"Save the worms" Day

Today we combined a Levada walk and a mountain hike. Just because walking along a Levada is nice but rarely challenging (on an old folks scale of challenges) and pure mountain hiking can be rather demanding around here.

We decided for a one way Levada walk in one of Madeira's biggest Eukalyptus forrests running between the forrest on one side, along a small river in the middle and steep mountain meadows on the other side.

In the South-East of the island there much more spring is in the air. The sound of humming bees and the clover blooming in small pink blossoms are good signs that soon Madeira will give honor to her nickname - the "Blossom Island".

Again the Levada raised several questions. This one was flowing very slow at the start and picked up current after being fed by a waterfall. In this fast flowing water we found two rather large rain worms that had fallen in and were struggling to get back out again (which proved to be impossible so we gave them a hand).
After that we discovered something which is best described as "Little worm's graveyards" - hundreds of worms in several rather small spots, all closely together and it seemed like they all had drowned in the Levada. We are
still searching for a decent explanation...

For the way back we decided to hike across the mountain and were rewarded with a good view over the area and an overgrown, wild hiking path. Honestly, we like those surprise hikes more than the orderly walk along the Levadas.

We could title our way home with "Same as it ever was, same as it ever..." - we revisited a restaurant we had favored at our first stay five years ago (and this time we were clever enough to just share one meal for the two of us, again choosing the wrong meat). On the way to our "Humid Home" we got stuck in a road construction for half an hour (there is no possibility for a detour along the steep mountain roads), met our landlord (who was on his way to our place bringing in the repaired laundry dryer), had a coffee and a chat at our local bar and returned to our house on the hill.

Another great day out here in the Atlantic Ocean.Leer más