We have been on the island of Madeira for nearly a month. We have walked a lot of the island, both to get to know the place and to get us ready for El Camino. Our friends Ed and Judy came on July 22nd and scheduled a private jeep tour of the north and west, which was so much fun we did another one for the eastern part of the island the next day. So we really feel like we have gotten to know the place pretty well in our time here. One clear perception is the incredible determination of the Madeirans to make this island a place to live and work and enjoy.
The first evidence of this is the extensive infrastructure. First are the levadas (irrigation channels): started in the 1600's to bring water from the northwest, where it is plentiful, to the drier planting areas in the south and east. What has amazed us is that it has not rained here and the levadas on our walks have been running full. The secret to this miracle is that the plants capture the moisture from the air and clouds (very low hanging clouds in some areas) and the water the plants do not need runs down to streams and ponds and then into the levadas which carry the water in gently downhill to the farms. Levada walking is popular here because it gives you access to so much of the island while walking fairly flat paths.
Levadas continued to be built, at great risk to the builders (they often were hanging off vertical rocks on ropes), through the 1940's. There are 1800 miles of levadas on this small island. The levada water supply is organized like a co-op. Our friends, who bought a farmhouse on the island, pay 40 euros a year and get to take water from the levadas once a week for 45 minutes which enables them to water their gardens and banana trees. An amazing system.
Levada channel on one of our hikes. Pretty typical.
And then there is the incredible number of retaining walls needed on a mountainous island to enable them to build houses and to farm. Most of the farms have multiple terraces that are too small to farm except by hand. And everywhere there is a building or road or field, there are retaining walls built mostly of stone which keep gravity from bringing the rocks crashing down upon the residents' heads. Truly amazing when you get a sense of the work involved to build and maintain.
Photo from bus showing terraces for banana farms. What a tough place to farm!
And, of course, there are the 160 tunnels drilled through the mountains to enable them to move about the island. Our driver told us that it used to take 1 1/2 hours to drive from the airport to Funchal. It now takes 25 minutes. To Porto Moniz from Funchal took 8 hours before the tunnels and new roads; now it takes under an hour. On one hike we walked a tunnel that must have been 1/3 of a mile through the mountain, dug by hand (and explosives) in the 1880's. And we drove through many long, newer, tunnels on our tours. Madeirans do not let mountains or rocks stop them.
Photo is the tunnel we walked through on the hike to
25 Fountains (waterfalls). Slight exaggeration of the number of waterfalls but still a good hike.
And let's not forget the Funchal airport, reputed to be the 9th most dangerous landing in the world of international airports. As our flight approached the airport, the plane dipped to the right and Susan and I could see nothing but the ocean in which we thought we were going to land. But the pilot squared up and landed perfectly and then hit the brakes as the runway is short by international standards. Apparently, most of the passengers understood what a feat it is to land so well at Funchal and gave the pilots loud applause. We were just happy to have landed.
And finally, yes -- plants grow here like crazy, including beautiful flowering trees and bushes as well as gorgeous flowers everywhere. But the Madeirans just take this as a starting point -- they have incredible gardens everywhere! Both public and private. So you take a beautiful place and just keep adding to it? There is something here that is hard to capture in words but our appreciation for the hard work and determination of the Madeirans as well as their enjoyment of life has grown over the month.
Photos from our levada walks. We did feel like we were walking in a
paradise may times on our walks.
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