Transatlantic Cruise Days 5-10

    Hi all from beautiful Funchal (fun-shall), Madeira, Portugal! Apologies for not posting sooner. We've been busy enjoying our time on the ship!

    Over the last week we've hit a rhythm, waking up, getting ready for the day, going to enrichment, eating lunch, playing Bananagrams, hanging out for a bit, getting ready for dinner, and eating dinner.

    Enrichments continue to be a highlight of the trip. Learning about English sponsoring piracy due to the Papal decree splitting the east and west between Spain and Portugal and individual pirates like Sir Francis Drake and Captain Morgan was great. We've also covered the importance of sugar from ancient times to current times, the impacts of Rome on the Iberian peninsula, and the rise of the Umayyads and Muslim influence on the peninsula after the fall of Rome and the subsequent Christian Reconquest. We missed yesterday's discussion on Pirates and Persecution, talking about Jewish pirates and their experiences with piracy. These history lessons really help give context on the places we will be visiting. I knew nothing about places like Madeira, Malaga, or Cadiz, but having all this background and understanding the historical significance of these places adds to the excitement of discovery.

    We have been playing a lot of Bananagrams on this cruise. The current score stands Valerie - 5, Bill - 7. I am all caught up and rolling. I have recently had some real struggles with the initial letters I have been getting. Yesterday my initial draw had 5 consonants and 16 vowels and the consonants included such great letters as Q, X, and 2 W's. I don't like to dump (put one tile back and take 3 more to replace it), so I struggled for a bit. Sometimes this has been very frustrating, but it has made for some seriously creative boards.

    Dinners continue to be amazing. We tend to connect with our wait staff based on the food we enjoy from their countries. So many people are shocked when a couple of white folks know dishes from their home country and this trip has been no exception. When we told T that we loved Thai food and I mentioned my favorite Thai dish was Pad Kee Mao (also known as drunken noodles, a dish served so spicy it will sober you up after eating it), she was shocked and asked if I liked spicy foods. I of course said yes, so now every night she brings chili flakes and fresh chopped jalapeños after I asked her if they had any chili oil on the night they served Tom Ka Gai (chicken soup in a coconut broth). The Filipino restaurant manager, Rodel, saw the spices T was bringing and the next night he brought a habanero hot sauce from his personal stash and is leaving it in the restaurant because neither of us like the tabasco they serve on the ship.

    We also told Rodel about our love of Filipino foods like adobo (pork or chicken braised in soy sauce and vinegar), lechon kawali (deep fried pork belly), pancit, and lumpia. On our anniversary Rodel brought out homestyle made pork adobo (my favorite) and garlic rice, which was not on the menu. The next day he brought freshly fried chicharrones with lechon sauce, and the next day was sinigang (pork stew) and chop suey. There are a number of people from Asian countries on the ship and they prefer not to eat European/American style meals. Before those guests get on the ship, they request Asian foods for dinner instead of the normal cruise cuisine. Since we love Asian foods he is bringing out some of the dishes they are preparing for the Asian guests for us to try. With a large portion of the kitchen staff being from the Philippines we are getting incredible homestyle Filipino foods which has been incredible. We have also been introduced to ensaymada, a sweet roll with icing and shredded cheddar cheese on top. It's a bizarre sounding combination, but it so incredibly delicious. We've had them twice now and we're going to need to find a Filipino bakery that makes them because they are so delicious. Rodel also brought us pan de coco, another sweet roll, but filled with coconut which was also amazing!

    In addition to our special pork adobo on our anniversary, they brought out an incredible special celebratory dessert, Robert played the guitar and Rodel sang "Let It Be Me" by the Everly Brothers. The song was amazing and the dessert was very rich, but was really good!

    Today was our second day in Funchal. We got into Funchal on Tuesday evening because there were multiple medical emergencies which required us to get fellow passengers to a hospital quickly. Valerie was woken by an all call last Friday asking if anyone on the ship with type O blood would be willing to donate blood to help with an emergency. The captain immediately starting pushing our floating hotel as fast as he could to get us across the Atlantic to get medical attention for the impacted passengers. 

    The crossing felt so fast. It's hard to believe that we've been gone for 11 days already and we are now at an island a hop, skip, and a jump away from the African coast. When we booked this cruise we had to make a hard choice between a shorter 10 day transatlantic crossing that would stop in Morocco and one other port or the 21 day itinerary we are on. As much as I would love to cross stepping foot on out 4th continent off our bucket lists, we felt the slower itinerary with more ports was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. 

    We've been very blessed with incredible weather and sea conditions. Our cruise director, Lloyd, has stated that he's been on dozens of transatlantic crossings and has never had weather this good before. Valerie hasn't felt the motion at all so no problems there. The biggest downside to this cruise has been the constant time changes. I'm still very much on California time and we lose more time almost every day. I don't do well with the annual "Spring Forward" and we've sprung forward five times already and we are losing another hour tonight. I haven't been able to fall asleep at a reasonable time in a week now, aside from Monday night after I tried to reset my internal clock by staying up for 48 hours with no sleep. I got great sleep on Monday night, but was right back to not being able to get to sleep until late the very next night. It's been frustrating, but at this point I'm assuming I'll get used to being at GMT right in time for us fly right back to PST.

    Back to Funchal. We didn't get off the ship yesterday. Since we were here early, we didn't have a place to dock, so they were running the lifeboats as tenders to the port. The tenders were full the entire day and neither Valerie or I felt like fighting for two seats on a small boat to take a 30 minute jaunt to get into a port knowing nothing about where we were, so we ended up having nice quiet day on board the ship. Very handy given I had barely slept the night before. Today was a different story.

    We booked a tour called Taste of Madeira, which would take us up to the second highest point on the island, more than 1 mile above sea level, then we would continue exploring the island by bus, stopping at the only golf course on the island for a local cake and tea/coffee. Once that was done, we would head back to downtown Funchal to taste some Madeira wine and then go back to the ship. It has been a surprisingly warm mid-60's while we have been in port, but it has felt much warmer than that in the sun. Checking the weather, it seemed like it would continue to be warm, with a chance of rain. I decided to dress on the warmer side just in case, and I was glad I did.

    After a nice continental breakfast delivered to our cabin at 6:50a, we headed down to the theater to check in for our excursion. We were given tickets, a silver "9" sticker, and we joined the rest of our group to get off the ship. Once they called our number, we checked off of the ship, headed down a very steep gangway and we touched land for the first time in over a week! Usually when you have spent significant time at sea you develop a natural sway to your walk to compensate for the motion of the ship called your "sea legs". With how calm the waters have been, neither of us had any such effects.

    We followed our group to our tour bus and met our tour guide, Teresa. Tour guides in Madeira have high requirements to get the job. They must have a college degree, must complete another five years of training, pass a certification exam, and be at least 21 years old before they can become a tour guide. The training and experience showed while we were on her tour. Her partner, "Alexander the Great", was an amazing bus driver, taking a huge, manual transmission bus on very narrow and incredibly steep roads, avoiding insane drivers, and not rolling backwards once when stopped going up a hill.

    While we made our way to Pico das Torres, Teresa told us about the history of Madeira, being discovered by the Portuguese in 1420, founding settlements, the economy being based around the production of sugar, rum, and molasses. She talked about the political landscape with Madeira being an autonomous region of Portugal with it's own local government, but following Portugal's laws and being a part of Portugal's military, similar to a US state. We learned about the ecology of Madeira and how important conservation is to the locals. School children are taught from an early age how to grow things, trees being most critical, and every citizen being responsible for maintaining the island's natural resources.

    Madeira reminded me a lot of Kauai. Both were formed by volcanos, both are older islands with time allowing them to turn rough volcanic rock into lush and fertile lands, and both have enormous, beautiful canyons. Kauai does have significantly flatter terrain however as Madeira is very vertical. They have built more than 170 tunnels on the island and many more bridges than they have tunnels. Without the bridges and tunnels, much of the island would be inaccessible. Imagine trying to build a major city on the Na Pali coast of Kauai and you'll get a feeling for how the island had to be developed.

    After many switchbacks up the mountains, taking us through multiple microclimates with incredible views, we reached Pico das Torres, the second highest peak on Madeira and highest available by motor vehicle. The highest peak is only reachable on foot, but the footpath was recently destroyed by weather. On a clear day on Pico das Torres you are able to see most of the island as well as the other four islands in the Madeira Archipelago. Unfortunately for us, it was near freezing, rainy, and the clouds were so dense you could only see about 50 feet in front of your face. I was very glad I chose to dress warmly before we left or I would have been miserable!

    After 20 minutes in the clouds, we got back on the bus and headed to our next stop, the only golf course on Madeira. Golf courses require a ton of horizontal space, a key thing Madeira sorely lacks. They use terraced farming techniques to grow crops and lacked the horizontal space on the island for a full sized runway for their airport, so their airport is build on massive columns that extend the runway over the sea, but everyone needs a golf course! The golf course only has 9 holes, but is in a beautiful location overlooking the northern side of the island. They had tables in a reception setup for us with Madeira cake and our choice of tea or coffee. Given the early morning, the coffee and caffeine was very welcomed, being warming and a delicious strong dark roast. The cake was a little dry, but quite tasty with a hint of citrus.

    Following this nice treat, we headed back towards Funchal, briefly stopping at a lookout over Machico Bay and the only yellow sand beach on the island. Madeira was formed by volcanic activity, so all the natural stone is basalt. They wanted to create a yellow sand beach, so they imported sand from the Sahara Desert to make this beach. It looked beautiful from the lookout and I would love to go back and explore more.

    With all photos taken, we continued our journey toward Funchal, passing by the airport with the new runway extension. We got to see a plane take off and another land on this engineering marvel before taking a more direct route to downtown Funchal. In this picture you can see the columns, but the picture doesn't do it justice. There are 180 columns, each 230ft tall! Teresa said she would love to have the amount of money that just one of the columns cost to build. The runway was recognized in 2004 by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering, winning the Outstanding Structure Award. 

    Another 20 minutes or so and we were in downtown Funchal. After a short walk, we were in the tasting room for Blandy's Wines. Blandy's makes Madeira wine which is a sweet, fortified wine similar to sherry or port. We tried both a sweet and a dry and while both were delicious we preferred the dry. There used to be a winery in Sonoma that made a Madeira style port that was so good I bought a whole case of it. They also made a pretty decent sherry, but the port was very memorable. The winery doesn't exist anymore, but I still think of that port every time I see other bottles. While we loved the wine at Blandy's we had a hard enough time just packing clothes and toiletries, so we don't really want to be trying to bring bottles of wine home with us. I did see that sell Blandy's at Total Wine and More and it's in stock at Pleasanton so maybe we'll take a trip on our way home on the 12th. 

    After everyone had their fill of sweet wine, we walked back to the bus and were back on board by 1:45pm. Following a quick stop in our cabin to drop our things off, we headed to the Lido for lunch and then came back so I could write this epic. If you are still reading, thanks for reading my ramblings and if you didn't, well I didn't want you to know about our trip anyways! Sorry again for the lapse in updating, but we are very much enjoying our time and we just haven't had the time to write.

    I can't promise an update tomorrow, but probably after Cadiz on Saturday!