André Rocha is touring the coast of Madeira on foot, in what he calls the “Great Indigo Route”. There are 200 kilometers that the founder of The Escapist intends to map to mark a future land route. The adventure has the support of the Madeira Promotion Association.
After, in 2021, having traveled the 961 kilometers of the coast of mainland Portugal, from Caminha to Vila Real de Santo de António, André Rocha began, last Monday, to discover the coast of the island of Madeira.
The route is being done solo, as happened in the crossing of the Portuguese mainland coast, but, while this route took 19 days, the coast of Madeira should be covered until next Friday, the 17th. Departing from Funchal towards West, there will be about 200 kilometers on what André Rocha calls the “Great Indigo Route”, due to the color of the sea that bathes the archipelago.
The project began to be designed a few months ago and has the support of regional entities, namely the Madeira Promotion Association, but also the Institute of Forests and Nature Conservation and the Caminho Real da Madeira Association. The objective is to map the entire coast of the island and, in the end, allow the generated GPS file to be used to mark a new land route.
The president of the Madeira Promotion Association and Regional Secretary for Tourism and Culture, Eduardo Jesus, emphasizes that this initiative by André Rocha, by presenting an innovative coastal pedestrian route, will allow us to offer another attraction in the set of recommended routes in the Region. “Madeira is a destination that privileges experiences and this future route will certainly reinforce the differentiation and offer in terms of nature tourism”, he says.
André Rocha, a 45-year-old university professor and manager, is the founder of The Escapist, a non-profit project that promotes hikes and expeditions in unusual or remote locations.