Portugal Episode 7: A Whale of a Misunderstanding

Monte Palace / Gardens: https://montepalacemadeira.com/en/

Wicker Baskets: https://www.carreirosdomonte.com/v3/en/index.php

Whaler Museum: https://visitmadeira.com/en/what-to-do/culture-passionates/heritage/museums/whale-museum/

Santa Cruz Area: https://visitmadeira.com/en/where-to-go/madeira/east-coast/santa-cruz/

Do Whales Drink Water: https://2seewhales.com/blog/whales-drink-water/

Snack Bar Bela 5: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g189167-d12690833-Reviews-Snack_Bar_Bela_5-Funchal_Madeira_Madeira_Islands.html

Travel Trauma and the creators are not affiliated with any country, company, or travel group mentioned in the podcast. All information provided is on an information only basis. Travel Trauma and the creators do not condone/responsible for any actions of the listens from the information gained from this podcast. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Brandon. And I'm Abby. And this is Travel Trauma, a podcast dedicated to sharing our traumatic travel experiences we've encountered during our trips.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Short disclaimer, our opinions and experiences are our own. This podcast is not meant to throw shade on any travel tour or location we have visited. So take everything with a grain of salt.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And we are the problem.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Yeah, you guys have been here long enough. You know it's us.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

You know the routine. Oh my gosh. Portugal is kind of like exhausting. Like, we did not stop at all, did we?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

No.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Makes me excited.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

I don't think we are equipped for chill vacations.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

So no, I I remember listening over the last few episodes, and it's just like, we're so chill. We're so chill. And it's like every single time we said that, we were like, no, we're not at all.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

We're never chill.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

We are not. But that being said, this is what is this episode?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Episode seven.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Episode seven. This episode, we're gonna talk about wicker baskets and hot dogs. Hot dogs again. We love hot dogs. We too love nice Lizzie. Mont Palace, parking, driving, and hills, Santa Cruz area and whaler museum, gas station parking lot, problems, snack bar Bella Five, and Sky Solo Food Tour.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

So where did we leave off yesterday? We left off, I think we actually did good. We went to bed at a reasonable amount of time because we did a lot that day.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

And we had great dinner and then we went to bed.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

We did because we did the pool days.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yes, I remember that. So yesterday or the last episode was pretty jammed packed. This day, actually, a lot of stuff actually happened too, but maybe not as jam-packed.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah. But yeah. Welling on this rolling. Yeah, we started the day off doing the wicker baskets, which I did not know this was a thing until like you showed it to us. Like you're like, oh, we have to do this. And I was looking at it. I was like, why? But yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Okay. So let me give you a little bit of a rundown. It's kind of weird, actually. But Mont Palace is on top of pretty much one of the is it a mountain or like not necessarily a mountain.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

I guess it's like it's on a high hill.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

It's on a high hill. So it's not necessarily at the bottom where the central Fun Shaw is. It's up on the hill. So there used to be these individuals who lived in this palace, like it was their primary estate. And I'll get into that here in a little bit when we start talking more about Mont Palace, but they got tired essentially of walking down to get to the main portion of Fun Shaw. So they came up with this idea to like ride wicker baskets down the hill to get from point A to point B quicker. So they literally just sat in wicker baskets and went down the streets of Fun Shaw.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I want to know like whose idea this was. Like just hear the discussion that happened. Like someone's being like, you know what? Let's sit in that basket and yeet ourselves down the hill.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

I feel like it had to be something similar to like when we were like discussing this podcast, be like, hey, do you think maybe we should just get into a wicker basket and like sled down the hill? Sure. Yeah, why not? Hey, you want to start a podcast? Sure. Sure, why not? It had to be that casual.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, but it's just a crazy concept.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Like, also, who were the people like like, did you have to apply to have that job?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Or like, I want to know who the first person was because, like, so the wicker basket that we were in, like, obviously, they have like people that know how to steer the wicker baskets, and they go on and and you're just sitting there and they like do all the steering. It's well established. But for the first time that they had somebody in these wicker baskets before they really knew how to steer them. Were you responsible for steering it? Like whoever was sitting in the wicker basket? Like, did they just go down or did they train someone to steer the wicker basket? Like, I want to know how much trial and error happened with these wicker baskets before it became like a thing to do. Because you can't tell me that they didn't run into a wall at one point in time.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

No, they definitely had to fall down those wicker baskets too. Like, there's no doubt about that.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

It's really fast. Like, these are steep hills, and like you just go.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Also, who made the wicker baskets? Why were there wicker baskets to begin with?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

I don't know. These are the things that we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Like a crazy thing, like, like, oh yeah, we have to do the wicker baskets. And I was like, what do you mean, a wicker basket? And then I sent you a video. I was just like, I mean, yes, we 100% need to do that, but like, what is the purpose of this?

SPEAKER_00 4:49

It just seems like the most obscure random thing to like send you to is just like, yeah, we're gonna do these wicker baskets. Yeah, just like what? It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. I I would definitely do it. It's kind of what how much was it? Like $20 a month.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't that expensive. Yeah. I mean, you did just like sit there and they it's only like 10 minutes, but still, it was a great 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

But pro tip for you uh for you guys, get there early. Yeah, this has become a main tourist attraction for a lot of people, and the line does get quite lengthy if you don't get there early enough. Like a solid hour.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

And it is like you're in the sun for a lot of it. So just be warned that if you don't get there early, you could be waiting like multiple hours. Because I don't think you can pre- could you pre-book it? I don't think so, because I feel like we would have done that.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I think you could buy tickets, but you still wind up like having to stay in the line.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Okay, so you yeah, because okay, yeah. You can buy the tickets as early as you want, but you still have to wait in the line when you get there.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Exactly. There's no like skip, like fast pass, like we're at Disney World. No, it's just first come, first serve, essentially. And yeah, do it, you guys. It's fun, but it's like a little nerve-wracking too because you're like going down this hill and it's like a normal road, and there's like still cars driving behind you and in front of you, and you're like, okay, I'm either gonna get run over or run into the back of this vehicle.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Yeah, like it's not. I feel like if this was done in the US, like they would have, you know, like police at every intersection so that the cars didn't there wasn't, it wasn't like that. Like the cars, I guess, just knew like, hey, be on the lookout for wicker baskets coming flying down the hill, like just a normal, normal day.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

No waivers were signed. If we won't waivers, no waivers were signed. No waivers. It was just like whatever, but also a good point to make. Yeah, like they do take your picture on the way down. They do, and you should definitely get it because it's it's it's like you're on a ride at the amusement park, and it's just like it comes in this like little like sleeve-looking.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

It's like professional like you get at the amusement parks where like after you go and look at the screen and then you can buy it. Honestly, because I bought it and it wasn't the I wasn't, I wasn't sure. Um, because it was like I only bought one of them, but then he ended up just giving me both, and he was like, I don't actually want your pictures, and I was like, Okay, cool. Um but it wasn't that expensive, it was it was maybe like 15 15, like $20 or something. I don't think it was $20. I think it was like $15. So, like, I mean, more than I would love to spend on a picture. But because we you and Sky went first, so I had pictures of you guys like in the wicker basket. Nobody had a picture of like me and Emily in the wicker basket, and I wanted a picture of us. Um, so I'm happy that they offered they offered that.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I think in mine, Sky's screaming because she's petrified in this wicker basket. Like she is losing her shit. She's like the whole entire way down. Crazy. And I think it I think the picture actually caught her screaming. So you just bought it. I loved it. I did buy it.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Oh, you did? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

I did, I did. I have it. I'll have to take a picture of it to put on our Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yes, yes. I definitely have the picture of me and Emily.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

But buy the pictures, you guys. It's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

It was it was worth it. Like memories, yeah. I mean, yeah. At like an amusement park, I'm always against them like I'm never gonna buy a picture here. Like, I'm just gonna take a picture of the screen. Exactly. But it wasn't like because they they printed them out and they like hold them up to you. So it wasn't like I could just whip out my phone and take a picture real quick because they're right there, like they would definitely get pissed about it. Yeah, so if I wanted the picture, I had to buy it. Uh just but I don't regret it. I like that picture.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

But they dropped us off like at the end of the wicker place. There's like this little souvenir, and like where they sell you the pictures, and then like this little snack. I don't know if it's a snack bar or just like a little cafe. Yeah, it was very small, but you guys listen, we were fiending for another hot dog because apparently we're just just like the guzzle the hot dogs down.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

We also I don't think we ate breakfast or anything. So like we were not, so we were hungry at this point in time, and the hot dogs there was uh they had hot dogs here and they were like good hot dogs, like they had the little like potato chip like little sticks like on top of it. I don't know. So I had like a hot dog and a Coke, and it was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

It hit the spot, it was like a foot long, too.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

It was really good with the ketchup and the mayonnaise, just like this random.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Oh, the buns were good too. They were like the big thick buns.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

I feel like they weren't like normal, they I think they were like potato buns. They oh yes, yeah, they were good. Honestly, that was a great hot dog. And then there was like a little souvenir place, too. For like if we got little wicker basket magnets, it's on my fridge at home right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I don't have I never buy magnets.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Same, I don't really buy magnets, but I was like, that one's cute.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Buy yourself a little wicker basket magnet. Yeah, and there was tile there too, and I obviously had to get more tile because I'm obsessed. And it's probably one of my favorite pieces, even though it's probably mass produced, but whatever, it doesn't matter. Just do it, get a glizzy, get a glizzy, get some souvenirs, and like huh?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

This is now my second breakfast hot dog.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

We're gonna have to get we're gonna have to get a hot dog in like Croatia. Yeah, I bet they have really good hot dogs. Anyway, I don't know. I digress anyway, you guys. So here's the thing, and we're gonna get into the Mont Palace, but let's give you a little bit of the parking scenario. So we we did not do this logistically correctly. So, like, we got up there early enough to find a parking spot, which that was perfectly fine, but we chose a parking spot at the bottom of the hill. So to get to the wicker baskets, we had to walk up this big ass hill to get to them, and then we rode the wicker baskets down to where like pretty much our car was, and now we have to walk back up the hill to get to the Mont Palace. So I don't know what you guys need to do, but you may want to think about that beforehand because we were hopping up puffing.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yeah. And I I guess you could maybe do the wicker basket second, so then you take the wicker basket down, but then you would probably have to wait in a long line.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

So you win some, you lose some.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

You're either hiking up the hill or you're standing out in the heat.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Where we did park, though, was actually a one-way, and we didn't know that we went down the one way incorrectly until somebody told us that we were doing an illegal thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah, you like we got an Uber or something at one point, and you were like telling him where you parked, and he was like, What? That's illegal. He was like, You probably shouldn't have done that. It wasn't even like it was illegal, it was like he was like, That's like a crazy road to go the wrong way. Like if another car was coming, like you're dead.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Like we didn't uh it didn't we didn't grasp that either until later on that day when we got done with Mont Palace.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

I think when we got up there, there wasn't a lot of cars, so like we weren't going the wrong way during a busy time, but like we probably still shouldn't have gone that way. But you know, it didn't die, so it's fine. We didn't die.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

But we'll get more into that here in a little bit after we're done with Mont Palace, but anyway, our asses are walking up the hill to get to the Mont Palace. It is blazing hot outside now, yeah. And yeah, just bring water and sunscreen and figure out logistics a little bit better than us. Anyway, we're getting into the Mont Palace garden area. We did not actually do the Mont Palace, yes, we did the garden area. I'm gonna give you a little bit of a rundown of what this was and what it used to be, and what it it okay, just listen. Mont Palace originally was a church, which I didn't look too far into it because we didn't do the palace portion. I just went and got some historical facts for you guys so you understand it. So do a little digging on that because that sounds really interesting. But this man named Consul Charles Murray. Oh, sorry, he was Charles Murray, he was a British consul. He purchased Mont Palace and turned it into one of his like leisure estates, I think is what it said online. And I think he held it for a long period of time, which he was the individual I was talking about with the wicker baskets. Him and his family, I believe, came up with that idea to get from point A to point B quicker, which is just I just don't understand it. But walking up that hill, it made more sense. Walking down and walking back up that hill, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

I feel like they should have found a better way to get up the hill. I feel like walking downhill is like a lot easier than walking up. Why didn't they create something going up the hill?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Do you think they had people pushing them up the hills with wicker baskets?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Honestly, yeah, probably. They sound like rich people who would do everything.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Well, they had to have had horses and carriages.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Maybe they had horses, maybe a donkey like that are attached to the wicker baskets.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Anyway, they held on to this the property for a long period of time until this man purchased it later on and turned it into a hotel. His name is Alfredo Guilhane Rodriguez. I fucking butchered his name, but he turned it into a hotel, and I think it stayed a hotel for, once again, a little bit more of a period of time, until I think they turned it over to Fun Shaw and Madeira, and they brought it uh this man in, Jose Manuel Rodriguez, Bernardo. I messed up his last name, but and he started working on the tropical garden portion of it. Apparently, this artist he would fly back and forth from like China, Japan, mostly Japan, I think, from what I've read. And he would bring im uh he would bring back I guess the culture.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yeah, because it was it very much looked like like an Asian like garden.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yes, it was heavily influenced by Japanese and Chinese, intertwined. Different portions of the garden have this, and you'll if you walk through it, you'll see that there are what are they called? It's kind of like looking at a pagoda, pagoda, pa pagoda, like Buddha. No, like the red slap things, like the little um, they kind of look like a gate with a red slap.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Oh, I know what you're talking about. I don't know what it's called though.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I don't know how to explain it to you guys. I'll have to look at the word, but it was all over the place, and then you had a lot of statues of like Chinese-looking men, which I didn't stop and read about like the history of them, but yeah, it was pretty cool. But the barns are just awesome.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yeah, it was just like a nice, like peaceful walk. Like there's a lot to look at. It was a lot of trees and stuff, so it was pretty shaded, which was also nice.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Um, yes, we just walked huge. It was, I think we only did like a small portion of it, and we were walking.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Wait, we only did a small portion of it?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

We didn't do the whole thing, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Oh my gosh. We didn't see so much there.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Maybe I'm wrong, but if I remember, we there was like a section that we didn't go to because we were tired.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

I think you're right because we got down to the bottom section, but there was like a few branches off of that where we could have walked and seen more, but it was just like it was a lot. You could spend a whole day here and probably get it all done, I would say. Yeah, but like be prepared to walk a lot because it's it's a whole thing there. And apparently they have like a hundred thousand types of species in the garden, like plant species. I don't know if I believe that you guys need it, you guys need to check my facts on that one because like I kind of like looked that one up and I was like, you know what, maybe, maybe like 50,000. But a hundred, I don't know about that anyway. That's just my thought and my little little fact on it.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

But yeah. Then we walked on to the bottom and got ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Oh my god, you guys in your ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

I love ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Dairy in the hot sun just does not sound like a thing of world.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

The hot sun, and you don't want ice cream. I mean, I want ice cream all the time, but in the sun, I especially want ice cream.

unknown 16:59

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

So we had ice cream and then we left.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I think we were looking at the flamingos and peacocks while you guys were like eating your ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Oh, and the people that were singing.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Oh my gosh, they were really cool. They had like um traditional dancers and like um traditional music playing. And it was really cool. I don't know how they were doing it though.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Because it was really hot and they were wearing like so many layers of clothing.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

I don't even know what that fabric that they were wearing was made out of. It didn't look light, it either looked like wool or like potato sacks that he turned into clothing. And either were those, no, thank you. That sounds it's probably wicker. Not wicker. They were wearing wicker clothing. I'm kidding, no, you guys.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah, but that was also like cool. Um, it was nice listening. We stood around and watched them for a while.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Okay, but here's the thing, you guys. Like, we uh she started on top and you walk your way all the way to the bottom of the garden. And then you have to walk all the way back to the top, and then now we have to get back to our cars, so we have to walk back down the hill to our heavy walking day, and this is when we realized what that guy was talking about. It was cool, it was crazy. Like, there was a lot more cars, like we definitely went the wrong way on this road, honking and a beeping all over the place, and then at the top of the hill, we we have Sky, and we we know we know she's afraid, but we just are bad friends apparently at this point. We're just bad friends because like we just did not inform her of what we were thinking. We were gonna come and pick her up, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Cause so where we were parked, like the hill, I mean, the hill going down to our car was very steep. Like, I thought that I was gonna slip. Like it was a very steep hill to walk down, but like that's where the car was.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

So maneuvering the cars that were coming up the hill as well. Yeah no guardrails, cars parked on the side, people just moving all on about. It was overstimulating. But we didn't, we had in our back of our mind, like, okay, we'll get in the car and we'll drive up the hill to get her, but none of us told her that.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Like, so we like get down to where the car is, then we turn around and see her like halfway down the hill, like having a full on panic attack. And at this point, there's nothing to do because she's already halfway down.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

It was just like we knew she was going through some shit going that hill. It was just like, oh my god. Yeah, have you ever seen like a train wreck or a car wreck and you just can't stop looking at it? Yeah, that was how it was for me. I was just watching her, and I was like, oh no, oh no, she made it down, she made it down, but when she got in the car, like she was visibly shaking.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yeah, it was not great.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

I was like, Are you okay? Do we need to take you to a hospital? Like, she said her left arm was hurting. I was just like, Oh my god, she's literally having a fucking heart attack.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

But like Sky is she rebounded like that, and we were off to the next little area. Yeah, which I think what time of the day were we at? It was like one-ish now.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah, when did we eat lunch? I feel like the hot dog was not carrying me this long. Well, we just had ice cream, okay. Never mind.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

No, the hot dog and uh your ice cream was carrying like it was a solid hot dog. That thing covered me for a while. Yeah, but it was around one-ish, and I didn't really have anything else planned. I thought mom house was gonna take most of the day, so I was like, let's head over to this other area and see if we can go to the beach.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah, because we didn't go to the beach the other day, so we were like, let's try again.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Did not work out this day either. But it makes sense, it makes sense because we were leaving at a late time at this point, and most people probably had gone to the beach at an early time and gone set up, but we still gave it the call, it's try, you guys. We drove into that one-way parking lot, and there's cars moving and backing up all over the place, and we just impact we just cut our losses.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

We were like, let's not go here. Let's not.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

It was our blood pressure from the drive to get out of that parking spot was already high. So it was just like, you know what? No, let's just walk around. So we just walked around the there was like this little walking trail around like the coastal portion of it where you were like looking at the ocean. And we just walked then and it was very pleasant.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah, it was nice, and it was pretty.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

But I feel like we should have devoted more time to this area because it did seem like a really cool area.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

I guess we'll just have to go back.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

We'll have to go back. We will. Yep. At this point, though, I was like, okay, let's just go back to Fun Shaw and like chill out or do something there for the remainder of the day. And I was trying to route us back to Fun Shaw, and I here's the thing, you guys. I saw on the maps Whale Museum initially. Initially. So I was like, oh my gosh, a whale museum. And I didn't tell them where I was going. Like I just started driving and then they like got suspicious. They're like, Where are we going? And I was like, We're going to a whale museum.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

And I was hyped. I was like, Yes, I love whales.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

I was kind of hyped too because I was just like, Oh my gosh, it's gonna kind of be like Iceland.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

And like was so excited. Because it was not a whale museum. Oh it was a whaler museum. Very big museum. Very big difference.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

We still didn't realize that until we like started walking into it.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

They did not hype. No, it was like they did not censor anything from these videos. Like we walked in and I was just like, what the like, why didn't we come here? I was like, I don't know what's happening. Like I was so hyped too because I was like, yes, like another whale USAM. Like we didn't see whales on our little like sunset cruise thing. So I was like, oh my god, we're gonna get to see whales, get some more like education on whales.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Oh my gosh, we bought the headsets, you guys. And it was like the whales, when they were being murdered, they were like sharing the screams of the whales.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Oh yes, they were sharing everything, and like it was like, and this is how they corral them, and then they like stab them in the side, and then it just shows everything. There's like blood all over the screen, and then they also have like the different materials like laid out, like, oh, here's a giant spear. That's just like traumatized, like actually traumatized.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

It was actually traumatizing. Well, okay, here's how I'm gonna do this. I'm going to talk about this and give it the respect that it deserves, but at the same time, walking into a whaler museum, expecting it to be a whale museum about, you know, like just just like these beautiful creatures, like, yeah, and how cool they are. Because we had in the back of our mind Iceland. That was the shocking portion of it. But you guys, okay, listen. Listen, uh, let's not disrespect the history here. Let me give you a little bit of that so that you understand why this is a thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

I'm still mad about the history, but fine.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Shit. Okay. Madeira used to be a whaler community. That's what they did. Like they this was a big industry for them. So, and up until I think 1981 or something of that nature, they were still allowed to be whaling. I know, which is it kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. But essentially, this was their economy, so it made sense. And it didn't click with me either until like going through that museum. Because remember on the VIP ship, like the sunset cruise, they would be talking to like these towers on top of like Madeira that were lookout towers for like whales and stuff. And I was like, Oh wow, that's really cool that they had these towers to go look for whales for us. But I thought it was strange, but no, those towers were meant to find whales to tell the ships to go kill.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah, so if they come murder them, but once again, it was their economy.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

That's what they had to do for their economy, and like to uh uh it was important to them back in the day it was because whaling was actually a pretty big industry then because of the murdered them so brutally, and I will say this like it was very interesting to learn about that portion because you don't know about it until you like start digging into it, and it was very fascinating, like that they uh it was horrify horrendous, but I understand where they were coming from having to do that for their way a lot.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

But they can't do it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

No, they can't do it anymore. But this was pretty much a uh like a museum, an homage of like their their history, very explicit, very explicit, yeah. But it was very interesting walking through some of it because it would tell you like what they would use from the whale and how they would process the whale. And I did find that very interesting. I didn't like it, but it was very interesting to hear about because you don't really know until you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

I feel like we need to go back to Iceland to go back to the whale museum to cleanse my soul of this whaler museum.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

All in all, if you were to go to this museum, very historical, very like informational on that, the whaling portion, but not on the whale.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Let's get into the second room of the whaler museum.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Okay, and I'm not, I am not gonna defend the second room. Okay, like I'll defend the uh the museum as a whole in the history, but I am not gonna defend the second room.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

So there was like two rooms. So the first room was like the whaler portion, and then there was this other room that had like they you got you had your headsets, and there was different like videos that you could you could watch and different things. It's some of these videos were so weird. Like, so you you could talk about your educational one first, and then I'll talk about the weird one that we watched.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Okay, so they left me to watch this educational one, and like I saw them walking off, and I was like, Oh, they're gonna go find their own video. And I was like, that's chill, go do your thing. So I'm sitting there, like watching this whale video. Like, it was pretty much like the way that their organs work, and the one thing that I found so fascinating is the way that whales' kidneys are made up. It's like a like a bunch of grapes, and each one of the little grape pockets is essentially its own little kidney. So whales have like a huge pack of kidneys all working together, and the reason why is because they still have to have water to be able to survive, not salt water, like actual fresh water. And they eat a lot of krill and their kidneys process the qu uh krill? Plankton. Plankton, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Whatever. They eat both of them, I think.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

They eat the food and their kidneys have to be large and like process it to where like it retains the water more efficiently so that they can survive. Because they still have to have water, and it's just like you don't think about that because it's just like, all right, these whales are just in the ocean. Yeah, but my video was explaining that, and I was like, this is fascinating. And I get up, I was like, okay, I'm done with this. But I get up, I walk over to these three, I don't know what the fuck you were watching. Like, I sit down and I start listening to it, and I was like, this is some weird educational video.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Like, I don't even know what this was. It was like Mur People. I forgot it was in 3D2 because we have three glasses. But it was like a really poorly animated, like, think of an animation, but like the worst animation that you can think of of merh people. It was like a story, but it was not educational at all. I forget what the plot was, but it was just like weird.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

No, I sit down and like all of a sudden it's just like okay, baby whales, we're going to go help fight off the sharks and help the merh people. Yeah. And like, this is why they do it, but we're gonna help figure it out and fight them. Yeah. I was just like, what the fuck have you guys been watching? Because I was watching my video for 30 minutes and they had been sitting there listening to this shit.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

That's all that's so weird that I couldn't, I couldn't turn away. Like, I was like, is there gonna be any educational aspect of this video, or is it gonna be this weird Myr story the whole time? And it was the weird Myr people story the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Listen, I sat down in 3D and I was listening to this, and I was just like, we've gotta get the fuck out of this place. This is the weirdest museum I've ever been through in my life. I understand it, I understand the museum, but this museum was so fucking weird. I was like, we gotta go. We gotta get back in this car.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Now that I'm thoroughly depressed, we get back in the car to go back to functional.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Okay, and honestly, the preface is next portion. Understand that our brains are like mushed now because we we literally could not comprehend what we just went through. So we're just sitting in this car, and it was just like, okay, we uh we need to get back to food shop, we need to get away from here, and I was like, oh shit, we have to fill out the we have to fill up the tank. And this is the first time that we filled up the tank in Madeira, and like, oh my gosh, you guys, it was just like Iceland all over. I could not figure this out. I could not, I had no cognitive skills to figure out this gas pump. But thank god Skye was actually trying to help me. We stopped at this gas station. No, you guys were just literally brain dead.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Brain dead processing the whaler museum. Me and Sky, we had to walk in three separate times. And then you guys went in three separate times, and I was like, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

I don't, I think we were like with the merh people at that point.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

We were with the merh people.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Okay, we pull up to the gas pump. It was it's in liters game. We couldn't figure out where to put our card. We walk into the gas station and was like, How do you work the pump? They told us we go back to the pump. We're like, we still don't know how to work this pump. So we walk back in and was just like, How much gas do you think like we need because it's in liters and we can't do math at this point? And they're like, maybe about 10. So we go back out after they prepaid it, and we just had to lift the pump and we pump it, we get in the car, and it's like only halfway full. And I was like, fuck. So we had to go back into the gas station and be like, we did not fill it up all the way. Can you give us more? And she's like, sure. Like so now we finally do the pump. But here's the thing, you guys, we still were like three gallons off where we needed to be, but we could not walk back into this gas station. We could not, so we're like, we gotta go to maybe a different gas station or something like that. And then we proceeded to like try and drive out of this gas station. We looped the gas pumps because we could not figure out where the exit was. We looped it twice. I almost went out the entrance, and then we had to loop around the gas station again to go out the actual exit. And I remember looking in the windows, and these people were definitely visibly laughing at us. And I was just like, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 32:39

That's fair. I would be laughing at us too.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

It's just like I'm still processing.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I can't figure out how to get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

I just wanted to go back in and be like, you guys have to go to the Whaler Museum and understand where our bodies are right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Anyway, yeah, but we did make it out with gas.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

I am getting PTSD from uh talking about that Wheeler Museum. Depressed all over again. My god. At this point in the day, we finally get back to Fuji'al, and it's like dinner time, and we're like, you know what? It we can't be stimulated anymore by any other stuff. But this whole entire time, Skye's been wanting to try like the Madeiraan dishes. So she found this snack bar called Snack Bar Bella 5, and we went over there and it was more of like the traditional things that you would find in Madeira. Yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

It was, it was really good, and it was it was like small and it was really casual, and it was cheap too. Yeah, it was not very expensive, which was also a plus.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

It was great. We immediately ordered two pictures of sagria, yeah, immediately, immediately, like to like just numb our brains out from what we witnessed that day. But we also got prawns, which is shrimp.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yes, my god, they were so good, they were so like large.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Oh my gosh, and they were like in this buttery garlic sauce, and it was just so juicy, and it was it made my hands so gross, and their napkins were not great.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

It was like tissue paper, it was like tissue paper, but it was those napkins that are like coated in plastic, so they don't actually absorb anything. No, you know what I mean? They just like they just like shifted around, so like my hands were just really gross.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

But we had the garlic bread to like soak up our hand juice. So good. Oh, that's so delicious.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

We had something else too. We had something else. Oh, we had the fish.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

We did. It was the um espada, which is I think I looked it up.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

What wasn't it the like snapper?

SPEAKER_00 34:47

No, no, no. It's black scabbard fish, which is like quintessential to Madeurian like culture and stuff like that. That was the primary fish.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

It was fishy, it was yeah, it was not my favorite type of fish, but I'm glad that we got it. Yeah, we tried it.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

It was interesting to try, like it not prepared in a bad way or anything like that. It was just like the type of fish itself was like different tasting to us.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

It was more fishy than a normal fish, extra fishy, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

And then I ordered off the menu, which it was under the snack like portion of the menu, and it was like the size of my face. So I don't understand. Yeah, it was called like a hamburger.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

A hamburger?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

A hamburger. I don't know why I said it like that. But it had like uh this meat, it had like that pesto garlic stuff on the bread, it had tomato, some like sauce on it. I sliced that bitch in half and I shoved it down my gullet so fast. It was so good. So good, but it wasn't full-on meal by itself.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah, no, everything everything there was super good.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

We caught the dessert though. Yes, this is the cheesecake.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yes, I love cheesecake.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

But this was the passion fruit cheese.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

It was passion fruit cheesecake. Yes, very, very, very good. I love dessert.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

I don't think I tried that one though, but it did look good.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, because you don't like dessert.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

I it's not that I don't like dessert. It's just I am just like big sput up. Okay, you guys, but this we knew that this was our last night at Madeira. So it was just like, let's we actually did do a lot that day.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Yeah, I mean, we were traumatized and we got good food.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

But we were like, let's go back to the Airbnb and start packing and get ready for the flight because it was not gonna be the same situation as when we were flying to Madeira.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yeah, we were like, we can't and it was pretty late at this time, like this was a late dinner. Yeah, I think it was like eight or nine at the point that so it wasn't like we were eating at like 5 p.m. and then going home. Like by the time we were done with dinner, it was definitely like nine or ten o'clock.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

So we start packing, but Sky was not having any of it. She was on the hunt.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

There was something, I forget what it was, but there was something very specific that she wanted to try that I and I think we wanted to order them at this restaurant, but they just didn't, they had run out for the day or something. Um, and she was adamant on trying more Madeiran food.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

I'm trying to look it up right now to see if I could figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

I feel like it was like a shrimp something.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Was it the espadada? No. The beef skew? No.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

No.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Okay. La Paz. That's what she was looking for.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

That's what she was looking for.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

That was what limpets is what it's called. It's a small flavor uh flavorful shellfish served in a frying pan and butter and lemon. Oh my god, now I wonder she was looking for that. That sounds fucking delicious.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah, and I I I'm pretty sure that we tried to get it at the tried to get it, but they didn't have it.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

They did not, they were out. So she decided I'm gonna go on the fucking hunt for this. And I think she went out and she found it. She found this, and then she got gelato, and then she went on the hunt for something else, which is probably the espadada. Espitada? Espitada.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

She just went on her own, like food tour. I'm surprised that all those restaurants were still open at that hour, though. Like, was I remember when she was like telling us like the next day all the things that she got? I was like, wait, why were all of these restaurants open?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

So she had a full-on meal, then she went out and found limp it's lapos, and then she had gelato, and then she went ahead and went when looking for espantata, and then she went and got gelato again, is what she said. So and then she came back.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

That's so much.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Where have you been? She's like eating.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

I'm honestly jealous. I like I was so full after that meal though that I would not have been able to eat like all that food. Could I have eaten gelato a hundred percent? Because there's always room for gelato, but could not eat. I mean, that's awesome. She got to try all the food.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

She she's the food.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

She just went on her solo adventure.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Couldn't. But that ends this day, yeah, and our last day in Madeira.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

It's our last day of Madeira.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

I'm gonna miss it.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Should we go back?

SPEAKER_00 39:04

I would love to go back. I wouldn't be in that wicker basket again. I do not want to go to the Whaler Museum.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

I will not be going back to the Whaler Museum.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

No, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Also, I really like I haven't seen a whale in so long. Like, we go on all these whale tours, we never see any whales.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

It's a numbers game. Eventually, I'll be.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

I feel like I need like after the whaler museum, like I've had like what, like a year to process the whaler museum, but it's still in my mind. I need to see a live whale just living its best life.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

On that note, thank you guys for listening to us today.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

Stay chaotic, stay chaotic, lovins. Lovins.