Making friends in Madeira: stray peacocks and a family of donkeys

Our first adventure in Madeira nearly ended with me throwing up in a stranger’s car, yet it was still better than the alternative of having to spend the entire night stranded in the dark.

The journey started by taking the cable car to the top of Funchal towards an area called Monte. It was a fairly clear day so once we made it to the top, we caught a nice glimpse of the city at our feet. This must have been either our second or third weekend on the island and it was the day after the clocks were moved back an hour. The same morning we had joined a group workout organized by the nomad community on the seaside which reminded me how much I am not a HIIT workout person. Because of the workout and many other delays (laziness to some extent), we started the day quite late.

It was already 3 pm by the time we reached the top of the cable car. We had heard from a friend we met the week prior that the cafe at the top of the cable car was pretty good, so we sat there and made a quick plan for the afternoon as we sipped our coffee. The decision was to walk up a path that went pretty much straight up the hill to a viewing point. We could have instead stayed to walk around the botanical garden that was level with where we were, but where is the fun in that? (There is actually a lot of fun in that. We never managed to visit, but apparently, the Monte Palace botanical garden is very big and beautiful.)

Starting to walk up, we realized that the path was pretty much stairs all the way up, wet and slippery from prior heavy rainfall. This might be familiar if you've ever been to Madeira: mostly round stairs that you see everywhere, made from small stones. Very many of them. Up, up and up. It seemed endless. Every 500 meters or so there were Jesus checkpoints, letting you charge up on spirits to help get you to the top (okay, these were simply small shrines dotted all over the path). Some unknown source (Jesus is that you?) gave me the power to put my head down and just keep going up. One foot in front of the other.

Our goal was to reach Pico Alto, which was supposed to have amazing views over Funchal as the highest vantage point this close to the city.

Thinking back now, it wasn't surprising to see no one else going in the same direction as us. It was a wet and cloudy day, the path was quite steep, it was already afternoon and Pico Alto was reachable by car. But if they did go there by car, would they see the falcon we admired, halfway up, resting on a dead tree? I doubt it.

Left is the view when we were on Pico Alto.

And right is a photo from a sunny day from visitmadeira.com. Would have been a nice view.

After an hour or so of climbing, we reached Pico Alto. The sky was completely obstructed by the low-hanging clouds. The visibility was around 2-3 meters. But on the bright side, when we started walking up we didn't even know that Pico Alto was a place where one could admire the city from up high. So I can't say we felt too betrayed by the weather.

There are 3 peacocks in this image. They are very well-camouflaged.

By this time it was around 4:30 pm. Oblivious to the fact that clocks were moved one hour back the night before, we thought we had 3 hours of daylight until the sunset. In reality, we only had 2. So we took our sweet time, walking on, eventually reaching a place that very randomly had these beautiful peacocks roaming the grounds. And not a person in sight.

Parting with our newly found friends who seemed more interested in pecking at the ground, we continued to a cafe that was close by to grab a bite. And a poncha, the most Madeiran alcoholic beverage. Because alcohol when hiking is a great idea. Made by locals, from citrus and honey, using a little penis. Worry not, that’s just the name of the wooden stick they use to mix the ingredients together. Why they called it that... to this day we don’t know.

Once we started walking again, it didn't help that half an hour later we ran into the cutest family of donkeys. We spent as long just feeding and petting them. So many new non-human friends were made on that day.

By then it was 6 pm, with the sun about to set in 30 minutes, although we thought we had longer. Based on the plan we had made earlier while having our tomato soup and beverage made with the help of a little penis, we had another hour and a half before it even started getting dark. We started heading into a path that was not marked or annotated on any map we could find, but it looked kinda cool and like an actual path.

As the sun made its way lower and lower and the day started getting darker, we were still chatting away and comforting each other about how on schedule we were and how we'd make it back home before it got dark. Being the smart little cookies we are, it took us just a while longer to realize that it was getting dark right there, at that very moment. The plan had been to find our way to a road and hitchhike back home. What was not part of the plan was to do the next couple of hours of walking in the dark… with no headlamps… as our batteries got closer and closer to the danger zone.

From where we were, we could see where the top of the hill was. We agreed to use the last bit of sunlight to get to the top just to see the view up there. Even though I get easily stressed by uncertainty and things not going according to plan, I was feeling fine and even slightly excited about the potential of trying to make it out of the woods in the dark. As we pushed on with a combination of walking and running, we reached the top and lo and behold, the sunset Gods had not forsaken us. The last rays of the sun were piercing through the clouds upwards, leaving a pinkish-orange trace all over the sky. The clouds looked like they were left there to hang in stillness by someone, just to create this view. Just perfection. We could have rushed, we could have disregarded this view and just pushed on trying to find our path. But we didn't. There is a life lesson there somewhere.

At the top, there were some man-made structures, a well, a small shed and (not sure whether it was natural) no trees, only thigh-high shrubs. That's why we were able to see the sky so clearly.

We moved on. On this one app we were using a lot, it looked like the best path to take us to where we needed to be was going down the hill we were on. We could see it in the app, but it was impossible to find on the ground. Where is this path? We run to and fro in confusion. For some reason, which could be natural disasters, landslides or other plants growing over it, the path was nowhere to be found. Just lots of prickly bushes and intimidating, steep drops. Not the most comfortable place to be in the twilight. We decide to put technology aside and use common sense instead, tracing our steps back where we came from, however now in near complete darkness, stepping in invisible, cold puddles of water.

Slightly cold, running out of battery and faced with the uncertainty of finding a safe way to get home, I still felt quite calm. The only challenge left between us and the road was a few minutes more walking and passing a river. Of course, my brain was working overtime to try to find another reason as to why I should be scared. The only thing I could come up with, given the lack of wild animals in Madeiran forests, was very hungry stray dogs that lived in the forest who might see us as easy prey. The river was nearly dry, no dogs decided to attack us and we made it to the road. It was a nicely paved road, but not one of the main arteries of the island. This meant that first of all, the road was not lit up, and secondly, not many people had a reason to be driving there after dark.

The few people who were driving would probably see us a bit too late to make a decision to let us into their car or not. Doning my awkward smile that clearly shows that I’m not used to asking for favors from strangers, I put my thumb up, shyly, for the oncoming traffic to see.

The first couple of cars that passed us slowed down enough to give us slight hope but were in reality likely trying to make sure that they don’t run us over. Nice enough… I started thinking “Well, maybe we will need to walk a good chunk of the way home”. After a couple more attempts we started walking in the direction of Funchal. Walking the whole way was not really an option, because it would have taken us a good 5-6 hours, if not more, on an unlit road with cars speeding past every now and then.

A few minutes down the road, the curb disappeared, at which point we were very exposed. I have to confess, at this point, I did start feeling a bit of dread. Worst case, we would have needed to sit somewhere in the dark until morning, but I wanted to return home rather than spend the night outdoors. Luckily, after walking in dread for a while, a car that had yet again passed us actually decided to stop a couple of meters ahead of us. Doing my little thankful run towards the car I was practicing what to say when I reached it. But, in the end, all we needed was “Hi, are you going to Funchal?”. Luckily they were and we hopped in.

It was an Austrian family who were on holiday in Madeira. They said they were used to people hitchhiking in the mountains back home and it did not feel scary or sketchy to them. In the backseat, it was me, Aleksei and their two young kids. Going down the windy roads, me and the youngest kid both got car sick. I was somewhere in between gratefulness and nausea.