Day 4

Day 4 dawned with some trouble with the little one. The usual mischief and the testing of borders happened. As she is no longer a little one we had mutually decided to take hard calls to educate the young one on the link between cause and effect.

Consequently we cancelled the planned trip to Praia de Garajau and Christo Rei as she had wanted to go snorkelling. Also, breakfast for her was strictly fruits, orange juice, cheese,egg and hash browns with no pastry or cakes or cereal or pancakes, the fare she usually looks forward to on holidays.( This she suggested herself as she understood that we gave up the trip as well, for no fault of ours)

After a few failed but valiant attempts some genuine repenting happened and then some rectification as well. So, we took her to the infinity pool of the hotel as it was a fantastically sunny day. Though the infinity pool was not heated, the warm weather made it easy after a while, once you braved the initial baptism by ice cold water. The view of the sea, the mountains and the sun made for a wonderful family swim.

We then took a taxi with Gilberto Perreira, our taxi guy who we had disappointed with our late morning cancellation, to go to Leavada do risco. Levada are actually tiny irrigation tunnels used in olden days to get water from the spring to farm the hilly volcanic terrain of Madeira. In the modern day, following these tunnels leads them to the wonderful springs along the way and finally to the original water source.

It took 20 minutes to reach the starting point of the trail high up in the mountains. Driving through the clouds and looking down at the city on the slope brought back nostalgic memories of Ooty and Darjeeling  in the 1990s.

We were dressed for sunny weather but right at the top it was a tad chilly. We decided to brave it and started walking through the stunningly scenic trail.There were lush green mountains kissed by puffy white clouds , there were mini waterfalls seeping across the moss patched black rocks, fresh green trees all around and never was there not a sound of a babbling brook through the  pipe-like thin irrigation tunnels.

There were intertwined branches of trees forming brown and green canopies, steep climbs, flat walks and  stepped declines all in one trail. The weather got very pleasant after the first few minutes and with the gentle breeze and pristine mountain air, it turned out to be a fantastic outing. 

Be it wherever we went, even this remote hill trail which ended in a spectacular water fall, there was absolutely no garbage whatsoever. Majority of the visitors were civic minded and even at the end of the trail, we saw an employee of the Calheta municipality watching out for any stray litter.

On the way to the waterfall, we stopped at the Rabacal nature spot cafe, to sit amongst chirping birds , stretching trees watching mountains and peeping clouds to have a divine home made chocolate cake and tea. 

We visited the waterfall, took some picks and walked the 1.5 km back to the vehicle pick up point. Here a shuttle took us back the 1 km steep walk to the top where the taxi was parked, the same path that we had easily and pleasurably climbed down on our onward journey.

As always, I had a great time and the young one and K had a lovely time as well though they prefer beach visits to nature trails.

Once at the hotel, we caught up on some pending work, watched the breath taking sunset  from the balcony of our sea view room, wrapped ourselves in warm clothes and set out for dinner at the same place as the day before,

We had a leisurely dinner and rushed back to sleep as we were all knackered plus we had a half six reporting time next morning for our taxi to the Porto santos  line to catch the 8 am ferry to the island with the golden sand and  apparently warm waters.