Meandering on Madeira

Sometimes things work out in a funny way.  I’d been a bit grumbly about the fact that all of my work trips this year had been to such exotic locations like Sheffield (known for its steel mills), Coventry (known for being heavily bombed in WW2) and Guildford (home of wealthy City types who can afford to live somewhere more genteel than London).  To a certain extent, it doesn’t really matter where a conference is held, as you tend to end up spending most of your day in a windowless room, and most of your night in (a) the nearest pub, and (b) a more-often-than-not dingy hotel room.  Still there is certainly no arguing that on the rare occasions you may get to venture outside of the conference venue, being in Lisbon or Budapest makes the whole experience a whole lot more pleasant.  Anyway, to cut a lengthening story short, whilst in Coventry I managed to organise a new collaborative project and get myself invited to a workshop in Madeira.  Bingo!  All accommodation and food provided, I just have to get myself there!

Right, straight to Google Maps to figure out where the hell Madeira is.  I thought my geography was reasonably good, but even I was surprised to discover just how far out the middle of nowhere Madeira is.  The next thing I discovered was that it has one of the coolest (and previously one of the most dangerous) landing strips in the world (it apparently used to be half that width and length).  The next thing I discovered was that it is known for its dramatic mountain scenery.  Double bingo!

I started thinking that maybe I could stay on a bit after the workshop and Oanh could join me for some mountainous escapades.  Alas, it was not to be, as Oanh had generously offered to hold fort in her office while the entire rest of her team went on holiday.  In the end I just stayed for the weekend after my workshop, netting me one full day for a serious hike – I already had my eye on the route from Pico Arieiro (third highest peak in Madeira) to Pico Ruivo (highest peak in Madeira).  There were some absence of public transport issues to deal with, but I figured that could all be sorted out in due course.

Getting anywhere is always a bit of an ordeal, and this trip was no exception: bus to train station (20 minutes), train to airport (2 hours), wait around (1 hour – online check-in rocks), flight to Funchal (3 hours 45 minutes), wait around for next bus (1 hour 30 minutes), bus to Funchal (40 minutes), walk to hotel (10 minutes), finally arriving at 10.30pm, ready for an 8.30am start the following morning.

The workshop, which I won’t bore you with the details of here, was fantastic.  Only about two dozen people so lots of opportunity to talk to everyone and some really interesting and fun people.  Plus I had the opportunity to further solidify the groundwork for the new collaboration.  Yay!  Work goes right for a change…

Anyway, on to the fun stuff: a handful of us discovered that we were all staying on for the weekend post-workshop, and so, after relocating to our respective cheap, central hotels, reconvened to spend the remainder of Friday afternoon exploring.  The island was certainly dramatic.  From the port (a haven for cruise ships), the town climbed steeply up the hillside at an almost 45 degree angle.  The hills were cut with deep ravines, and so roads either zig-zagged crazily back and forward up the mountainside, or alternatively burrowed straight through the hills and emerged onto slender bridges spanning dizzying gaps across the valleys.

After a preliminary wander around the docks area, where we observed the local approach to fishing, we moved on to the relatively sedate attractions of the botanic gardens.

The guy in the jeans stood there, cigarette on his lower lip, nonchalantly reeling in fish after fish. In between, his crony would unhook the fish, then re-bait the line and cast before handing the rod back to Mr Smooth. What an operation.

Bird of Paradise in Jardim Botânico da Madeira.

The climate here is mild year round, and apparently suitable for growing just about anything, so the gardens were rather impressive.

In an attempt to liven things up a bit, we started trying to determine which of the interesting looking fruits might be edible.  These rather attractively purple bananas turned out to be not only ripe, but deliciously sweet, and rather oddly crunchy, with seeds the size of peppercorns.  (To be honest, I took this photo just in case it was needed for identification purposes while we were all in emergency having our stomachs pumped.  We all seemed to survive OK though.)

Tasty wild bananas!

More obviously edible food at the amazing daily markets (six different varieties of passionfruit!)

The following morning (Saturday) turned in to a bit of an organisational disaster as only arrangements between half a dozen people can.  How such feats would have been managed in the days before mobile phones, I have no idea.  Actually, such feats probably would (sensibly) not have been attempted in the days before mobile phones, and I suspect we’re not necessarily the better for it.  It turned out that the path we had been planning to hike had been closed as a result of a landslide (occupational hazard in these vertiginous parts apparently) and our Plan B was sadly lacking.

Anyway, it ended up being just me and a German guy driving up the mountain in his rental car at 9am.  Pico Arieiro is one of those interesting mountains that local authorities have, for some reason, seen fit to build a road right to the summit of (actually, the carpark stops about five metres short of the summit).  It was a bit hellish, with massive tourist buses everywhere and much octogenarian camera snapping (a bit reminiscent of our hike up Mt Snowdon in Wales actually.  Just replace the tourist buses with a train.)  I had to laugh out loud when I realised that there was even one of those ubiquitous South American Indian pan-pipe bands (you know the ones I mean: coming soon to an elevator near you) playing easy listening covers of Simon & Garfunkel songs (cos’ they weren’t easy listening enough).  This guy actually posits the interesting hypothesis that “it’s actually the same 4 guys that by some kind of ancient Incan teleportation system are actually able to be, simultaneously, everywhere at the same time.”

A large group prepares to set off from Pico Arieiro.

Precipitous drops.

After dithering about the lookout for a bit, we decided to set off on the 12km return hike to Pico Ruivo, if only to escape the crowds.  Now, you might think that hiking from 1818 metres to 1862 metres sounds like a bit of a doddle (only a 44 metre gain in height, after all!)  However, the nature of the terrain meant that in between us and our goal stood not one but two valleys, with a third mountain in between just for good measure.  Murder on the knees.

That said, the hike was absolutely spectacularly stunning – some of the most superlative defying scenery I’ve seen anywhere.  At some points, you could look of both the left and right sides of the path (almost simultaneously if you crossed your eyes) and look down drops of 600+ metres on either side!  Adding to the atmosphere was the constantly changing face of the clouds, which sat at around 1500 metres, occasionally rising up to temporarily envelop us, but more often stretching off into the distance as a white blanket hiding the rest of the world from us, save for a few other isolated peaks and plateaus that stretched high enough to pierce them.  At one point I even got to witness a cloud waterfall, as some type of crazy pressure differential (perhaps?) between adjacent valleys caused clouds to pour through a low pass and cascade down the rockface.

Anyway, beyond that, I think I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves – see here for lots more! (and here for some more of Funchal)

This peak looked for all the world like a massive skyscraper.

Proof I was there.

Stunted tree near the summit of Pico Ruivo.

Cloud waterfall: the clouds were flowing from the more distant valley to the closer one (where the cloud layer was lower). The path actually descended into that gap and then up the other side!