(More than 350 images in the Madeira gallery.)

Madeira is a volcanic island off Africa west coast, not far from the Canary Islands. It is pretty small in size, but since it is the tip of a range of volcanoes raising from the sea, its landscapes are spectacular. It is also a perfect place for day hikes: the island is criss-crossed by levadas, a network of channels that carry water from the wet North side of the island to the sunny and inhabited South side. The trails that border the levadas used to serve maintenance purposes, they are now invaluable paths for the active tourists in an otherwise extremely rugged terrain.

This assignement was shot in December, when the mountains' steep walls seem to be saturated with water...