by
Christopher Somerville
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“Saude!”
proposed Carlos, raising his glass in Victor’s Bar at Ribeiro
Frio. “Good health! And good walking.” He tossed back the cloudy
yellow punch and chased it down with a gulp of black coffee. I
sipped at my glass, a little more cautiously. When you are setting
out on a Madeiran levada walk, the last thing you need is a head
spinning with local firewater.
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See
also…
Madeira's
Floating Garden
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Most
visitors to Madeira end up on a levada walk, sooner or later. Everywhere
you go in this outstandingly beautiful Atlantic island you hear
of the levadas, ingenious man-made watercourses that writhe like
snakes along the green hillsides. People tell you of their beauty,
of the enormous extent of them – nearly 1,400 miles in all, in an
island less than 40 miles long. And you learn all about the head
for heights that you need if you are going to tackle one of the
narrow maintenance paths that follows the tortuous windings of a
levada.
Fortified
by lemon poncha and strong coffee, Carlos and I set out into a brisk
spring morning. Below Victor’s Bar we found the Levada do Furado
in fast flow, channelling the water from yesterday’s cloudbursts
off the mountain slopes. This north side of Madeira can receive
more than 80 inches of rain in a year, water tumbling from clouds
blown in on the northeast trade winds.
The Levada do Furado snaked along the hillside in a tunnel of trees,
a stone-built ditch two feet wide with a foot or so of racing water
in it. This levada was installed a few decades ago to take excess
rainfall. Along its course it collects overspill from a power station
reservoir and from dozens of mountain streams, hurrying it all down
to lower levels where farmers divert it to irrigate their banana
groves and vegetable plots, vineyards and orchards.
Most of Madeira’s levadas were built after the war, hand-cut and
tunnelled through solid basalt by men pickaxeing and hammering the
rock while suspended at the ends of ropes. But levada-building in
the island started as far back as the mid-15th century, an era when
Madeira was being colonised and cleared for agriculture by Portuguese
adventurers. Hundreds of slaves and convicts died in the construction
of these early levadas. |
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Beside
the Levada do Furado ran the narrow stony maintenance path, shadowing
every curve of the waterway. Soon we came across a man scything
undergrowth from the banks. He glanced up under the peak of his
ear-flapped cap and gave us “Bom dia” and a wrinkly grin. “The levadeiro,”
said Carlos. “He looks after the levada, keeps it clean, makes sure
everything is OK. Very important man.” |
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Overhanging
the levada and screening it from the sun were gnarled heather
trees, cedars with lichened trunks, bay trees, laurels, bilberry
and a dozen other aromatic components of laurisilva, the original
maquis-like forest of Madeira. Accompanied by the chirping of
finches and the quiet gurgle of water running in the levada, it
made for wonderful walking: a soothing, dreamy progress, until
the path abruptly narrowed to one foot wide, a ribbon of slippery
rock on the brink of a sheer drop into a deep valley.
We
passed a woman, one of a walking party, spread-eagled against
the rock face in fright and embarrassment. “Vertigo,” diagnosed
Carlos. “Excuse me – just put your hand on the rock and look to
the herbs. It’s easy.” But she was already turning back. A wise
decision on her part, I realised a little later, when the flanking
fence disappeared and there was suddenly fresh air – a hell of
a lot of it – between me and the treetops a thousand feet below.
“The
levada is not dangerous,” Carlos had assured me before we set
out, “if you don’t have vertigo, and you watch where you put your
feet.” He was right. I had to concentrate hard on balance, but
apprehension gave way to exhilaration as the view out over the
laurisilva became more and more spectacular – precipitous forest
slopes rising to the church-like rock pinnacles of the Pico das
Torres and the leonine head of 6,109-ft Pico Ruivo, the Red Peak,
Madeira’s crowning glory.
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Mosses,
ferns and green and white lichens sprawled all over the wet rock
wall that bounded the inner curve of the levada. We dodged through
skeins of water, getting a good sprinkling. The natural reservoir
of the mountains, overloaded with the previous week’s late winter
downpour, was releasing its surplus. No more delicious drink than
this for a thirsty walker – as clear as glass, ice-cold and earthily
sweet. |
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The levada wriggled through a narrow gash in the mountainside, followed
by a succession of little tunnels hacked out of the rock. Now came
the most dramatic section of the journey, a reeling ledge between
forest and sky with a majestic view wheeling slowly by: swooping
green ridges and slopes falling away to the red roofs of Porto da
Cruz on the north coast of the island, overhung by the stark bulk
of Penha de Aguia, the Rock of the Eagle, and bounded by the blue
Atlantic.
The
mind boggled – and boggled again – at the nonchalant bravery of
the workmen who built the Levada do Furado, and other levadas twice
as hair-raising, while hanging in space at a rope’s end or leaning
out of giddily swaying wicker baskets. I had seen photographs of
these dangling heroes at work, and now, inching along the flywalk
they built into the basalt cliff, could only admire such steeliness
of nerve.
Under
the birdsong, sigh of wind in the trees and roar of rain-gorged
rivers in the valleys, the water in the levada had been quietly
whispering as an accompaniment to the walk. Now it began to chatter
and gush as the path plunged into the forest once more and came
abreast of a neat, barrel-roofed sluice house. “To divide the waters
of the levada,” said Carlos. “We’ll go down the hill now.”
Parting
company with the Levada do Furado, we turned off the mountainous
track and followed a new, narrow little levada hastening a thread
of water down to lower ground. Soon the laurisilva gave way to eucalyptus
groves, then the start of cultivated terraces and banana groves.
The path broadened until we could stride out, dropping down into
Portela and the thirsty lowlands, our heads and shoulders still
pearled with mountain water. |
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