Although Madeira is only 45 miles long and 15 miles wide, the roads that twist up and down the hillsides, over ridges, and down through valleys make traveling distances that look short on the map take an exceptionally long time. Our travel time along the north coast from Ilha where the second hike ended to a small coastal town named Porto Moniz was well over an hour, not including time spent at Sao Jorge at a stunningly high viewpoint over the sea and roadside café for beer, coffee, and sampling the local specialty – honey cake. The stretch of coast along Madeira's northern side was probably the most Hawaii-like scenery I saw with very lush terraced fields covering impossibly steep mountainsides and volcanic ridges rising thousands of feet up from the sea into the clouds.

Porto Moniz, home for a night, is still on the windward side of the island and the waves were crashing into shore below the lush cliffs that make Madeira look like Fantasy Island . The town’s "beach consists of lava rock and tidal pools both natural and manmade that can be explored by the hardy and cold water tolerant.

After a moderate hike high on the center of the island Wednesday we dropped down to the south shore for two night’s stay at a quite plush hotel with a big swimming pool just below the cliffs at the end of the road in Paul Do Mar, a village on Madeira’s sunny leeward southwest side. Paul do Mar is literally in the banana belt, since a type of very small very sweet bananas is the major crop on this side of the island, made possible by irrigation from the levadas. It was actually possible to take a short dip in the sea (as well as the hotel pool) at Paul do Mar, but don’t expect great beaches anywhere in Madeira. There’s only one natural sandy beach on the island, and the sand is black. Everywhere else it’s rock and pebbles, which may explain why Madeira hasn’t caught on as a beach destination despite its great surfing conditions. After drying off quickly after my few minutes floundering around in the chilly Atlantic, I decided it was time for a rather sorry Madeiran attempt at a Caiparinha, accompanied by an interesting Madeiran snack – Lupines. They look a little like large yellow beans or oversized corn kernels, but the cooked seeds are in fact from the lupine plant. I would have never thought the flowering plant produced anything edible to humans.

On the way to our fourth day hike we made a stop at Cabo Girao about halfway along the south shore. Cabo Girao’s claim to fame is being the highest sea cliff in Europe at 580 meters (about 1,950 feet). Yes, the cliff drops straight down from that distance, and there’s now a walkway sticking out over the ocean to scare the wits out of the vertically challenged, similar to the one at the Grand Canyon but without the steep price tag.