Today we shifted from our urban walk-everywhere lifestyle of the past week to a new apartment up in the hills. We took another great Bolt from Funchal to our next apartment in Gaula, on the west edge of Santa Cruz. It’s a modern two-story apartment that looks out on an immense view of the ocean to the south toward the uninhabited Desertas islands. We also look down on the airport, which is one of the world’s most dangerous and very interesting to watch planes land and take-off from.

We also had our rental car delivered to the apartment by the local rental car agency, Nunos. Huge kudos to them so far.. they are a family-run company and SO MUCH more personal than the big international companies. Maria answered the phone and figured out our custom drop-off, her brother dropped off the car and warmly gave me all sorts of restaurant and sights advice, then their dad Ricardo came and picked him up.

Our rental car is a manual Skoda hatchback, a personal favorite and a good balance with four people and tiny roads. I do wish it had a rear backup camera, more power, and wireless CarPlay, but those aren’t big deals. The biggest deal driving in Madeira is the hills! We have lots of experience with steep hills and Madeira is no joke. We are about 1 km (.6mi) from the coast as the crow flies and 240m (800 ft) elevation! Pictures don’t do it justice.

We had a late lunch at a well-reviewed Venezuelan snack bar called Arepazo in Santa Cruz village. Arepas are essentially a fried corn pita of sorts and used as a bread or a roll in many contexts.

All in all I’d say we were a bit disappointed. It’s sort of fast food. However it was fun, filling, and unusual so no complaints.

After eating we walked the couple blocks of the town of Santa Cruz down to the “beach”. As with many Madeira beaches, it’s composed of smooth rocks ranging from watch-sized to fütbal-sized. We noticed a really cool sound generated as the waves washed up on them then tumbled them back into the water.

We then found a small (but the biggest in the area) supermarket and got our basic goods, snacks, and dinner ingredients for the next few days. Funchal has legit supermarkets (e.g. Pingo), which if we lived in the area I think we’d visit frequently even if it meant a significant drive.

We then returned to the apartment via another smaller market and man did I mention those hills?!

Riki did the math to confirm that the perceived horizon at 800 ft is about 42 mi away. Somehow from this apartment it feels much farther, we think in-part due to the fade from ocean to sky without a distinct horizon line. Still.. that means that on a clear day we could see about one-seventh of the way to the Canary Islands and one-tenth of the way to the African mainland!

Savitri made a great lemon, chicken pasta dish for dinner and we all watched a silly spy movie on Netflix to end the night.