Samay Juku Mindo

Days 53-54 Traveled early to the cloud / subtropical forest, staying in the Bellavista nature reserve. Nice, quiet place for a day or two, full of nice trails, hundreds of birds (particularly hummingbirds - 30+ species of), insects and primary/secondary forest and associated plants. Pity there were only three guests staying (us ...

... more camera memory!

Ian has well and truly got over his fear of ladders (I think helped by our Go Ape experience earlier in the year), as he has been climbing up bell towers with not a lot to hold onto at the Basilica. Also been to the national museum which was a little strange as in some parts we were the only people in the building, would not have wanted to be locked in overnight! This may have been owing to the fact that there was a Ecuador vs. Columbia ...

... the pictures can describe it a bit better.

This week has not been incredibly exciting. We have spent most of it apartment hunting. We need something for August 1st when we are leaving our host family. I will post pictures when we decide on something. This coming weekend we are also going with the school on a day trip to Cotopazi (famous volcano). We are hiking up something like 16,000 feet I think. I will let you know how that goes :)

... but this also means that the ecosystems where the antpittas are found are being protected, justified by tourist dollars. He managed to call in a great antpitta named Maria and the tiny ochre-breasted antpitta named Shakira (she's twitchy, so it looks like she's dancing all of the time). We topped off the morning watching hummingbirds at birdfeeders before being fed a delcious breakfast of empanadas and balls of a green plantain dough mixed with ...

... not take pictures as donīt want to remember the pain that these horses went through for us lazy tourists. But you would not want to be an animal activist over here, they treat all their animals like ****

Following day we paid a visit to the local indigenous market at Sisquali, they were selling everything from shoe laces to spoons. Then the best ...

... to mug me. It was the first time i have been harassed h**e. (This was like the 2nd day i arrived) So i headed back down to the main city, it was disgusting in ev**yway. I would have love to take pictures, but knew it would have been stolen immediatly.

The things they sell..

So people h**e sell ev**ything. The most popular item...TV remotes, go figure right. Th**e are more tv remotes and cell phone stands than they is food. Also you will ...

... There were some crazy bugs in Mindo.. we saw a huge leaf insect in the restaurant we ate breakfast in and then at dinner there was a huge hard beetle flying around. The owner caught it and I touched it! It was one of those big hard bettles you see with the horns, but without the horn. There was a humoungous cochroachy thing in our room, but I think we may have dragged it in from the jungle because the place was really clean and I never saw any others ...

... around 15:00 and lasted for the rest of the night.















It was that night that we were introduced to the huge ******* moths that were literally headbutting our bedroom window to get close to our torch light.

Day two

By the end of day 2, I was beginning to realise why we needed so many carbs. More irrigation pipe dragging, laying, cutting, mending etc. All good fun ...

... I was entirely too warm and probably sweat out all the water I had drank that day. Sleep came easy though as I was more than tired.
I fell asleep so early, in fact taht i was up intime to watch the sun rise over the crater. It was interesting looking, but the crater isnt aligned for breathtaking sunrises. Later that day we hiked down to the lake to observe the colors, ran into an old friend from Bahia and returned to Quito, barely in time for Rum N Coke night.

... done, when the scientific experiements have all been logged, and the poo samples have been taken, if bears really do **** in the woods......... condesending ****!!!! The family I stayed with were lovley. They introduced me to their daugther, who at the time was busy gnawing at my ankles, as their "special daughter"....... I wanted to direct them to captain obvious at the pizza restaurant, but instead I smiled and gave her a complimentary pat on the head and ...