A Day in the Unplanned
It hadn’t really been the intention to end up here. We’d only planned on heading up to the small café in the village at the top of the climb out of Porto Moniz to sample the pasteis da nata, washed down with a coffee. The place had been recommended by our host, and we agreed it was a good tip off. The custard filled pastry was delightful, the lady who served us seemed pleased to see us, and in our two words of Portuguese, accompanied by a degree of suitable gesturing we told her we’d return for a second helping later in the week, before exploring the village on foot. Then heading off in the car we examined the miradouros that hover vertiginously over the edges of the cliffs at the northern tip of the Floating Garden, the restless Atlantic rollers breaking over the land hundreds of metres below. For an hour we basked in the sunshine under a clear blue sky, gazing down at the distant and seemingly impossible hamlet of Achadas da Cruz, linked to the rest of the world by a system of cable cars and ancient sheep tracks carved into the near vertical cliffsides. And then we returned to the car to turn left, back down the slopes into Porto Moniz to doze off on a sunny bench beside the ocean. Later we’d dine at one of the restaurants. Maybe I’d have another crack at those seastacks at Janela, or the waves that roll incessantly into the volcanic sea walls, whatever the weather might bring.
Except we turned right and headed uphill into the clouds instead. It’s always exciting when that split second of “what the hell” abandon inexplicably takes control of the faculties isn’t it? When the planned so suddenly becomes the unplanned and you’re not sure where you’re going to end up. Maybe we’d roll over the high road and come back down to watch the sea by Sao Vicente. By degrees we went higher and higher into the empty mountains, watching the temperature display on the hire car sink into single digits and the landscape around us disappear behind a shroud that seemed to envelop the world in secrets. Hardly at all did we see a car coming the opposite way, and nobody appeared along the road behind to sit on our tail in frustration at my famously slow progress at the wheel. Occasionally we would have to pick our way carefully past a straggling group of cows emerging from the gloom, grazing at the verges, the more obtuse of them standing brazenly in the middle of the road. More than once I stopped the car, honked the horn and waited for the gazing brown eyes to relent and move to one side for us to pass. At another spot we seemed to clear a narrow ridge, only imagining what sort of drop we were unable to see in either direction. And then to the right hand side the murky mists abated for moments to reveal a distant coastal village, bathed in sunlight, far far below us hugging the coastline in another universe. I tried to double back and pull up at the edge of the road to get a shot, but in that handful of minutes the fog had rolled back across the divide and for all we knew we might have imagined that far off El Dorado by the sea.
Further still we crept on through the airborne grey soup of the high Paul da Serra, well over a thousand metres above sea level, the realisation gradually awakening in me that we were probably getting close to Fanal. I looked at the map again and noticed that the upcoming road leading off from the left was much closer than I’d expected it to be. I was certainly planning on an afternoon under the strange forest shapes during our stay, but now that visit became inevitably earlier than intended. The great unplanned. And of course, the conditions were perfect for what was lying in wait. Just one final knot of unyielding cows to negotiate before pulling up and heading into the mystical forest in the fog, where every tree had its place in the scheme of things. Some lived side by side in groups, waiting to become pictured in clusters, while others stood alone in a “come and photograph me – I’m lovely” attitude. And there I was, like a six year old in Hamley’s not knowing where to turn first, gradually turning in so many different directions that I eventually managed to almost lose myself completely in the fading light. You might have read that story already. This one, I’m told is known as the seahorse. I can see why. With its partner a few metres away it seemed to offer more than one composition. I chose them all of course, although I liked this one best.
The planned is a great road to travel, but its opposite so often brings surprises. Ok, so I was intending to come here, but not today, and maybe the fog I’d hoped for would have stayed away on another day. This ancient forest, so high above the clouds of the Floating Garden was one of the best ever such moments; one of the handful of places where the experience was surreal to the point that it almost feels as if I’d dreamed it. Try the unplanned one day. Choose to go somewhere, but then accidentally on purpose set off in the other direction and see what happens. Just occasionally, it brings a moment you’ll never forget.
A Day in the Unplanned
It hadn’t really been the intention to end up here. We’d only planned on heading up to the small café in the village at the top of the climb out of Porto Moniz to sample the pasteis da nata, washed down with a coffee. The place had been recommended by our host, and we agreed it was a good tip off. The custard filled pastry was delightful, the lady who served us seemed pleased to see us, and in our two words of Portuguese, accompanied by a degree of suitable gesturing we told her we’d return for a second helping later in the week, before exploring the village on foot. Then heading off in the car we examined the miradouros that hover vertiginously over the edges of the cliffs at the northern tip of the Floating Garden, the restless Atlantic rollers breaking over the land hundreds of metres below. For an hour we basked in the sunshine under a clear blue sky, gazing down at the distant and seemingly impossible hamlet of Achadas da Cruz, linked to the rest of the world by a system of cable cars and ancient sheep tracks carved into the near vertical cliffsides. And then we returned to the car to turn left, back down the slopes into Porto Moniz to doze off on a sunny bench beside the ocean. Later we’d dine at one of the restaurants. Maybe I’d have another crack at those seastacks at Janela, or the waves that roll incessantly into the volcanic sea walls, whatever the weather might bring.
Except we turned right and headed uphill into the clouds instead. It’s always exciting when that split second of “what the hell” abandon inexplicably takes control of the faculties isn’t it? When the planned so suddenly becomes the unplanned and you’re not sure where you’re going to end up. Maybe we’d roll over the high road and come back down to watch the sea by Sao Vicente. By degrees we went higher and higher into the empty mountains, watching the temperature display on the hire car sink into single digits and the landscape around us disappear behind a shroud that seemed to envelop the world in secrets. Hardly at all did we see a car coming the opposite way, and nobody appeared along the road behind to sit on our tail in frustration at my famously slow progress at the wheel. Occasionally we would have to pick our way carefully past a straggling group of cows emerging from the gloom, grazing at the verges, the more obtuse of them standing brazenly in the middle of the road. More than once I stopped the car, honked the horn and waited for the gazing brown eyes to relent and move to one side for us to pass. At another spot we seemed to clear a narrow ridge, only imagining what sort of drop we were unable to see in either direction. And then to the right hand side the murky mists abated for moments to reveal a distant coastal village, bathed in sunlight, far far below us hugging the coastline in another universe. I tried to double back and pull up at the edge of the road to get a shot, but in that handful of minutes the fog had rolled back across the divide and for all we knew we might have imagined that far off El Dorado by the sea.
Further still we crept on through the airborne grey soup of the high Paul da Serra, well over a thousand metres above sea level, the realisation gradually awakening in me that we were probably getting close to Fanal. I looked at the map again and noticed that the upcoming road leading off from the left was much closer than I’d expected it to be. I was certainly planning on an afternoon under the strange forest shapes during our stay, but now that visit became inevitably earlier than intended. The great unplanned. And of course, the conditions were perfect for what was lying in wait. Just one final knot of unyielding cows to negotiate before pulling up and heading into the mystical forest in the fog, where every tree had its place in the scheme of things. Some lived side by side in groups, waiting to become pictured in clusters, while others stood alone in a “come and photograph me – I’m lovely” attitude. And there I was, like a six year old in Hamley’s not knowing where to turn first, gradually turning in so many different directions that I eventually managed to almost lose myself completely in the fading light. You might have read that story already. This one, I’m told is known as the seahorse. I can see why. With its partner a few metres away it seemed to offer more than one composition. I chose them all of course, although I liked this one best.
The planned is a great road to travel, but its opposite so often brings surprises. Ok, so I was intending to come here, but not today, and maybe the fog I’d hoped for would have stayed away on another day. This ancient forest, so high above the clouds of the Floating Garden was one of the best ever such moments; one of the handful of places where the experience was surreal to the point that it almost feels as if I’d dreamed it. Try the unplanned one day. Choose to go somewhere, but then accidentally on purpose set off in the other direction and see what happens. Just occasionally, it brings a moment you’ll never forget.