Faja dos Padres

Around the base of the famous sheer high cliff, Cabo Girao, are strips of highly fertile, beautifully sheltered land. It’s perfect for growing mangos, papayas, passion fruit, avocados and, of course, bananas.

It’s too steep to climb so the only ways of getting the crops to market is either by boat or up on the cable car. You can see the white dot in my blip.

It’s also wonderful for tourism. 

The locals go down for the day, relax, sunbathe and eat at the lovely restaurant. 

One or two companies have started to include this little place on full day excursions. There were only eight of us today and it was just fabulous. The perfect weather did help, of course, and it was great to visit a new (for me) part of the island. 

We had to wait to come back up on the cable car because they had to unload lots and lots of bananas….