Public transport

Every country has it's own lot of public transport, in England taxi drivers rip you off, in America there is no decent public transport and in Madeira, the public transport really is in a class of it's own.

 Madeira is a small island of the west coast of Africa, which strangely belongs to Portugal, (a fact which has baffled me for years). It is an extinct volcano turned tourist island and is absolutely beautiful. The views from the mountains are spectacular and the gardens are beautiful up there. Now you are probably thinking at this point, "Right. OK. Why don't you just hire a car and drive there, is the public transport is so bad?". There is a very good reason for this. The only way of getting up there is by driving up the mountain roads. "OK, and?" I hear you say, well they are 5ft wide and have no barriers, and are all gouged out of a mountain which means they are on a sheer cliff face, under waterfalls. I am not afraid of heights, but these treacherous roads scare even me...

So now hire cars are out if you want your holiday to last more than a day, before you end up impaled on a banana tree. Your next option is buses. Right, OK, where to begin. Buses in Madeira are, putting this lightly, uncomfortable. There are about four seats (usually filled with tourists who lost their hire car over a cliff), no air conditioning, a gear box that like it has seen better days and not and not enough room for more than five people standing (but Madeirans will not accept this fact and will try to get the bus when it is clearly full) and suicidal bus drivers. So in conclusion - buses are a no no.

You finally accept that you will have to either walk or take a taxi, walking is OK for short distances, but the floor is cobbled (which is painful in summer shoes), so you take a taxi. Oh dear, somehow Madeiran taxi drivers have the uncanny ability to be everything you don't want in a taxi driver, they drive the longest possible way, in the most congested part of town to try and get as much money out of you as possible. They all drive clapped out Mercedes Benz, with worn leather seats and bad air freshener.Worst of all they are all out to kill you.

Told you they were all Mercedes

 They drive down the roads so fast you swear you are going to fly of the edge of the cliff, though of course they reassure you in their friendly way, and you know that they are not going to fly off because you know they are experienced. Then the day comes when you book a taxi tour for the day, and the new inexperienced, young taxi driver turns up to take you on a relaxing drive to the pretty village of Monte up in the mountains. It certainly looks a lot prettier when you see it up ahead and realise your encounter with death is nearly over. People wonder why a lot of tourists who have been going to Madeira for years stay and walk to town, instead of going up the mountains - I think I just found the reason.