Mindo, Ecuador

We´ve received enough complaints from friends to update you on what we did last weekend, so here goes:

Last weekend we left Quito for the cloud forests of beautiful Mindo. Mindo is a small, laid back village surrounded by lush vegetation & so relaxing that we ended up staying an extra day, though our funds were minimal. We started our day early Saturday, with a delicious, fresh breakfast compliments of our hostal owner, Cecilia. She was very proud to inform us that everything we were consuming was "de la casa"- fresh eggs, homemade bread & cheese, fresh Guayaba juice from her trees and homemade jam. Our stomachs pleasantly full, we headed to the mountains for a 4 hour hike to 5 waterfalls. To get to the trail, we had to cross in a makeshift cable car from one mountaintop to the next over a river valley hundreds of meters below us. Our hike came up short in the wildlife department, only one lizard and one snake sighting, nothing too exciting. OH and thousands of mosquitos, plenty of which left their mark. We then headed to Vivero Cafe farm, voted Ecuador´s #1 coffee, in hopes of a tour and a tasting. Upon arrival, we notice that the farm is smaller than my parents´backyard and that the tour was simply a "self-guided" look at the plot. We smiled, accepted the invite and took our walk through the 4 rows of coffee trees. The ladies offered a taste of coffee on our way out, best coffee since arriving in South America (did we mention that all they drink is instant coffee, EVERYTHING is exported). So, "the tour" lasted a whole 15 minutes, we alotted a couple of hours...what to do? Well, we´re not into the canopy tours and it was too late to try and scope out tropical birds, so we had a few Pilseners, a few card games and called it a day. We arranged an early morning bird hike with a guide for Sunday at 6AM, which turned out to be the highlight of the weekend for both of us. William, our guide, was amazing. We were thoroughly impressed by his knowledge and ability to point out every bird within earshot. Including this toucan which was barely visible without the scope! Sunday afternoon consisted of hanging out by the river that runs through town and staring at hundreds of hummingbirds zooming past with a local friend we encountered. On our way to grab a bite to eat we realize there was a bus station in Mindo, who would of thought? since our bus dropped us off outside of town when we arrived! We popped in to check on bus times for Monday, to our suprise all buses were full except the 6AM departure...another early morning for us. We were back in Quito by 9:30AM on Monday, but in unfamiliar territory, the bus we took dropped us off at the northernmost bus station in Quito, about 40km from our apartment...another adventure!