Friday, April 20th, 2012
Today was a bittersweet day, for it marked our last port of call on this absolutely memorable trip we have taken around the world. We awoke early and I went out to the deck to see what Funchal, Madeira looked like and nearly fell over it was so beautiful. Simply put we fell in love with this magical island, and want to come back, maybe some winter for a month or so.
In the 16th Century, Funchal, the capital now of Madeira, was important as a stopping place between the Indies and the New World and known as a wealthy place. Our guide described the melting pot that occurred over the centuries of inhabitation of Madeira as a cocktail that has provided them with a blend of all that is best of the African, Goths, Moors, Visigoths, Asian, etc. It bounced around between Spain, Dutch, British and Portugal. Today it is an autonomous region of Portugal with its own President. Geologically it is volcanic and was probably formed about 5 million years ago. There are about 26 micro-climates on the island, and we saw 3 of them. Funchal rises from the sea to its highest point which is higher than the one the eastern side of about 6000 ft. that we visited. There are deep clefts which form valleys all through the island. The vegetation is lush and tropical and every imaginable kind of fruit and flowers grow here. For example we saw nastursiums and lilies and a purple flower relative to garlic growing wild by the side of the road. It has a very beautiful climate, and today it was about 23 C, which we were told is typical of winter weather.
Set in amongst this setting are white homes with red shingles that waft down the valleys, or sit perched on hills, many of which are terraced, for everyone has a garden to grow vegetables. The homes look quite new or those that aren't are well maintained. The island is immaculately clean.
Our tour took us to Camacha, to visit the wicker manufacture for which they are renowned. and it is a very high quality. We saw craftspeople, weaving by hand- everything from baskets to large animals and furniture. Then we literally wove our way up the mountains on switchback, after switchback, on extremely narrow roads to Pico do Arierior, the 3rd highest point on the island. We had passed above the tree line into dense fog, and as promised it lifted long enough for us to see a sun speckled peak, then it descended again. The bus drivers are so skilled here - they stop, back up, and narrowly miss one another as they drive by. A woman playing a piped instrument, charmed us all with her music. At the pinnacle is an observation dome, but we obviously didn't go in there.
Down we went, through the protected forest of prehistoric, and seemingly the only one of its kind, of Pine Silva trees which may legally not be cut down. The islanders pride themselves on their environmentalism. We stopped briefly on the way down at a fish hatchery, then we went to Santana, to visit the traditional t-pee houses, which were prevalent in older times. Today, they are preserved for tourism, which is the largest industry on the island, and each of the homes was filled with one of the island specialties, or products : embroidery, honey, flowers, wicker.
We made our way to the coast for lunch, in a little town called Malata, which had stunning views down the coast that we would later visit for a better look. By now we were enchanted, and in fact for me it was even nicer than Tahiti, whose natural beauty is spoiled by tourism. Eight of us on the small private tour had chosen the lunch option, which turned out to be the local delicious fish, served with a tiny grilled banana on top. We sat out under the sun, in a sheltered little patio, talking about how nice it would be to winter here, as it is very reasonable to be here as well. We were told the apartment hotel above the hotel, overlooking the ocean was $400/week at the high season.
Our final stop was the 3rd micro climate of the day at Ponta de Rosto, out on a desert extremity which eventually stretches further out to the eastern sea. Every new house, built in Madeira, must incorporate solar panels for heating, and stretched out on a large barren slope were banks of solar panels, presumably used by industry, and right beside large industrial windmills. The windswept cliff where we alighted, overlooked a majestic rocky view with the same large rock with the hole in the middle, we had seen at lunch. We knew that Winston Churchill used to come to paint in Madeira, and although this proved not to be his favourite painting spot, you had no trouble understanding why painters of all eras would choose Madeira for a subject.
Back on the ship, we called our friends and met on the back Lido for the last sail-away party. Mel, Max, Lynn, Erika, Barry, Art and I sat with woolen blankets in the warm sun, sipping Madeira port wine, while we all waved goodbye to this spectacular port of call, and reminisced about all of the ones we had visited, and which ones were our favourites. As I said, bittersweet - its been the trip of a lifetime, forged wonderful new friendships, learned so much, and had such a blast every day,- but we are also longing to pick up our life back home especially with our children, grandchildren, new great grandson, and our long time friends.
NOTE: We have many sea days ahead, and our daily program is filled with social activities, and the dreaded packing job. Canadians especially have the most difficult packing chore, as we have spreadsheets and itemizations for everything and its complicated by having to bring with us, not shipping, all that we have bought!! We will be facing the demons of what we spent at long last . The point of this is to say, that I somehow messed up my day count on this blog, and as I have said, many times, the internet cost is too high, so I will not be fixing it till I return. My aim was to get this last port done (mission accomplished), and then when I return home, I will edit the typos, fix the numbering, do the cross Atlantic sea day entries and do a final Reflections post. So please check back in sometime after the first week in May if you are interested. We really hope that you have enjoyed travelling along with us, as it meant a lot to us, knowing we had so many people who were interested.
ONE LAST SPECIAL REQUEST TO OUR FOLLOWERS
While in Mumbai a new shipboard friend, of ours , Maxine, (who believe it or not lives in Toronto !) did a walking tour of the Dharavi Slums.
Don't think North American slum.
- Dharavi is the largest slum in Asia - there are over one million residents living and working in this slum.
- In some cases first and second generation families live in Dharavi.
- There are re-cyling areas where they break down computers, plastic and tin.
- There are bakeries, embroidery centres, a soap factory, leather tanning, poppadom-making and the list goes on.
- This slum is a true community.
- While visiting the slum our friend was taken to see a project begun by the NGO group that runs tours and employs only
- residents of the slum and they told her about a special project they run
- Children are given digital cameras; they shoot what ever they want in the slum and the best photo's are turned into postcards, which are then sold.
- The project is trying to raise money to buy more camera's.
- This is not a request for money but for your old digital cameras that are sitting in a drawer, unused and unwanted.
Please do a search for those digital camera's and give them to us. I will in turn will give them to Maxine who in turn will send them off at her expense to the NGO project. If you can help, send me an email at smythej@bell.net, and copy Barry at ebsmythe@bell.net, and we will co-ordinate how to get the cameras.
If you want to learn more about the Dharavi Slums their web site is: www.realitytoursandtravel.org.
Thank you in advance for your generosity, as one thing we have all appreciated anew this trip is how privileged we are, and how small acts can make huge differences in people's lives, and maybe bring peace and a better quality of life to all of us who share this earth.
