Madeira

Madeira is an archipelago northwest of Morocco, and a beautiful spot. It is mountainous and known for its waterfalls and flowers. If you search for photos, as I just did, you’ll find them to be of professional quality. But they all lack the one thing worthiest of note, throngs of people, including us.

This photo (not mine) is of a trail on the far north of the island that extends out into the ocean. We hiked it yesterday, and during that 3-1/2 mile affair must have passed 1,000 others. Imagine now the photo above with people as far as the eye can see, each stepping aside for others. Imagine we all have to park somewhere.

I am not complaining, as we are just tourists too, here for the food, climate and scenery. Am I going to complain? I remember reading last year or thereabouts of Europeans being fed up with tourists, of all of the hotels and AIRBNBs occupied, so that they who actually live there have nowhere to vacation. We are here in April, shoulder season, and we are told that peak season in July is one massive traffic jam.

After this portion of our journey we’ll be staying in a French town called Ferney Voltaire, which is a suburb of Geneva. It is not a tourist destination. Voltaire once lived there, and having done so transformed the place from a dumpy village into a civilized enclave. His statue is in the town square.

In the meantime, we’ll fly back to Lisbon later this week via EasyJet. We came here on one of their birds. It’s an hour and a half journey, and during that time them stewards and esses did not offer even a glass of water to the patrons aboard. Instead they congregated and moved things on shelves from one box to another. A cart did roll by us, and on it were various perfumes, as if we were in the duty-free part of the airport. The woman pushing the cart did not even look at us, sensing, I suppose, that we held no potential for such a purchase.

Speaking of airports, the one in Lisbon is designed to route everyone through a massive well-lit duty-free zone. There were hundreds of displays of liquor, technology, candy, and more liquor. These places do not get there by accident, and people do spend money there. But I’ve never seen an actual commercial transaction in progress, only people hurrying along needing to catch their flight, hopefully one that serves water.

Some years back we stayed in a hotel where we ended up in a snack room with other tourists, and these were men of the world. One was from New York, and I think his occupation was designing cardboard containers. Think about it, how everything we buy is in a box specially designed for that object, minimizing space and maximizing protection. That does not happen by accident. Special factories and technicians do this stuff.

I’m reminded of that because 1) one of the people there was carted off by ambulance that night, and we never learned of his fate. And, 2), one of them told us, there is no such thing in the world as a natural sandy beach. If there is sand between your toes, if you can walk on it without heavy-soled shoes, the sand was trucked in. And indeed, Madeira has one beautiful sandy beach near our complex. The sand, we are told, comes from Morocco.

We went to that beach a couple of days ago, and I got religion again. My wife took the plunge, meaning I had to as well, and as I came out of the water I said “Jeeeesus Chreeist!!” 64 degree water? We could use wetsuits, but that’s not going to happen. Today we’re taking a tram to a mountain top where there in an arboratum. This island is a floral paradise. We’ll be with several thousand others. Not complaining! It is Mediterranean climate, excellent seafood, one sandy beach and an easy place to fall asleep near open windows.