Mindo cloud forests

After an adventure packed few days in the jungle we took a day off in Quito to sort out pictures, blogs, washing, resting etc - and time well spent it was. Nice to have a whole bag of clean clothes again as we (and our gear) smelt really bad after the humid jungle trekking.

Just 2 hours north of Quito is an area called the cloud forests. They are at an altitude of 1300m and famous for their large population of hummingbirds. We arrived in the pouring rain (this is a theme in Ecuador) and found safety in Hostel Cecilia (only $5 per night!!) The little town of Mindo is not a very happening place and facilities are rather limited, but we did manage to find a spot with nice red wine and fire to get us warm and dry. Comedy is that the whole town had no electricity that day and late into the night - but we had a torch to keep us safe...until we came across a bull in the middle of the road mooing angrily at us and then the torch was not a useful weapon (we opted for the 'run away' option)

The next morning we were thrilled to find that the electricity was back on, but oh, no water!! Un-phased by this we decided a country stroll was in order - the butterfly farm first. On a budget and having it described as 'a 20min walk' we headed off on foot up the valley arriving 40min (and 3kms) later so hot we didn't know what other item of clothing we could roll up or remove. Nice butterflies though!
Already being hot a sweaty we thought we would just walk the 3km downhill home again (and butterfly farms don't generally have a taxi service)
2km down the road we saw a sign for canopy ziplines (1.7km away) - oh what the hell! Now this is where we questioned our own sanity...it turned out to be 1.7km up a steep hill (repeat of our Malaysia tea plantation experience) and right at the top of the mountain! The ziplines (13 in total) through the jungle were excellent, until we did the superman (will have to show you - not pretty) or the butterfly (Simon did this one...upside down and resembling a starfish more than a butterfly) no pictures unfortunately!

Seeing as we had walked all the way there why not walk the 2.7kms home!! Knackered we were and very glad to find water in the taps for a much needed shower. Perfect afternoon in the hammocks on the deck watching the hummingbirds drinking in the garden.

That evening Alex, Ed and Matt arrived from Quito. We had met Alex at the Secret Garden and they were planning to stay in Mindo for some hiking for the next few days. We had already booked a trip with taxi and zipline for the next day, so they joined us.

Dinner that evening was a chilled affair in a cafe that didn't on the face of it look like it would normally serve food but did have a special on the local brew, imaginatively named Pilsener!! The music was provided by the huge truck rig parked outside, he only had a BoneyM megamix compilation CD but it seemed to smooth the conversation and evening on nicely. A few beers and some reasonable pasta later we retired to our beds in preparation for the waterfall hike the next day.

Cecelia provided a decent breakfast to get us going and an early start was on the cards as we had an afternoon bus to catch back to Quito so we got an early taxi to the park entrance...only to wait an hour for the guy who works the cable car over to the other side of the valley.

Once there we trekked for an hour to find one of the nicest waterfalls we have seen so far, up a few steps and out of the way a little but a beaut none-the-less.