My Trip to Mindo--The Journey Begins

This past week I was able to go down to Mindo for four days and I had the most magnificent time! I have tons of photos to share of course and much to tell you about this lovely, little tourist town in the Cloud Forest.

We traveled in style:

Our bus was a school bus and, as such, made for somewhat smaller people than most of us but it was still very comfortable and it was lovely to have such a delightful driver, Rolando.  We were on our way from sunny Cotacachi at 8:30 Monday morning.



We stayed in the most adorable hostal!  Here's the courtyard that goes to our rooms.

Here, two of my friends are helping me demonstrate the size of the leaves of some of the plants around here.  You'll also notice a lot of wet stuff--here it's wet leaves, above it's wet pathways, in other places it might be wet birds.  Wherever it is, it's a good indicator of the weather in a cloud forest.  It's not altogether different than that of a rain forest.

Mindo's primary industry is tourism.  There seem to be nearly as many hostals and restaurants as homes.  It's a very poor town and the pictures tell the story far better than I can.

Activities abounded throughout the trip and I'll leave some of that for another day.  In the meantime, tomorrow we'll take a step back to December so you can see all about the fun we had for the End of the World As We Know It.