Yesterday we started to have grand hiking aspirations for today. We considered finding a big peak other than Ruivo (since it’s closed). We were close to locking down a hike out to the end of São Laurenço. Instead.. a little battered from, the tunnel walls and nursing our various injuries we decided to just take it easy. We drove to the west coast of Madeira to check out views.

Along the way.. cows of course! Neither of us had ever seen a gray cow though, much less a grey-brown mix.

Our first stop was Teleférico das Achades da Cruz in the northwestern corner of Madeira. It’s a mind-blowing lookout from 466m (1,530 ft). They even have a cable car that descends to the coastal area at a 98% slope! We umm.. took lots of great pictures from above.

Can you spot the cable car in the picture below? You’ll probably need to zoom in.

From there we drove south to the western-most point in Madeira, Ponta do Pargo. There’s an active lighthouse, a nice lookout balcony, and.. a crumbly dirt patch out to the edge.

Next to the “DANGER KEEP CLEAR DANGER OF FALLING” warning is the staircase to help you down. Classic. At least they drew Savitri pretty well.

Fast-forward 5 minutes.

Believe-it-or-not, but it was already late-afternoon at this point, so we headed to Calheta for some food. We maybe got distracted by flowers on the way.

We ate at Marina Azul Restaurante, right on the marina as the name suggests. We shared everything as usual, and it was still too much.

We were good and skipped dessert. We then walked 15 ft away to Manufactura di Gelato (confirmed to be the best on the island!) and rewarded ourselves.

We confirmed that Calheta had dealt with its falling rocks problem..

We sat on a bench along the waterfront and watched the boat traffic while we ate gelato. Tough work, we got tired and drove back to the dome..