For today we planned our longest hike yet, still along a levada so by definition not steep up and down.  Levada do Caldeirao Verde's name promised a lot of greenery and maybe even a little dampness and seemed sure to please.  We had read that it would get crowded by mid- morning so got up earlier than usual (difficult but useful practice for a couple of days hence when we have to catch a 7:06 a.m. bus for the Porto Santo trip) and planned to leave about 8:00 a.m. for the 50-minute drive around towards Santana.  After a brief frolic and detour searching for Craig's sunglasses that turned out to be well hidden in plain sight, we arrived at the trail head with plenty of parking spaces left.  A good sign, we thought. 

This levada was built in the 18th century to bring water down to the farms around Faial.  Once underway, we found ourselves in the midst of dense greenery, rainforest-like, and surrounded by wetness.  There was water in the levada of course, but also seeping down the cliffside patches of moss and strands of ferns, and then the occasional waterfall.  The path beside the levada seemed perpetually wet from all this, as it is almost completely shaded by the vegetation (maybe didn't need to spend so much time looking for those sunglasses).  There are four tunnels along the route, which seemed rather amazingly carved out of the stone.  At one point we both heard a slap in the water running alongside us, stopped and looked, and sure enough there was a fish winding his way "upstream".  To what end we are not sure, but it was indeed a trout, which we have seen on offer in local restaurants.  

When we reached the furthest point, the Caldeirao Verde itself, we saw the 300-foot waterfall that punctuates the cirque.  The last 100 feet of the trail was blocked off with an official-looking sign but we took the well-worn route around it to get closer to the waterfall.  We were clearly not the only ones, either now or previously, but we did see evidence of rockfall and landslide.  (We later learned that in 2019 a rockfall here injured 11 hikers; thus the closure signage.)  It had taken us a couple of hours to get to this point, and we stopped for a snack of dried fruit and cake that a local bird, a common chaffinch, seemed interested in sharing.  Then we started the hike back about noon, and learned that it is true the hike gets crowded by late morning.  We encountered numerous solo and couple hikers, and two large tour groups.  Depending on how generous the trail was at any given time, we or they had to huddle up against the outer edge of the trail or inner edge of the levada, or backtrack to a "passing place".  Despite this the hike only took us an hour-and-a-half back, probably because we didn't have to take pictures along the way.  One of the benefits of an out-and-back trail.  

Craig had researched and found a very nice restaurant, the Restaurante a Chave, in the small town a ways downhill, Faial.  We both had excellent meals, and the garden and view out towards the ocean was lovely.  Craig may think he won with his espada (scabbard fish) with bananas and almonds, but Phyllis' oven-roasted lamb was pretty good too.  We were both impressed with a side dish of milho frito, fried chunks of something like polenta that is another Madeiran specialty.  We took the fast road home and had a light supper of fruit and cheese again.