Hi all,
Once we finished all the pending procedures in Valencia, we started looking for a place to go for 3 or 4 months since Diego would have to return to Valencia in July.
We had been thinking of going to Puerto Vallarta for several months, but all the accommodations I had seen with our budget (no more than a thousand euros a month) looked like shacks. In addition, there was the fear that it would happen to us like in Tulum, that almost all the beaches were closed by the resorts.
We wanted to go to Mexico since it was one of the few countries where you could at that time without PCR. Then we began to see flights and things got complicated because if we made a stopover in Amsterdam, we needed PCR and antigen test. If we made a stopover in Paris according to the legislation, they didn’t let you catch the flight to Mexico, they didn’t let you enter Paris, they didn’t let you return to Spain. The covid restrictions at that time were quite illogical
We had been following a community of digital nomads that is in Madeira for months and it seemed interesting. They had a coworking where you could work for free until July, discount for accommodation and car rentals, they organized excursions and they had a schedule of activities that everyone did together. In addition, the PCR could be done for free at the airport upon arrival and you had to quarantine for 24 hours (if you were going to take the covid test there).
As we would have to go back to Valencia in July and it was not possible to go to the places that interested me the most, I told Diego to go to Madeira until July and then we would see where the covid restrictions would let us go.
We stayed in Funchal and most of the digital nomads stay in Ponta do Sol, which is where the coworking is. We did not care because with the COVID situation, logically we were not going to get into an office with anyone. In addition, the digital nomads had already occupied all the apartments that were in that area.
We realized that Madeira was all mountains, and the streets are almost a vertical ascent or descent. In fact, the airport landing track is a concrete platform because there is no flat place on the island.
Public transport works well in Funchal, but for the rest of the island it is almost non-existent. Just to go to Caniço which is next door, the frequency is every hour.
The beaches are all made of giant stones. So, they were impossible to walk and to bathe. Then there are a few artificial beaches made of cement and in those you may see someone.
The first day that we rented the car to be able to go to see an accommodation, we also realized that the roads are mostly tunnels. There our illusions of buying bicycles to tour the island died. The most absurd thing is that you saw people jogging and cycling through those infinite tunnels. Another thing was that many people drove like crazy and more inside the tunnels; we were on the verge of crashing several times.
What also caught our attention about Madeira were the photos we saw on the internet of people hiking. There are like 9 or 10 trekking routes on the island that you can only get to by car or by paying for the tour.
So, the week was reduced to a promenade that was the only thing there was to walk or jog; no swimming, no hiking or anything. Thus, it was impossible for us to be there for a long time. After seeing that we did not have any accommodation as we wanted, we decided to go somewhere else. Even the two weeks we stayed felt too long.
The day we rented the car to go to see the accommodation in Estreito da Calheta, we took the opportunity to see Machico and Caniçal, taking advantage of the fact that Diego had taken a vacation the first week.
The first weekend, as we also had a car, we visited the most important things on the island.
On Friday we went to Porto Moniz and Seixal where there are natural pools. In fact, the pools have little “natural” because there is a lot of cement. Yes, in Madeira they love to put cement on everything. We went into the pools and the water was freezing.
We continued the journey to Santana where there are some houses that are a vestige of primitive constructions that were initially found throughout the island. We were there for 5 minutes because you take the photo and that’s it.
Then we went to São Lourenço. The day before we had seen it, but it was too late to do the route. It is a hike of 6 kilometers in total to reach Cais Do Sardinha. The route reaches Ponta Do Furado, but it was closed because it was very dangerous. This was what I liked most of what we visited in Madeira.
The next day we went to do the hike to reach Pico Ruivo, which is the highest peak in Madeira. It is an hour by car from Funchal. As soon as we reached the mountain, it began to rain and when we had 10 minutes to go, we began to see that the cars were returning; They told us that the road was skidding, and it would be impossible to get there (or very dangerous).
We returned to the house and when the rain stopped, we went to Prainha de São Lourenço. It is in the same area where we hiked the day before. I imagined spending an afternoon on the beach with the sun, but it was very cold. Diego went swimming with a neoprene suit, but I didn’t even feel like putting on the wetsuit because I was freezing. On the shore the water was dark, but Diego says that further in the water was crystal clear.
The next day we left for Rabaçal to do the route that reaches a waterfall called 25 Fontes. To get to the site it was also more than an hour by car. The entire route is one of the typical “levadas” and the way is very green. Madeira has 2,500 kilometers of levadas.
Then we went to Caniço to see the Miradouro Cristo Rei Do Garajau and with this we ended the day.
The second week we visited Funchal and went to the Botanical Garden, which took us almost 2 hours walking from the house and the last 2 kilometers vertically upwards.
We had seen Praia Formosa from one side and that was horrible. Then we went to the other end, and it was a bit more spruced up with its concrete walkway and a couple of bars.
We did one last hike that was the only thing that could be done from Funchal. From the house we went up for about half an hour vertically by road and then we did the levadas route. This was not a hike as such in the middle of nature, but it was not bad.
In short, Madeira is a place that knowing what there is, I do not even go on vacation and to spend 4 months as we had planned, much less. We had many expectations and Diego even saw himself buying a house for tourist rental.
The community of digital nomads is good for some things (recommendations for accommodation and taxis), but if you don’t stay in Ponta do Sol, you won’t have contact with those people either and it will be difficult to sign up for activities with them if you don’t have a car as public transport is non-existent outside of Funchal.
The accommodations we visited were dirty, old, had low internet speed or the people who rented them were unprofessional. I saw some spectacular places for 2000 euros a month (out of our budget), but it was tucked into the mountains, which meant having to spend another 500 euros on the monthly car rental.
If you live in Madeira, you have very little to do; in fact, you are reduced to a pedestrian promenade that people do from one place to another jogging or with the bicycle. Taking long routes with the bicycle is crazy in the first place because almost all the roads are tunnels and secondly because the streets are almost all vertical, in many it is scary even to drive. Also, forget about the beach because everything is stone or concrete. If not, it is an artificial beach.
In fact, what we saw on the blogs was all about whether to “eat like a local” or “drink like a local.” That gives you an idea of how little there is to do.
The last night there was a big storm that even the power went out for several hours. We were scared that we couldn’t get out of there. When we went downstairs at 3 in the morning to get the taxi, the entire ground floor was flooded. The taxi driver who took us to the airport told us that he had never seen anything like it, that it had even snowed in the mountains.
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