Today Porto Moniz was calling. A little town on the northwestern point of the island. We had a partial split in the party, some of us went up to do a levada hike whilst others went down to the beach, to while away the time there. Beach is possibly not the correct term, they only have rocks there. But out of the rocks has been created a beautyfull rock pool for safe swimming.On the way to Porto Moniz Franki took us partially on the old road which hugs the cliffs and is very narrow. I could not imagine what it must have been like before the tunnels had been drilled and all the trafic came on this road. Nowadays only tourists use this road.
At one stage he got a free car wash as a waterfall came down straight onto the road. It is only a question of time and this road will be closed, as has already happened to another piece that we stopped to see. The sea has already claimed some of that road.
Franki took us to the starting point of the Levada da Central da Ribeira da Janela. Which ends above the town of Ribeira da Janela and above Porto Moniz.
As usual a lovely levada walk enjoyed by everyone. Unfortunately we had to turn around at one point since we had an appointment to meet at the beach by about 16h00. The natural turn-around point were two tunnels which we penetrated before returning.
The walk down was tedious and hard on the soles and souls. Mostly following the roads at times we cut through fields and terraces to get down the 430m to the beachfront. Here we met up with Eleni, Christopher and Ruth.At Porto Moniz we paid €1 each to get entrance into the rockpool and enjoyed a lovely swim with the fish. Unfortunately it was only an hour or so before Franki came to pick us up.
For supper we were invited to go to Lorindo, another one of those cafè owners who lives there in half retirement, 6 month there and 6 month in Bloem. His house was just around the corner from the hotel. He treated us to some fancy food, chicken stomachs on a spit as hors de oeuvre's and espadada with boiled potatoes as the main meal.
He even had his pool filled up, just for us, the water was very cold and only Eric, Eleni and Christopher braved the icy water and actually went in.