Another edition of the Madeira Walking Festival ended, an initiative that has as alma mater the British photographer Terry Marsh with the support of the Regional Secretary of Tourism and Transports. This year Terry could not be present because of having had a heart surgery which disallowed travelling and walking. But as far as I learned he was always in contact with friends and colleagues, anxious to know how things were going on which, under the anxiety point of view is not very advisable for delicate heart conditions .

This year the program was influenced by the climatic conditions that have been an abnormal constant in Madeira during the end of last year and the beginning of this one. A very long time of persistent and hard rain which caused landslides everywhere and damaged routes, namely the official Tourism walks. Therefore, a number of them had to be replaced by alternatives, which on their turn were not at their brightest conditions. For example, the Royal Walkway Lombo da Rocha (Prazeres) - Paúl do Mar was very damaged. Parts of the track had fallen, on other ones there had been landslides and rock falls, the fences were partly destroyed. These conditions meant a hard physical strain on the walk down to Paúl do Mar and originated some withdrawals once we got there. One of the local coffee shops was the stopping point chosen by a few participants, waiting for the rest of the group to finish the walk and pick them up on returning to Funchal.

In general, there were some set-backs due to unexpected obstacles in many walks of the program, which once again leads to the conclusion that an effort must be done to allow real time information, with the joint cooperation of all entities involved, so that, not only in organizations of this nature but also in many private companies programs of the same kind, the available data may allow people in charge to quickly adapt those programs to the existing terrain conditions. This, always associated whenever possible to a great efficiency on recuperating these routes, in order to avoid non dignifying reasoning foreign visitors tend to have about the Portuguese (dis)organization in general.

As a final result, we can consider the Festival went on well, with no accidents, and although apparently with a few less participants than in the previous year the opinions gathered among them were positive concerning the interest on continuing for the following years and, maybe, organizing similar events dedicated to collectively interesting themes that may attract an increasing number of visitors. Other ideas could contribute to that purpose, namely alternative outdoor and nature activities. Madeira has a lot to offer under this domain, it is just a matter of exploring it with some innovation. Incidentally, the supervising authorities from the Regional Government have been doing this lately focusing on tourism promotion. If these efforts are coordinated and all constructive ideas are taken, we can go on trusting on the continuity of Tourism as important resource, natural and economic.