Saturday 17 January

We’re both getting over whatever bug has been “bugging” us, but it’s a slow process. It’s just as well we’re here for 3 weeks as at least we have 2 left in which to do what we’d like. Tom went to sleep after breakfast for another 2 hours, while I sat on our balcony and sunbathed. The skies have been blue and almost cloudless all day and we did our first “levada” walk this afternoon.

Levadas are the man-made irrigation channels which follow the contours of the land, carrying water from rivers to areas which have no natural water supply, and as a bonus provided power for water-mills en-route. Each property the levada passes has a sluice gate which allows the water from the levada to be fed to the property. The opening and closing of these sluices was, and in most areas still is strictly regulated. Each property was allowed to draw water at certain times and on certain days according to the rights that existed with that plot of land. You would use this water to fill your private cistern and would have to ration its use until your next allocation. We found one property where they were obviously only entitled to use water from half the levada and from just before their property to just after it, the levada was split by a central wall. In order for essential repairs and maintenance to be carried out on these water courses, they all have footpaths beside them. Where the location doesn’t allow for a normal footpath, the outer wall was made wide enough to walk along and there are now some 1400km of these walkways accessible to tourists to the island.

We had to climb from the hotel up some very steep streets until we reached this one (Levada dos Piornais) then walked for about 2 miles to the west. Along the route, we met several people coming the other way. One man said he’d just had “an interesting experience” with a couple of large ladies he’d had to pass. As there isn’t much room, he’d had to perform a sort of pirouette with each of them in order to pass. He did have a smile on his face!!

Much of the walk is protected on the downward slope by fencing or walls of properties that have been built recently, but some areas are open with a sheer drop. Building work is being carried out in some places and the drop into those sites would bring more than a tear to your eye! However, the views are tremendous looking out over the Atlantic and as long as I didn’t look directly down, my vertigo stayed under control.

We’d decided to stop when we reached one of the main roads that cross the levada and walk back down to sea level for what we thought would be a nice flattish walk back to the hotel. WRONG!! The main road was pretty steep, but interesting with a huge hanging angel statue on one of the roundabouts (but with nothing to say what is represented) and some amazing flower stalks coming from what looked like some kind of aloe. Once we’d crossed over and found the path down to the coast, we found the steepest bit we’d so far encountered. In front of us on this part was a man holding on to a wheelchair with a lady in it, trying to brake its descent and when we got about halfway down, the path turned into steps, so how he managed to push it back up again, we can only wonder! The so-called “gentle” amble along the coast proved to be anything but for most of the way. At one point, the path was blocked off and we had to walk over some very uncomfortable stones to reach a tunnel through the rocks. (Just so’s you know, there are no beaches in Madeira, just rocks, and man-made decks for hotels’ use.) The guide books rather underplay the amount of slopes you encounter on even the shortest walks – hence the island’s unsuitability for those who have mobility problems. The last stretch back up to the hotel was very taxing for my little legs – even Tom’s muscles were crying out for a rest. He does ask me to point out to you that we HAD called in to the supermarket and, as well as our waterproofs, he was now carrying 2 kilos of melon and 4 small bottles of water in his rucksack! Necessary supplies!!
After a brief rest in our room, we went for a nice swim and 15mins in the Jacuzzi, we were refreshed enough to stagger across the road to Antonio’s restaurant and have pizza (Tom) and fettucine (me) along with a nice but overpriced bottle of red wine. And then it was back up those b****y 150 steps! And now I’m off to bed, night, night all