La Casa de Cecilia Mindo

I am in Mindo but this entry is actually from July 23rd 2008 La Pedregal, Ecuador: My last day as a volunteer in Cotopaxi's Secret Garden. From Cotopaxi to the Quilotoa Loop: Saying goodbye to Cotopaxi seems to be bitter sweet. I am anxious and so very excited to be moving on in my travels through Ecuador... after all I have been here for close to a month and have seen such a small portion of this diverse country! At the same time I dread leaving this tiny bit of Paradise. The Secret Garden i...

Again I am still in Mindo but I am trying to catch up on my travels over the past couple of weeks! This is an entry from July 31st 2008- Banos Ecuador Banos: My physical challenge. I awoke to the crowing of a few roosters. After a couple of weeks in Cotopaxi and the Quilotoa Loop the roosters good morning has become a welcome wake up call. I brushed my teeth and quickly changed into my bathing suit- hoping to get to the town's mineral baths as early as possible... beating the crowds. As I gra...

In Mindo STILL working on catching up on all of my blogs!!! August 1st 2008 Banos Ecuador Banos: My day of mental challenges: If yesterday could be considered to be the day of physical challenges then today was that of mental challenges. I started the day by jumping off of a bridge! Here in banos they have a bridge jump that is exactly as it sounds- and is similar to bungee jumping but once you jump you simply swing back and forth as a pendulum between two bridges. This sounded like a grand i...

Up in the Cloud Forest- Mindo, Ecuador. This gorgeous little town lies north of Quito and is the destination for backpackers and bird watchers. This morning I flew across the forest canopy on 13 zip lines! I hiked for 7 hours- bird watching and bug finding! :) Some of the toucan photos are a bit blurry but I thought they were still worth including!

I caught an 8 am bus to Mindo this morning. Aside from a very drunk old man practically assaulting me before being escorted from the bus, the two and a half hour ride was very smooth. I have NO clue what the hell he was trying to do or why, but I had a window seat and he reached across me and hit my chest repeatedly as he seemingly tried to open my window and then make my seat recline. Whatever. As soon as I arrived, I went to La Casa de Cecilia, a cute, tree house type of complex that Brando...

Mindo is located approximately two hours north of Quito, segregated in a subtropical clima. Numerous outdoor activities can be pursued in the surroundings of this small village. Lots of Fun!

We just spent two days at Mindo Cloud Forest. It was really beautiful. It´s a higher area of the jungle so it has a misty cloud around the tops of the mountains. It was humid and there were alot of interesting birds, butterflies & insects. We did a 2 hour hike up a hill and took a zip-line gondola over the treetop canopy of the basin. Once on the other side, there were a series of waterfalls to hike to. It was a pretty good distance, so we only made it to 4 out of 7 of them. We stayed at ...

Mindo is a couple of hours outside of Quito and is described as a cloud forest - it's famous for its bird watching and waterfalls and is supposed to be a good place to chill out - a much needed rest after the Mojito-fueled 3 hour wait for the match the day before. We got a room at Casa de Cecilia and were very brave to deal with a shared bathroom for the first time. It did help that there only appeared to be one other guest. We set off to walk to the waterfalls. Being the weekend there w...

Leondra here. just as a quick warning before you begin to read: i think somehow my apostrophes got automatically changed into Is, instead and quotes into fancy parentheses. sorry for the possible confusion. Lots to write, as we had unreliable enough internet in our last town that it worked out to add to our blog. So, a week ago, on Sunday, we took an early bus from Quito to Mindo, about 2.5 hours away. I felt like I stepped off the bus into a little paradise. Mindo is a small town in the clou...

So we´ve made our first move out of the capital. We took a 2h trip to Mindo, a town to the north of Quito which is in cloudforest. The bus journey was slightly scary due to the speed at which the driver took hairpin bends and went over speedbumps and potholes. We assumed he knew the road very well as he overtook slow vehicles on bends and spent lots of time on the wrong side of the road!! At points there were sheer drops at the side of the road, which seemed worse to us as we were on the outs...