Cartagena, Funchal & La Palma

Cartagena, Spain

Cartagena is one of those quintessentially Spanish coastal towns. Cobbled windy streets, wrought iron balconies and hidden little plazas. The ship docks right in town and we walked below the old castle walls to the ornate town hall which led straight to the main shopping street. The atmosphere here is much more casual than Rome or Paris, but sitting in an outside café having a beer and pizza and watching the people go by is just as delightful.

Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Madeira is a volcanic island that rises immediately and insistently from the ocean. The tiny roads were built well before the population was the current 250,000 and before the introduction of huge tour buses. Riding around this island in a tour bus makes the Amalfi coast seem like child’s play. We rode up to a town call Monte to go tobogganing. This activity, which is now a major tourist attraction, was invented by an English family as a way to get from their high village down to Funchal at sea level.

To go tobogganing Madeira style, you sit on a thin quilted cushion on a bench in a large wicker basket on metal runners. Your “drivers” are two guys, some young, some old,  wearing white pants and shirts and jaunty little straw boaters. They have on special shoes—which just means that their shoes have tire treads to the bottom of them. They start you off by pulling on a couple of ratty pieces of rope attached to the front corners of the basket. You then build momentum and go flying down the regular traffic roads---snaking your way for 10 minutes from the top of the hill (about 500 hundred meters above sea level) to the bottom.

Let me just tell you that much of our ride was done sideways, and some of it partially off the road over the drainage ditches (they get a lot of rain and have big floods). It was the wildest ride ever and sooo much fun. We had to stop part way down because the couple in the basket behind us (Bellinghamsters from our dinner table) were crashed into by a motor scooter who ran a stop sign. Luckily Lynn was only bruised on the shoulder, and the scooter driver was hauled to his feet and placed back on his scooter and went on his way.

The rest of our tour of Madeira consisted of driving up to a lookout at 1,000 meters above the town. We traveled up one lane roads, some of which went along ridges so it was straight down both sides. These one lane roads were used simultaneously by two tour buses going opposite directions. It meant that we had to back up around curves and do all kinds of dare devil moves. I can’t tell you much about them as I had my eyes shut for most of it, but there was lots of oohing and aahing and clapping from the other passengers.

Santa Cruz, La Palma, Canary Islands

This is our last port of call before crossing the Atlantic. We have just arrived at the dock, but I am writing this before we do our visit today.  I have to find an internet café to post this today or none of these posts will happen until we get back to the US.

I am reading in our port guide that the island of La Palma  “rises dramatically from the sea and has the greatest altitude to surface ratio on the entire planet”. After yesterday I will be staying at sea level!

It is supposed to be 73 degrees today and Fritz says that there are people swimming in the ocean just a short distance from the ship—so, perhaps we will make it to the beach.

Buenos Dias from Santa Cruz