Madeira day 4

 On our 4th day, I woke up early to go for a swim in our hotel's indoor pool.  They had swimming lessons at 9 so I was in and out by then. Onto breakfast, having made a roll or two.  Our destination was Ilha to walk up to Madeira's highest point, Pico Ruivo (the infamous place cited in last month's poem!) - the route known as PR 1.1

Interestingly, the guide we received from the Tourist Office suggests you start at the top and walk down but we were doing it in reverse.

CBC drove us in our Fiat Panda as I read my book and we arrived in Ilha which was very quiet.  We parked just by the sign signalling the PR 1.1. Looking at the sign- the elevation indication showed a steep diagonal line going up.

We got out the car and put on our raincoats as the rain had begun.  If only we knew....

The walk began with an immediate steep slope and this set the tone for the entire walk which consisted of many, many, many, many, many steep muddy steps  with wooden joists and then steep sludgy slopes with pretty much constant herbaceous and shrubby vegetation  on either side.

The elevation goes from 485m to 1862m over a total distance 8.2km so you can imagine what an utter melancholic trudge it was.

The rain continued pretty much interminably through the whole journey so there was absolutely no view to speak of at pretty much any point which made it pretty miserable.  The highlight of my journey was seeing a few, fairly boring fungi.

Just a few more extra steps

Just some extra miles,

Just keep walking up this slope,

Be over in a while

You're almost halfway through this trek

I know your muscles ache

You're closer to the end and warmth,

Each extra step you take,

Don't like this hill, don't like this mud,

Don't like this constant rain,

But will the sense of pride at the end

Be worth all the pain?

That guy we met at 7k,

"10 minutes," - what a lie!

I want this hill to bog right off,

Don't want to slip and die

I've climbed a million extra steps,

My way is truly wend,

I'm worn-out, weary, wet and wan,

THANK GOD WE'VE REACHED THE END!

Such was the nature of the path that CBC and I could not walk side by side and he was perpetually ahead of me. By the time we reached about 7k we were completely saturated and pretty gloomy.  We met several walkers doing the walk in reverse through the but very much spread out.  At this point at 7k, we met a man who told us it was only about 10minutes to the Pico Ruivo shelter which turned out to be a total lie, it was much longer than that. I confess to raging at the world at several points and being extremely grumpy!   There were quite a few treacherous places where we had to clamber up rocks with quite sheer drops close to us- it was also extremely windy as well as rainy and slippy. I was very scared!

 Finally, CBC and I arrived to the shelter.  We walked into find wooden tables and a man serving tea and coffee plus cake and some other snacks and souvenirs. We slopped into there and ordered tea and MADEIRA cake, the most enormous slab! It tasted wonderful!!! We took our raincoats off and I sat there all clammy and cold.  CBC decided to continue onto the top of the mountain but I opted to stay in the shelter. It wasn't warm at all, but it was a temporary sit down when I was emotionally, mentally and physically drained!  Annoyingly, the toilet had closed for the day so I had to hold my bladder for yet more hours (there had been no where on the path to make a detour when needed) and somehow managed to change out of my wet t-shirt into CBC's fleece in plain view. 

He came back and we headed for the Vereda Do Pico Ruivo trail, some 2.8km to the car park at Achada do Teixera.  Luckily, most of it was along a fairly level paved path.

When we reached the car park, sadly there were no taxis waiting there so we went into the restaurant/cafe there and asked if they could call us one. We found one who was willing to come and get us for 40 or 50 euros. Expensive but the route back to the car was epic. One thing I should mention is,is that cafes and toilets always seemed to charge in Madeira the one in the cafe was a charge one but I had no coins. Luckily, the man let me in anyway. CBC bought a coffee and quiche and we waited 30mins for the taxi to come. He drove us back to the car. As we were trying to change out of our wet clothes back into clean ones, all of a sudden, the taxi man drove back- I'd left one of my walking poles in his car! I felt so guilty at his having to come back!

We headed back to the hotel for showers and we ended up going to the live music bar  at our twin hotel resort  Sentido Galomar for dinner as CBC could'n't be bothered to walk elsewhere and our restaurant had closed as it was 9ish.  They only had toasted sandwiches with crisps so that was our fairly unsatisfying dinner though the setting of crashing waves outside was pleasing.

A reminder of my poem which may now make more sense after this post...

Somewhere on Pico Ruivo Mountain

Just a few more extra steps

Just some extra miles,

Just keep walking up this slope,

Be over in a while

You're almost halfway through this trek

I know your muscles ache

You're closer to the end and warmth,

Each extra step you take,

Don't like this hill, don't like this mud,

Don't like this constant rain,

But will the sense of pride at the end

Be worth all the pain?

That guy we met at 7k,

"10 minutes," - what a lie!

I want this hill to bog right off,

Don't want to slip and die

I've climbed a million extra steps,

My way is truly wend,

I'm worn-out, weary, wet and wan,

THANK GOD WE'VE REACHED THE END!

The Pico Ruivo shelter