Madeira - Day 47 - taxi tour

We had arranged to have a taxi take us around part of the island for the day and set out at 9am. The taxi's have set tours, one for the East of the Island and one for the West. We wanted to go West and asked Jose, our driver, to add in the lighthouse at the West end of the Island and not to bother with the Nun's Valley as we had seen it.

Our first stop was Camara de Lobos and there were fewer boats on the beach and more launched and bobbing in the harbour than when I was there last. Also a couple of kayakers.

On the way up to Cabo Girao we stopped at a lookout, where a cable car went down to a beach and some farm land. It was a pretty steep drop with just two gondolers so one would be coming up as the other was going down.

The cliffs here were striped in different colours.

Next stop Cabo Girao, where we all walked on the glass floor

and peered down at the ocean 580 metres below.

Now we were into new territory for me. This is Ribeira Brava

Jose liked to take us to a Miradouro first to look down at where we would be going next. This is a Swan Neck Aloe at one of them.

The views were always fabulous.

and it was nice to get the overview of the community. Ribeira Brava was a surprisingly flat little river valley. It was even wide enough to have a soccer field.

and  large square in front of the church. They were hanging lights and garlands for a festival this weekend (that's why there is a guy up a pole to the left of this picture)

The church was simpler than most

with a wood ceiling

and a geometric blue and white tile pattern.

We stopped and had coffee and custard tarts at this cafe while watching the food kiosks and stage being set up ready for the weekend.

As much as we could, we took the older roads, avoiding the new ones that went through tunnels, and instead hugging the twisting coast line. At this point Jose asked us to close our car windows. We complied while wondering why....

when we drove under this we understood. It was a natural car wash.

We pulled over to take pictures while other cars drove under it.

Jose pointed out that the green fronds had been cut off some of the sugar cane, leaving the purple "cane". He said it would be left like this for a couple of weeks and then harvested.

Next stop was one of the 2 remaining sugar cane mills left on the island. This is Jose.

There were pictures

and displays of old machinery

but basically this is still a working mill and next month cane will start coming in

to be boiled down into syrup (which they call mel even though it is not honey) and distilled into rum.

We had a tasting, pretty potent stuff and, no, this is not the result of our tasting, just bottles waiting to go through an ancient looking bottle washing machine.

I'm not half way through the trip yet but I think its a long enough post so will continue it tomorrow.