Fanal. Mysterious Forest Not From This World
Into the fog
Madeira is not such a gentle and plush place as many people in the world think. Even on the seacoast, and more if climb on thousand meters above sea level, all would change drastically. Today I propose to visit one of such places which made the strongest impression of all I saw on the island. It is an ancient laurel forest called “Laurisilva.”
Hard to believe that somewhen, such relict forests occupied a significant part of Europe. They have been preserved only in Macaronesia: in the Azores, Canary Islands, and Madeira. On the last one, they took about 15 thousand hectares. The most interesting is Fanal forest, located on the Paul da Serra plateau, the northwest part of the island, 1200 meters above sea level.
It’s a pretty rare situation when I wished for not sunny weather on my trip but fog with the lowest visibility. Maybe, that was a unique case. Fanal is located on a slope, and condensates from the ocean gather above it as rain or mist. Spirits of the ancient forest took pity on me and gave more than enough drizzle.
Strange, twisted, bent trunks slowly creep out at you from an impenetrable mirage and immediately hide in it when you just have to turn away. It is an improbable place. I’d not believe it exists on our planet if I didn’t know about it beforehand. The world from books by fiction writers, and everybody can literally touch it. What is needed more to escape from this boring, predictable reality?
The number of other tourists isn’t big, and they disperse on the plateau easily. And fog immediately hides them from outside views.
It’s worth complaining separately about the bad logistics of this place. Not able to drive, I tried to plan my route with local buses whose schedules were very poor. The nearest village to the forest is Ribeira da Janela, which doesn’t have a direct bus connection with Funchal. More, the distance from the village is 8 km uphill, and I had to pass it on foot. Other options looked not good too. Either sell my right kidney and ride through all island by taxi or walk all of Madeira on foot from north to south. How long is that island, 30 km through the mountains?
Finally, I researched internet tours from local guides and registered randomly for the cheapest one. It looked not much more expensive compared to one-day tours in Ukraine. I prepared for the road with an unfamiliar group of people, but the tour appeared private. The guide took me from a designated place, and we went together to Fanal by his car, walked there, and got back the same way. So I had to adapt to something new — I needed to keep the conversation going in English. It turned out that I even could speak for neutral themes for a few hours, but my brain wanted to burst after all.
After some time, it started to rain. It was redundant because water flooded the lens of my camera. Generally, it’s not comfortable to be there at all. While the temperature at sea level was typical for Madeira, +22 C, in Fanal, it was about +14 C, plus crazy humidity. But enough to endure it for two hours, you’ll have impressions all your lifetime.
And nice to have the guide there. There’s hard to get lost even with such visibility, but I’d not find all the interesting myself. In particular, worth to delve into the thicket where huge trees grow. The oldest trees are more than 500 years old (I assume exactly these). Looking at these creatures, I could believe they already have their consciousness.
And what a fern grows there… On Madeira, they didn’t hear Ukrainian legends about this herb; otherwise, this place would be considered more mystical. The fern grows even on the trees’ branches in between moss.
Then we met two more figures lost in the fog. I also took a photo of the guide for lack of moving objects.
Some trees are pretty asymmetrical. Wicked winds which blow in a single direction did this.
How many people do you see?
The essential Fanal citizens are cows that graze there just because they can. When something incomprehensible and great crawls to you from the fog, it also adds some thrills.
A small lake on the plateau:
Relief of the forest is almost straight with small height gains. While clear weather, it’s possible to see even the ocean, but exactly not on that day. I can’t believe it could be sunny in this place.
Except for ferns, mushrooms also grow on the trees. Being tired at the end, I confused my guide with the question, could I feed them? (meaning “eat,” of course) But the answer is obvious, the mushrooms, which look like jellyfish, aren’t delicious.
The short travel finished, and the mysterious forest remained standing. And will stand for centuries after us.
Despite wicked winds, these trees demonstrate a strong will to survive in the eternal gloomy mist.
And the last frame from enchanted Fanal: either a cross or a dragon on the rise.
