Mindo Lindo

Sorry for being a day late. Last weekend was another fantastic group excursion to Mindo in the Pichincha provence of Ecuador. Mindo is about two hours away from Quito and as is known as a cloud forest because everyday the town gets filled with fog around 3 pm. As a Star Wars fan the second I heard cloud forest I thought of Cloud City, but alas, Lando was nowhere to be found in Mindo. I guess I’ll just have to wait a few more months for the comic-con for my yearly Lando Callrissian encounter. Mindo is also quite the tourist trap. The town is filled to the brim with hostels and gringos. But despite this heavy tourist influence Mindo still manages to be a very beautiful town.




The weekend was packed to the brim with great little outings, a majority of them that would not be allowed in the US due to safety concerns. After the two-hour drive on Saturday we settled into our hostel, which an unbelievable hummingbird garden, and went river tubing. Tubing in Ecuador consists of sitting on top of eight tied together inner tubes while hurtling down a raging river. You have the help of two unbelievably strong men essentially running through the rapids along side the tubes while pushing off rocks and navigating the currents to get everyone as wet as possible. Later Saturday the power went out, leaving Mindo covered in the warm glow of hundreds of candles. Playing dominoes on the deck with the candle’s fireplace like glow illuminating the room while hearing the zoom of the hummingbirds a few feet away was a blast.

(the hammocks were fantastic)

( there were always at least 20 hummingbirds flying around)

Sunday morning was filled with zip-lining. Flying over 200 tall foot trees upside down was fantastic. We also stopped at a national park with a few beautiful waterfalls and a great hike. While all these adventures were fun, the most fun I had all weekend was riding back to Mindo from the national park on top of a bus. Rarely have I experienced such a sensory overload. The lukewarm wind, the smell of burning leaves, the low rumble of the bus, were all aided by having to dodge jagged branches that were sticking out from the side of the mountain.


After all the hikes and all the thrilling adventures in Mindo, settling home to watch the last quarter of the Super Bowl palled in comparison. I can’t wait to travel to some of the other towns famous for their outdoor sports. Ecuador truly is the country of outdoor adventures and, as I discovered in Mindo, sore calves.