Hola from Mindo!

Hi all,
Dave and I have found ourselves in a little town called Mindo, about 2.5 hours west of Quito. Mindo is situated in a cloud rainforest, and it is well known for the hundreds of species of birds which live here. When we arrived on Wednesday night it was pouring rain, something that we found to be the norm over the past few days. The morning is usually bright and sunny and hot, and as the day wears on, clouds roll in over the forest and then it pours! The rain cools things down a bit, and then the rain continues on through the night and is wonderful to fall asleep listening to.

When we first arrived in Mindo, things were not going so well. Dave and I went out on a hike on a nearby trail to try and spot some birds on our first day here and all was going well until my stomach started churning. By the time we got back to the hostel I was feeling pretty sick and had a fever and Dave was starting to feel a bit sick as well. The night was spent taking turns in the bathroom and trying to comfort eachother as best we could. Needless to say, the next 2 days were spent recovering. We have no idea what we ate, or what we contracted that caused the virus; but being sick in a foreign country makes you homesick and sad. Luckily, a woman in town recommended we try some oregano tea, which is supposedly the cure-all for stomach ailments among the locals. We were cured!

When we were finally feeling well enough to venture out, we decided to take a 10 minute busride out of town to a place called Mindo Lindo, which we were told was a key birdwatching spot in town. We found that Mindo Lindo is actually a family´s house, they let people walk around their property (which is all rainforest) and look at the birds for a small charge. The woman who owns the business is a german ornotholigist who asked if her daughter might be able to accompany us on our hike to hear us speak english (she apparently really wanted her daughter to learn). Once we started hiking, it became clear that Edith, her 11 year old daughter, had absolutly no interest in speaking english at all, but instead wanted to teach us all the names of the plants and animals in the forest in Spanish. She was quite an intellegent little girl, she taught us about certain plants that could cause you to vomit blood if eaten, and how certain plants in the forest have adapted to growing upside down, so that they are protected by their leaves from the sun and from hungry animals.

Today we ventured farther from Mindo and walked about 4 miles to some waterfalls which we had heard about from a man who rode the bus with us from quito to Mindo. There were lots of people hiking the trails and swimming underneath the watherfalls, and there was also a slide which you could slide down which dumped you out into the river. It was super crazy! Dave convinced me to do it, and I ended up flying off the end of the slide and landing with a huge splash and a mouthfull of water. Well worth it though, super fun!

Dave and I just got back from hanging around a small coffee shop owned by a woman from Corvallis, OR (go figure), her friend who is also from the states, and another man from Ecuador. Tonight we will be meeting up with them to do some slacklining and hopefully, if it stops raining, they said that they would spin fire for a bit! We shall see.

Tomorrow it is off to Otavalo, where we will be doing some hiking before heading off to our first farm.

Ok, time to post some pictures...more to come soon!


Dave on a lookout above the waterfalls


beautiful view of the cloud forest



hummingbirds everywhere!


the poisonous berry....don´t eat this!



Views in the forest while we hiked with Edith


Yay Mindo!


Dave and I on a lookout over the forest


beautiful forest hike...this was before the stomach flu hit :(


beautiful flowers on the terrace of our favorite cafe in Mindo


ooo, lily flower!