Porto Santo, Madeira, November 2014
In Porto Santo, an
island off Madeira, we went for a walk up one of the mountains, Pico de
Castelo, an extinct volcano. When we got to the top of the track we went on up
a stony path with steps in it. The steps were placed at precisely the wrong
distance apart, so that after stepping up one you had to take another step with
the other foot to bring yourself up to the next one. This meant that if you
walked with a normal stride size you were forced to always step up on the same
foot, while the other simply took you up to the next step – these steps appeared to have been made by giants (though we didn’t see
any).
Anyway, as the steps
ended we came up to the top of the hill, which had been turned into some sort
of cactus garden, though it didn’t seem to be growing much. In the middle was a
house of strange design. It was rectangular and its roof was a continual arch
from one short side to the other. It was by far the highest point and we climbed
on the roof.
We sat at the edge of
the garden to have lunch. We were sitting at a low wall. On the other side it dropped
a good 3 or 4 meters. As we sat we saw a lizard poke his head over the edge of
the wall. He vanished again almost immediately as we moved. When we looked over
the edge we saw that there were loads of lizards climbing all over the wall,
which was made of stone and supplied them with excellent homes. The lizards became
bolder and one of them came on top of the wall and grabbed a bit of apple peel
in his mouth and carried it away. Soon three or four of them were feeding on
the rest of the peel, which was too big for them to carry away.
Then
I noticed a lizard’s head poking up over the wall just by my left hand. I
stayed very still. Suddenly it moved up over the edge and then stopped, again a
few inches from my hand. Then it actually climbed up onto my hand and started
eating the peanut butter in my sandwich. It was amazing. Somebody moved, and he
ran back down the wall. We waited patiently and soon more were coming over the
wall to get the food, and they were fighting over it too. I had three on my
hand at once at one point, climbing up my fingers. Some were climbing on my bare
forearm when suddenly I felt a slight tickle at the back of my neck. There couldn’t
be one at the back of my neck could there? I would have noticed it climbing up!
Again something tickled the back of my neck. Slowly, so as not to frighten the lizards
on my hand, I reached back and felt the back of my neck. There was a lizard
there! It almost fell down the back of my t-shirt. I tried to get it out, then
it was gone and so were all the lizards on the wall because of my rapid
movements. They were soon back again, though. One bit Lochy, my brother, who
was also feeding them. They didn’t have very big teeth but a powerful jaw
comparative to their size. Big enough to give a hard nip apparently, judging by
Lochy’s reaction. When we went we left them the last bit of our sandwiches.
This was a very memorable
day. I forgot to even mention the wonderful views of Porto Santo from the top
of the volcano.
Written by Finbar
