Mindo Madness

We arrived in Mindo, in the middle of dense fog, not knowing where to go or anything about the town other than it was in the cloudforest. Luckily, an owner of local hostel was at the bus station and offered to drive us to her place, El Rocio. It turned out to be nearby and not too bad so we decided to stay. Mindo is famous for its birds, over 400 species, and I saw many just sitting in the hammock deck in the early morning. They would wake us up every morning, very early, with all their calls and chirping.

The next day we set out to the forest reserve to hike to the many waterfalls. We went with a couple of American girls who were staying in the hostel with us. The park is accessed via a cable car that sends you flying several hunderd meters up in the air across the canyon. The cloudforest is a very interesting environment. The vegetation looks very much like the jungle only it doesn´t grow as high. There is also not the same amount of diversity and no monkeys. :(

We first hiked out to the largest waterfall, a good 45 mintues one way. Saw lots of bugs and crazy plants. After that we hiked down to another group of falls that had some pretty good swimming. It was sort of like the potholes but in the jungle. We hiked back up to the cable car only to find a large group of school kids ferrying across, so we sat down to wait our turn. After about 10 or so crossings the pulleys on the cable car began to smoke and we were informed that was it for the day. So we had to hike back down the canyon and up the other side. Not too bad but we were pretty tired and hungary by this point. We caught a ride back into town in the back of a truck and had a an awesome meal at a local resturant.
The next day we decided to go do the canopy ziplines, a dozen or so cables, streching 1.7km above the forest. It was pretty crazy, but I didn´t bring my camera so no pics, sorry. After this we decided to head back to Quito on the afternoon bus rather than the 630 am bus the next day. This would give us more time to prepare for the wedding and hangout with everyone else who had arrived in Ecuador since we left Quito.

I am getting way behind in my postings now as we have had the wedding and now been in the Galapogos for a few days. Its awesome... so many crazy animals.