Miguel Andrade

I grew up watching the carreiros steer their wicker sledges down from Monte, and for a few summers as a teenager I trained to become one myself before deciding I preferred to talk about Madeira rather than run down its hills. Now I take the cable car up from the seafront most mornings with my phone out, showing the terraced gardens and rooftops of Funchal shrinking below. I explain how the toboggan tradition started as a way to carry post and produce downhill in the 1850s and became something else entirely. I like the moment the cable car crests the hill and the whole bay opens on screen.