Mindo

Hey everyone. So it has been over a week since we last checked in and we have been getting some feedback that we need to up be more on top of this blogging thing. It's good feedback fgor us to get because at least we know people are following along. Thank you.

We had a great week at school last week. Kurt got to play soccer with a bunch of folks from scool. International games are always the best and they are pretty easy to find whether it be in Berkeley, CA or Quito Ecuador. We had players from Germany, Norway, Jordan, USA, Ecuador (of course) and other unidentified nationalities. We have been eating up a storm and the first food blog will be hot on this blog's heels I swear, but we need a few more pictures to make it happen like it should. Speaking of which, we have had some technical dificulties uploading images but I think we are figuring it out so you should be able to see more soon. Last week we checked out the botanical garden in El Parque de Carolina which was great. They had awesome bonsai, orchid, and cactus collections . Like most tropical places plants just want to grow here anywhere they can however the altitude of Quito is just over 9000 feet which keeps things from getting too dank. There are also usually clouds around but when the sun is on you here it is fuerte and being that we just passed the equinox its even more so.

Friday night we planned a weekend excursion and packed our bags for a place called Mindo. Mindo is in a cloud forest slightly lower in elevation than Quito. We took a bus directly there from Quito which took us just about 2 hrs. Mindo is a town that has basically one main street and it is a popular eco-tourism spot mainly for other ecuadorians, which was kind of nice. After a nice lunch we set out on foot to explore the lush mountains and valleys. We walked for about an hour and arrived at the "canopy" otherwise known as a zip line. For $5 each (Ecuador uses the U.S. dollar) we rode the two longest and highest cables. It was pretty sweet. By this time clouds had moved in over the mountain tops and it had started to drizzle but it had little affect on the temperature or on us even though we were wearing t-shirts, shorts and sandles. We were still fine on the walk home even though it eventually started pouring and we were soaked head to toe. This place was beautiful - the type of place where they stick logs into the ground to hold up a barbed wire fence and the logs grow back into trees. Plants growing on plants growing on more plants and tons of colorful birds too; I guess people come from all over to look at the birds in Mindo, it has been designated an IBA, "important bird area" (ha). That night we had dinner with some friends we met on the bus and then sat on the main drag drinking beer, watching people and dogs walk by. We returned to our room right above a river and slept like babies.

Sunday morning we set out early, on foot again, our first stop was the mariposario (butterfly garden). We saw tons of butterflies, all different kinds - we could hardly keep them from landing on us, one of them tried to eat Emily! We also got to see the largest species emerge from the cocoon. After the Mariposario we were off to las cascadas (waterfalls). We walked for about 45 minutes before a pick-up truck already with 6 in the bed offered us a ride, good thing because it was another 10 minutes driving, standing up and ducking tree branches. We paid $2.50 to enter this private reserve with our newfound pick-up truck pals. It was worth the price too because we found a wonderland of water features to play in along the river including a concrete water slide of about 100 feet that they had built into the side of a cliff at the end of which was a 10 foot drop into a giant pool of water. Way better than your average water park and without all of the pee! (You can click on the pictures for more detail).

We're planning another excursion this weekend for Quilotoa, a giant lake in the crater of a volcanoe at about 12,000 feet. Next week is holy week and our last week of school. On good Friday there will be a massive procession throughout the city. Stay tuned.