Cloud Forest

There were moments in Mindo if I wondered if the “Cloud Forest” moniker was a PR gambit to try to put a good face on “Rain Forest.”  In hindsight, it’s probably closer to the truth, even though we had more rain in our several days in Mindo, than in the rest of our two+ months in Ecuador combined.  By quite a bit.

We left Otavalo on the bus, went to Quito, taxied to the Northwest bus terminal, and took the bus, downhill, through the clouds, to Mindo.  Suddenly, everything was green and wet.

 

It was still Carnival going on, and children and their folks were active.

There was native dancing at the town square.

We stayed at the Bio Hostal Mindo for about $32 per night.  The room was in the back of the third floor and their were windows covering two of the walls.

To give you a cloud forest sense, here are two shots from our balcony of the same place:

Mindo is clearly a tourist town.  But there are mostly dirt roads.  It is wet and muddy.  There aren’t many taxis because of the mud and ruts, so they use pickup trucks.

We had some good meals, but the highlight was the grilled trout.  It was a outdoor cafe, with a food court in the center with tables and chairs.  The meal, with a large beer and water was $8.25.  We couldn’t finish it.

We did go to the butterfly farm, which you will see in the next post.  It was about 5 km out of town, across from where the inner tubes go into the Mindo River.  Ellen had a snack.

We walked back to town, even though it rained.

The next day we went on the Mindo Canopy Adventure (zip lines).  There are about 3400 meters divided into 10 zip lines, the longest being about 500 meters.  It poured rain for the last half, but they say they are faster that way.  When our taxi (truck) came to get us, he wouldn’t let us sit inside, so we had to stand in the back of the truck all the way back.

All and all, a good time.  Though we didn’t mind drying off once we got back to Quito.