to be the steepest island I've ever visited, and the suburbs of Funchal are so steeply stacked you'd need strong limbs and lungs simply to visit the next street.

It is, however, a strangely fascinating place. The weather while we were there was like a seriously good week in our summer - temperatures between 18º and 22ºC during the day, and slightly cool at night, so that you needed a light jacket to go out. There was one torrential shower on Saturday night - great warm drops pelting down for about ten minutes and then stopping - and some rain fell another night near the airport. However, the locals are desperate for rain; they are already using next summer's store of water, as they've not had any real rain since November. But for me the oddest thing was to have this extremely European society stuck on a volcanic rock 400 miles from Africa, surrounded by banana plantations and exotic flora, cut off from all that Europe has to offer and inundated by pale, depressive Northerners. During our trip we talked to Swedes, Finns and Danes - and on our first day the discussion had come round to serotonin levels before the minibus had even cleared Funchal.

I'll save the trips we did for another post - I should have dealt with the photos by then. But I'll leave you with a picture of our homeward flight. Holiday flights pour into the island, and every one is packed. I felt more aware of this on our First Choice flight home to Glasgow, when I was almost brained by a walking stick with a heavy ivory top falling on me from the crammed overhead locker. The man beside me - the owner of the stick - trembled and sweated for the first hour or two after the trauma of getting to the airport, and I felt every quiver as I made myself smaller and smaller. And then a "wee lady" as the flight attendant called her collapsed just behind me and needed oxygen. As there was only one spare seat in the entire plane she had to lie with her head in the gangway supported by a crew member and her feet on her husband. No-one could pass until the emergency was over. She recovered - but it was a pretty hellish experience. I can think of other, less undignified ways to end my days.

That, however, is for another day.

Carnival!

It's carnival time in Funchal tonight, and the town is throbbing to grotesquely amplified music - drumming, Mozart, brass bands - you name it, it's loud and we have no earplugs. The costumes are amazing and everyone is having fun at top volume. Cowal Games will seem tame..


Update: Having somehow uploaded a sideways image to this post via my phone, I've substituted a pic of one of the "ladies" who assembled near our restaurant before the parade. Shortly after I wrote the above, the heavens opened in a dramatic cloudburst - but apparently the carnival continued undaunted. I'd hate to have seen these feathers all drookit, though.

Gracious living

I could get used to this life - the pleasant rooms, the service, the sunny balcony - and almost more than anything the jacuzzi in the health suite, to which we are borne, suitably swathed in white bathrobes, in the lift. All aches and pains vanish along with the shine on the silver and the colour of my cossie - but every paradise has its drawbacks. Apart from this, I've realised we're going to be back in rainy Dunoon while folks here are in full Carnival mode. Think I'll just stay on..

Day off

A day without walking, of cosseting creaking joints and having a look at downtown Funchal. The sun has just set at 6.35, and it's still mild enough for us to be sitting on our balcony. A very pleasant, idle day - but I'm glad we're walking again tomorrow!

Picos!

On top of the world today, far above the clouds, as we walked a fantastic path from Pico do Areeiro (1818m) to Pico Ruivo (1862m). We ate, exhausted after climbing steep rock steps at altitude, on Pico des Torres(1851m). I shall have more to say about today when I have a computer again, but this post is for our great guide, Adriano, and for Paddy - what was your real name? - who took this pic on top of Pico Ruivo. Cheers, chaps!

Levada, Levada

You can't get away from them. All life in Madeira seems to be connected to the levadas and today we walked one, starting at 1100m and ending up in a scarily dark tunnel with X-file torches. You don't get your phone out in these places - too busy watching your feet - so the pic shows the reward at journey's end. Weather remains, well, perfect.

Sun!

It's true. In Madeira it is as wonderfully balmy as the blurb promised. Think the kind of day in summer when lunch in the garden goes on and on with no apparent reason to go anywhere. Sun, a soft breeze - and the awareness that Scotland is going to feel even grimmer than it did. Ah well - just have to live with it!

Birdlistening*

I reckon I'd have blogged about this even if it hadn't been big garden birdwatch day, although because I'm not Bill I can't be knowledgeable or produce a relevant photo. But I was entranced today by a wonderful 3-way conversation among three birds, all by their song the same species, one of which was balanced on our phone line. I was hampered by myopia, floaters and lack of specs, so all I can tell you was that the bird was small, had a slender little beak and had his/her mouth wide open to sing this passionate-sounding and totally wonderful aria of repeated patterns, warbles and intervals, each differing from the last in mood and complexity. And the second bird seemed to echo our bird's song, while a third, more distant, joined in less often with a variant on the subject. Our bird seemed to turn occasionally, as if to project in the direction of each of the other birds. A magical moment, totally useless from the birdwatching point of view but electrifying none the less.

I hope to be seeing some birds (which again, I won't recognise unless I'm tellt) in Madeira, where I'm heading off to in the hope of some sun. At the moment of writing this, the webcams make it look jolly tempting. I may feel moved to moblog ... but then again, I may switch off completely.

*As opposed to birdwatching.