I walked over to Mercado dos Lavradores to check out the local market, with most of the stores selling a combination of flowers, fruits, spices and souvenirs.
There were some really interesting fruits here which I have never seen before. This is pineapple banana, and there's even passionfruit banana.
And all these different chillies!
There's also a fish market, and I found the local Scabbard Fish.
Rua de Santa Maria is known as the street with doors with art. A narrow lane filled with restaurants with numerous doors (and sometimes walls) painted with different images. Some of my favourite ones are
By the time I got to the cable car at about 10.15am, there was a long queue snaking. The wait took about 40 mins to reach the cable cars, and then a 15 minute panoramic ride to the top.
On the East Tour yesterday, we had briefly stopped through Monte and I had already visited the church. The only other place that was worth a visit in the area was the Monte Palace and the Tropical Gardens. However when I saw that it costs €12.50 for admission, I decided against entering.
The main reason why I wanted to come back up to Monte was to take the Tobbagan - a means of transport that looks like a sled, however this is made out of wicker basket and a flat wooden base. There are no brakes and requires 2 men to constantly run and push the tobbagan down a road which is also being used by normal cars, while avoiding any traffic along the way.
At one point, as we were about to pass an intersection, 2 cars each from the left and right side of the intersection appeared, just as we were closing in to the centre of the intersection. Thankfully the cars came to a stop just as we slid past them.
The 2 guys who were pushing my tobbagan were very experience with 24 and 27 years respectively, so in some way I felt in very safe hands. They shared there are about 154 men in the group and they make about 3 or more trips each day depending on the crowd.
The ride down is about 2km long and took less than 10 mins. It was super exhilarating.
The tobbagan ride is the only 1 in the world, and has been around for over many years, as it was the only means of transport to get down from Monte to Funchal, since there were no roads back then.
There were images of the olden days where it showed how the tobbagan looked back then, and how the men who pushed the tobbagan had to slowly carry the baskets back up on foot, since there were no roads back then.
It's a lot easier now, as the tobbagans are now loaded on trucks and ferried back up.
The end point of the Tobbagan ride is not in Funchal city - to get to the city centre, it requires about a 20 mins walk, passing by the hostel as I made my way down.
I was starving by then and headed over to Funchal sushi, a restaurant which had promoted a free flow Sushi and sashimi for just €14 for lunch.
It's been a long time since I had decent sushi, and the portion served was really a lot that I struggled to eat through it all, although I did finish most of the items and even requested for an additional portion of sashimi.
By the time I was finished, I was so stuffed that I couldn't even have dinner in the night!
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