The hike is called Vereda do Arieiro, named such because it begins at the peak of the Arieiro mountain.
The hike is free and so is parking at the top but like most places it fills up quickly so you are best to get there early. If you rent a car on the island then the drive is about 40 minutes to an hour from the city of Funchal. Its a straight forward drive but I wouldn't exactly say that its easy. The streets are narrow on the mountain and super-super steep.
My wife drove it like a boss though in the little stick shift Fiat that we rented. You also have the option of taking an Uber, Bolt, or taxi to the top and I actually saw several shuttle busses up there as well. Unfortunately, I don't know the prices of any of them to give you an idea of the cost.
Apparently some people even sleep on the mountain, judging by the tent set up near the start of the hike.
Here we are at the begining.
The thing that makes this hike special is that it starts at an elevation of 1810 meters and takes place above the clouds.
What you are suppose to do is start super early in the morning, 30 minutes before the sun rises to watch it come up over the cloud horizon.
The clouds are also more likely to be a little higher in the sky that early and if you're lucky they will reach up to some of the platforms along the path.
We saw a few pictures online of people sitting on ledges dangling their feet just above the white fluffy masses. We weren't quite that lucky, but we still managed to get a lot of good photos.
We wanted to watch the sunrise but weren't really able to because of our hotel breakfast schedule. Breakfast didn't begin until 7:30am, long after the sun had already risen.
Breakfast was included with the cost of our hotel and we wanted to take advantage of it, plus we knew that we needed to eat a good meal prior to the hike to carry us through the day.
That being said, we arrived on site around 9:30am, which was still pretty early in my opinion.
And so it begins.
The hike begins at a mountain peak, which means that there is a lot of down hill walking at the begining.
That probably sounds easy but it gets very tiring very quickly.
If I had to assign a letter to describe it I would go with a "W" since it has a long downhill stretch in the begining with an equal sized uphill stretch at the end and then some up and downs in the middle.
The path is essentially carved into the mountain and its even paved in stone in some places.
There are a ton of man made steps built into the rock as well that really hammer your knees and shins in the begining.
The path is almost entirely roped off, which makes it feel very safe, especially when you're crossing this narrow ridge (above).
The one downside to the metal ropes is that it makes it difficult to pass people if you happen to be a faster walker than they are.
The route is narrow and the hike is very popular on the island too, so it was quite busy in some areas.
It was a little better in the morning but got increasingly more crowded as the day progressed, especially on the way back.
We were there in May, which I would consider to be an off season so I imagine that it's even busier closer to summer.
Along the path are several panoramic lookouts.
Wooden signs mark their location and act as a sort of check point along the way.
Some people just walk to these locations for the view and then turn around and go home, even more so if they are just there to watch the sunrise or sunset. We watched people getting back into their cars and leaving when we first arrived so I assume that was what they were doing.
The landscape was surprisingly lush that high on the mountain.
There were a lot of wild flowers along the path,
and some places almost had a tropical rainforest like feel to them, though you can't really tell from the photos.
Other places were much more barren though.
There was a stretch of dead grey trees that looked liked the skeletons of a dead forest.
Knarled hands, stretching outward to claw at you as you pass... Okay that's more than a little dramatic.
Speaking of drama though, another interesting thing to see are the wild fowl.
I believe these are called Rock Partriges. They are quite beautiful and super colorful in their markings.
We were able to get quite close to them and they didn't seem to be afraid of humans at all. I stood their a while watching an epic battle between one of the partriges and a lizard (big drama on the mountain).
The bird was pecking away at it like crazy and trying to flip the lizard over onto its back to expose its belly, all the while the lizard fought desperately to get away. Surprisingly the lizard did win out in the end and actually managed to escape the birds relentlessness.
Other neat features of the hike are the tunnels cut through the mountain.
They aren't so long that you need a flashlight or anything but I did see some people using their phones as a light source inside.
I just stuck my hands out and walked through.
This hike is a singular path that takes you to another mountain peak called Pico do Ruivo. A little ways below the peak is a small canteen where you can buy drinks and snacks and use the bathroom.
We were actually pretty hungry at this point (maybe an hour to hour and a half into the hike) so we bought some cake and a few drinks to refuel. I bought a beer and a homemade lemonade and mixed them together in a makeshift "Shandy" or "Radler."
After a quick snack and break we continued up the the last leg of the journey to the peak of the Ruivo mountain.
It wasn't that far from the restaurant but it was all entirely uphill so it was a little challenging. It was also much slower going because it was a lot busier on this side for some reason.
Looking down you can get some cool views of the restaurant sitting there at the edge of the clouds.
At the summit is a large flat area that can easily accommodate a lot of people.
We spent some time up there looking at the view from all sides.
Pico do Ruivo has an elevation 1862 meters, which makes it the highest peak on the island. The begining of the hike starts at an elevation of 1810 meters and like I said previously, there is a lot of down hill walking at the begining with some further ups and downs along the way. As such, you can expect a fair amount of elevation gain during the duration of the hike - roughly 500 meters (give or take) in that single direction (thats per our phone apps and watches).
From here you have a few options on what you can do. One option is to continue on for almost 3km more to Achada do Teixeira. Another option is that you can pay for a taxi or shuttle back to your starting point at Pico do Arieiro. The third option is the one that we took, which is to walk back to Arieiro the same way that we came (double the fun?).
In total the hike took us around 3 and half to 4 hours and though the way back was faster for us I personally found it a lot harder. Maybe it was because it was hotter out by then or we were just tired, but the stairs that we walked down at the begining felt like they would never end and they were a real nightmare to our legs. Perhaps that will be a story for another day though?
For now we will take one last look at the view before making the gruesome journey back to where we started.
