This is the story of a journey and of a grail that was found and emptied and filled again by magic. Every word is true. The journey was undertaken by the photographer and myself, and liquor ran through it like water gurgling down a Madeiran mountainside.

It was clear from the start that Photographer and I were a recipe for an exciting new cocktail. Poured together into a small Avis car on the wrong side of a road consisting entirely of sharp bends and vertiginous overhangs, a road used by drivers of large trucks (veiculo longos) to practice for the Paris Dakar rally, we tended to arrive at our destinations both shaken and stirred: a Madeiran Martini.

Up in the dreamland of first class the photographer and I savored Portuguese wines and Scottish malts. By the time we landed in Funchal, lack of sleep had added an edgy zest to the experience. The captain threw the engines dramatically into reverse. Fear dropped in like an olive. We stepped gingerly onto God's island.

Madeira is a gnomic garden that is always in blossom, a volcanic extravaganza rising lush and sheer from the green Atlantic. It is a place to make you understand that the Hispanic tradition of magical realism is no more than a mirror held to the world. It should come as no surprise that three hundred years ago the Virgin appeared on a hilltop to the villagers of Egreija.

Madeira is also an interesting place to switch to the other side of the road. The veiculo longos, keen to qualify for the rally, accelerate into the corners. And Madeira is all corners. Steep corners. There is really nothing to do about the veiculo longos, bar turning sharply into the gutter and stalling. The photographer was very helpful. I took charge of the centimeters between me and the speeding veiculo longos and he worried about the right-hand bumper. He veered between optimism and despair. "You've got plenty of room," he would say. "Fine this side." And then: "Fuck!!!!"

The photographer and I were really excited when we got the Avis car to Funchal – even more so when we spotted our hotel, the Savoy. Then it disappeared. We would see its enormous shuttered Spanish visage and try to approach from a different angle, but then we would be distracted by some small crisis – like a traffic circle – and Mr Berardo's hotel would vanish. Its elusiveness was as magical as Father Antonio's bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. The hotel was as ephemeral as its owner, Joe Berardo.

Joe Berardo left Madeira as a youth and traveled to South Africa to make money. He began by selling vegetables to the mines. He lives now, when he is in Funchal, at the very top of the town in the small and stately palace that lies at the center of the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens (owned and run by the Joe Berardo foundation).

Mr. Berardo's hotel is all old marble and chandeliers. Early on the morning of our arrival a small bandy uniformed man was polishing leather banisters. Our chambers unready, we were ushered to the Bellevue Buffet on the seventh floor. It is as big as a rugby field, owns a view of the wide Atlantic, and is inhabited by 137 couples, all aged sixty-five. Barring the smallest variation in pastel, they dress identically. The men carry floppy white hats for the sun. They all wear glasses. They speak seven languages between them, and they come for the flowers. We understood why that afternoon when we drove into the flower parade.

"You cannot go to the Savoy," said the astonished policeman, "there is a festa."

Car abandoned in a parking lot, we watched as Funchal's sons danced past us wearing uncomfortable, life-sized papier-mâché dolphins on their heads. Funchal's mothers had painted their shoes blue to match the dolphins. The floats were all made of genuine flora, and one was crowned by an island girl with golden stars jingling on her nipples. I absconded and walked down to swim in the Savoy's warmed seawater pool on the rocky shore. I was a lone character in a movie in Eastern Europe until one of Mr. Berardo's men came and offered me a towel.