This and that

Gaston always tell me that the proper way of writting is to make links in between paragraphs. Well I must appologize for the following because I only have unconnected stories to tell. So buckle your seat belts because we will be jumping from head to tail and back again. (BTW i know the expression doesn't exactly work but I couldn't come up with anything better when translating from French).To follow up on our story, we found out why it was so expensive. We needed to get burning alcohol or methyl hydrate or methanol. They are pretty much the same. What we got was ethanol. The "m" is like missing! So now we have 25 liters of alcohol used for cocktails and pure at 96%. It will still work for our stove but we will have to chain the drum to the boat so that it won't get stolen by the first drunk who walks by. We might also run into trouble with customs offers who might want to confiscate it (how much alcohol do you have on board? Euh! 25 liters!).
In Funchal, it's not a good idea to follow an "Estrada". We found ourselves in an alley surrounded by barking dogs and no exit. The locals where probably thinking: ''Great! More lost tourists!" When we arrived at the end and at the door of a private house, we realized that we would have to walk all the way back making every dog in the alley (and there are a lot of them!) bark again! Difficult to go unnoticed.
The portuguese always greet you according to the time of day. They won't use a more general "Ola" unless they know you. So the morning is "bom dias", the afternoon "boa tarde" and the evening "boa noite". Of course, Gaston and I never get to use ''bom dias'' or rarely. The most used word is thank you. The men say ''obrigado'' and the women ''obrigada". It's a grammatical thing that doesn't exist in english so kind of hard to explain but the translation would be "I'm
obligated to you" which changes if it's either masculine or feminine like most latin languages. Anyway, they are so polite that they even thank you after serving you.
We even saw a bus driver get off his bus to go explain somethings in the schedule to a passenger. It's great.

Did you know that lizards eat other things than insects? I know, we fell off our picnic table bench too. We had been hiking and we got to the top of a mountain with a beautiful view on the ocean when we decided to sit down and eat an apple. At the site of the apple, the first lizard came closer to us. We hadn't even taken a bit! When we started eating, lizards were coming out from all over the place. They can't really be interested in the apples, right? We threw a piece to find out. They jumped all over it. The piece was four times the size on their heads but they grabbed it and ran. When we were done, we threw our core... Party time!
One of the main attractions of Madeira are the Levadas. These are irrigation canals that cover a big part of the island. Since they have to be maintained, we can walk next to them for kilometers after kilometers in the mountains and around farming lands. While
we were walking one of the trails, we realized that all the farming is done manually. Hours or walking without earring the sounds of an engine. Actually, the distance between the lands and the streets is very far and can only be traveled by foot. It must be quite so
mething to get the harvest to the market. Too bad we don't speak portuguese because we would of had many questions to ask the farmers. Anyway, now that we know the work that is put in, our fruit and vegetables taste so much better.

There was a turism day on September 27th in Madeira. In consequence all the museums were free for the day so we grabbed the opportunity to visit the "Photographia-Musea Vincentes". This photographer opened the first photography studio on the island in the late 1800 and they turned it into a museum. He was the official photographer for the queen of Australia among other achievements. We got to see many pictures of Funchal in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. There was also cameras and equipment dating back to the same era.
Portugese folk music is called Fado. The songs are usually sung by women and tell sad stories like: "my man is out at sea and I am waiting for him to come back". I have used this type of music in quite a few of my picture montages. However, listening to this music in Portugal is quite a challenge! In the restaurants we ear Diana Krall and Celine Dion and on the radio, it's Timberland and Lady Gaga!
We had planned on leaving this place after a couple of weeks but the weather is not cooperating. There is a depression on the Azores at the moment and Otto the hurricane seems to want to make it's way over here. So we will be staying put until at least next wednesday before we head to the Canaries.