SHOOTING THE SHOOTER - CRAZY DAY EDITION
Some days seem to try their best to drive you nuts. Not like the worst day ever (somebody dying or anything like that), but throwing little annoyances at you, really trying to get under your skin. Well, that’s what kind of day Tuesday was for Ann and me. Let me explain.
We were supposed to have rain all week. On Monday, we slept in a bit late to wake up to pretty much clear skies. I mentioned to Ann that if I’d known that, I would have tried to go out to the Balcões (where we had foggy skies the day we went) to get a nice sunrise photograph of Pico Aieiro and Pico Ruivo lighting up. So when we got up Tuesday morning (forecast light rain), I quickly looked outside and saw stars. Hmmmmm. We had breakfast and headed east (instead of south to the Fanal Forest), to get our sunrise shot.
Much of Madeira has two road systems. One is the old, regular road system that winds back and forth and up and down and sometimes back and forth and up and down at the same time (pick any two you want in any combination). The other is the faster VE roads that basically consist of tunnels drilled through the mountains. They are much faster. Well, despite our destination being closer (as the bird flies) from our digs in Seixal than from Funchal, and the map showing a VE road almost the entire length of the route there (at least along the northern coast), we found out that, in fact, much of the VE road in the north is still being built and instead of rapidly heading towards our destination, we were climbing and descending the stunningly beautiful (well, at least the parts we saw after the sunlight showed us where we were going) yet mentally and physically exhausting north coast of Madeira.
By the time we turned south and had a view of the mountains we were hoping to get a sunrise photograph of, they were in bright sunlight. Laughing it off as poor planning we came up with a new plan. We’d pull over at the coffee shop where we had taken our post-Balcões coffee (with an excellent tart), avoid the bus-delivered masses at the Balcões, and head over to Pico Aierio to get a view of Pico Ruivo (which was cloud covered the time we were there).
It was a pretty good plan (I’d say) until about 10 km up the road we ran into a dead-end street sign (a blue sign with a T, the vertical bar white, the horizontal bar red) and a sign below it saying road closed due to rock debris. We’d come across this the day before on another road on our way to yet another coffee shop not too far from the Fanal Forest. Apparently, the heavy rain storm we’d had a few nights ago caused a bit of damage to some of the more local mountain roads.
Time to come up with a new plan. We drove back down the hill, pulled over and looked for coffee shops near Santana (not far from where we were). We found a good shop, went there and had an early morning snack. While we were in the coffee shop, I looked out the window and noticed a sign that triggered something in my brain. A quick review of Google maps, and the maps on my iPad that I’d pinned interesting locations to potentially visit, showed me we were having coffee right at the intersection of the road that takes one to the trailhead that leads to Pico Ruivo (the highest peak in Madeira). After coffee, we were on our way up hill.
It’s still a bit of a hike up to the peak, so Ann and I just walked around the parking area viewpoint a bit and soaked in the sights. We then headed back down the hill and pulled over at a picnic area to wander a bit and see if there were photographs to be had. We had noticed it driving up ad thought we saw some interesting trees. We were right, finding Beech and other trees we hadn’t seen yet on Madeira.
During our wanderings around the site, Ann took a photograph of me testing how a multi-trunked tree would appear in a photograph (and deciding whether I should walk back to the car to get my camera gear). Yes, I am actually in the image below.
While I ultimately decided not to go get the Fuji, the LUMIX did make a nice image of the multiple trunks and the play of light that first caught my eye.
As we headed back, I knew exactly the route I wanted to take because there was a VE sign at one of the traffic circles just past the coffee shop we’d stopped at. Well, the VE route didn’t last very long. Call it justice because I deviated from the GPS instructions (using a few expletives at the route the GPS wanted us to take) to follow the VE sign. The “express” route quickly terminated after the first tunnel at a very, very small road that . . . you guessed it . . . took me up and down and around a very, very steep hillside (Ann - “Is that road going to run along the cliff?”) and around a point (yes, it took us along the cliff) to eventually hook up with . . . the road we took that morning (which the GPS was trying to tell me to take before I ignored its instructions). It wasn’t until we reconnected via the old route to the VE route that we saw the construction activity for the tunnel they are boring for the continuation of the VE route eastward. I was not happy.
By then, it was well into lunch time and we decided to continue until we reached someplace we were familiar with. We decided to stop in São Vicente to buy some bread and eat a hearty lunch (which was excellent!). Afterwards Ann and I decided to head to our original destination for the day (8 hours late) to see what the Fanal Forest was like in the late afternoon sun.
Like most landscapes, the Fanal Forest is difficult to photograph in harsh sunlight (ok, it’s difficult, despite its beauty, in all types of light). Still, Ann managed to make some interesting images and I was able to photograph her photographing.
Here, her patience really paid off, waiting for the clouds and the streaming sunlight to be just right. Ann’s image really shows how magical a place the Fanal Forest can be.
We stayed there for quite some time on Tuesday, arriving back to our digs just as the sun was setting. Despite the day throwing one road block (and not just figuratively) after another, we kept our humor and enjoyed the day. We even made some photographs worth posting.
Crazy as it was, we can’t really complain about how it ended.