March, 30th: Day 3 - Pico de Facho to Sao Lourenco via Canical

The weather was really nice, blue sky and sun was shining. Time for the next walk! I decided to go take the bus to Machico/Canical and got off just before the tunnel to Canical. From there, I walked over to Pico de Facho. There, I had a beautiful view on Machico.

Machico

Did you know that Machico is said to be the place where the first people arrived on Madeira? I guess it's because of the nice sandy beach ;)

I continued my way to Canical (Rother tour 11). Though the landscape was really beautiful, I cannot really recommend this path. As described in the book, the path is hardly visible since it was totally overgrown. Somewhere I took the wrong path and ended up on a hill and couldn't see any path anymore. Not such a nice feeling when you look down several hundred meters to the sea...

Sao Lourenco in the background

After carefully sliding down, I was really glad to find the path again and a few minutes later I arrived at the stony beach of Canical. Canical was former known for whale hunting but know a big part of the town belongs to the wharf. So I just passed through and an hour later I arrived at the eastern part of Madeira, Sao Lourenco. The vegetation is quite different compared with the rest of the island due to fact that there's not that much rain. 

Sao Lourenco

It is really nice there as you can see many spectecular steep cliffs that go down several hundred meters.

Steep cliffs

Actually, it was like one wow-effect after another. The different amazing colors of the stone, the sea and the beautiful landscape. It's really hard to capture this in pictures or even describe this in words.

In the mid of the walk you have to pass a very narrow section. Again, it gows down more than 100m on each side - but it is safe, no reason to worry ;)

Narrow pass on Sao Lourenco

Everywhere I looked I discovered really nice spots. From the head of this island, you can see a light house on a isle. I guess you can go there only by boat. Unfortunately, I was pretty cloudy so I didn't have a very nice few.

Light house marking the most Eastern part of Madeira

Finally, I returned when I took this picture:

Sao Lourenco, can you find the path?

I really like this picture, I think it shows the character of Sao Lourenco pretty well. If you look close you might discover some people walking on the path.

Back in Funchal, I enjoyed the evening in a nice bar where they played really good live music. By the way, you should definitely protect yourself from the sun. There is absolutely no shadow on that isle and you get easily burned even if the sun is not really visible. I made my experience.. :)

More pictures of this day...