Volcanic swimming pools at Porto Moniz

Today was the day of our round-the-north tour. We were loaded on to a minibus that stopped at various hotels around Funchal to pick up people, before being suddenly ejected outside the Savoy and told to board a large coach. The guide asked me for 71 Euros. GG produced one of her little baggies and I searched for my purse. Oops! I'd changed bags just before I left, and the purse was still in the secret compartment of my other bag, back at the hotel. My bank card was in there, too. We scraped up about 68 Euros, and begged the guide to take us anyway. I'm glad to say he did.

The rest of the day would be spent without money for loos, food, drinks, volcanic swimming pools, ice cream, and so forth. Fortunately some of the toilets were free, and I always carry water and snacks.

One of the places we stopped at was Ribeira Brava, where in the church a cantor in blue jeans and jacket was leading a sung mass service. Beautiful singing, in call and response form. I loved it. The town has a stream ( ribeira) that used to transport wood from the mountain tops to the village, to make furniture. Now the furniture industry is finished, and Madeira's laurisilva (bay laurel) rainforest is a UNESCO world heritage site. Clouds are produced from the evaporation of water from soil, and they fall as rain, which is caught by the laurisilva treetops, and runs off down to the levadas, or irrigation channels. Some of it reaches the eucalyptus forest below, which helps stabilise the soil. Of course, one learns all this at school, but it's so much more relevant when seen in the tropics with ones own eyes.

The coach stopped many times,and we trioped up and down the steps, challenging for GG, and I wished I'd realised at the time that I wasn't booking a minibus or jeep, but a coach. The commentary was good, though, and all of the stops were worthwhile. Where we couldn't visit a place because it would have been too cloudy to see anything, we were taken somewhere else instead. 

One of the sights was a clocktower with a clock in all four faces. These clocks were built in evated positions by farmers, so that all could agree on a standard watering time. Each farmer has a fixed period of time in which to water his/her crops, using water from the levada, so there must be no overlap or arguments about time. The farmers are billed for water by time period, not by metered water consumption 

The wind was up in Porto Moniz, our main stop of the day. GG collapsed on to a stone in a restaurant garden, and I went to explore. The nearby pools on the edge of the Atlantic were roped off, so I found the others, tantalisingly described by the Guardian of one of the top ten outdoor swimming pools in Europe. Great, but I didn't even have three Euros to enter the pools. The island is volcanic, so the pools are naturally formed, and volcanic, with the Atlantic 0cean just beyond. Excited, I phoned GG and said I was coming back for her. 

We walked to the pools again, but by now the changing rooms were closed. People were still swimming, but the ocean was splashing into the pools. Gradually, they emptied, because no one else was being admitted. It's another weather- related hazard, ocean swimming. We sunned ourselves for a while, and I read my book. I didn't look to see how many layers GG had peeled off, because I'm fair skinned and I burn if I don't take it easy. 

We met some young girls taking selfies, and they  were very smartly dressed. GG admired their attire, and they said they were studying tourism, and there on holiday.  In our selfies, my hair is sticking up vertically in the wind.

Many, many roads and stops later, we finally arrived back in Funchal. I cannot fault the information nor the scenery, but I was certainly tired after sitting on a big bus all day.. we went out for dinner at our favourite restaurant, which is bizarrely called Grandfather's. I think Grandfather wants to marry GG, but the language barrier may be a problem. Or then again...