Missy and Mom Conquer Madeira

Little did I know that the trails would all be straight up and down. It's all mountainous with terraced hillsides and flowers blooming everywhere except in this photo. Some of the trails were narrow with terrifying dropoffs but we lived to tell the tale. We hiked every other day, from eight to ten challenging miles with a picnic stop for lunch. Missy backpacked a lot of gear in spite of having all our bags transported from one hotel to another. The weather was lovely, in the 60s, and the hotels ranged from adequate to 5-star, all with stunning views. We started on the northwest coast and ended up at the southern port of Funchal. Missy rented a car (stick shift) on two of our days off so we got to explore other places, too. A big bonus was making friends with a couple from Scotland who were part of our tour and traveling the same route. They were faster but stopped to be sure I made it over the rough spots and helped when needed. The trip took 14 hours from Missy's house to our first hotel, and about the same on the way home. It's a long way to go, but it was totally different from anything I'd ever done before and it turned out even better than we had hoped. Missy has many more photos which she will share when she gets past the rush of preparing Thanksgiving for eighteen people.