Mindo, 12/29/12

On Saturday, December 29^th, we took a day trip to Mindo, which is about 2 hours to the northwest of Quito. We wanted to have as full a day in Mindo as possible, so we woke up early (6 am for Andrea, later for Michael) and paid the hostal before setting out with our small packs for the day.  Our first new experience on that day was to use the public bus transportation. The station is very near the hostal, but if you remember from before, bus stations make Michael uncomfortable. He actually did very well and figured out where we should go when I was getting pessimistic about the situation.  We paid our 25 cents to get onto the platform of the station, then hopped on the next bus that came by with “Ophelia.” Ophelia is an intercity bus terminal in the more northern part of Quito, and our ride on the crowded bus took about half an hour.  When we got to the Ophelia station, we climbed the stairs from the street up to where the buses were parked. As we were walking up, one of the bus boys was yelling – “Mindo! Mindo?” We thought we would have to go find the ticket counter, but he waved us straight to the bus that was ready to pull out. “Cuanto questa?” we managed to ask as we were boarding. It was only $2.50 per person, so round trip for both of us it cost $10 total.

The bus ride was beautiful, but we are starting to learn that all bus rides are beautiful here! It was twisty curvy through the mountains, and when there was a break in the foliage, you could see the deep valley we were driving along.  The plants were all tropical and – compared to Iowa – I thought we were already in the jungle. Still, writing this after our trip to the jungle in the eastern part of the country (the Oriente) I wouldn’t be the best person to describe the difference between the ecosystem of the cloud forests and the amazon jungle.

We arrived in Mindo between 10 and 11. It is a small town with lots of businesses geared toward tourism, I think for both Ecuadorians and international visitors. We walked 5 or 6 blocks on the main street and didn’t cover the whole town, but came close to it. Michael had read about a hostal/restaurant in Lonely Planet and when we spotted it on a side street we stopped there for an early lunch. It was a very comfortable place and we ate on the porch.

A few dogs kept us company, got called away, and then came back to see if they would get any table scraps. I ordered a veggie and pineapple sandwich that came with fries, and Michael ordered a trout that came with rice and veggies. Both were very good and  it was all under $10. As we were paying, we talked with a woman there whose first language was English and got some advice about how to get to the Tarabita cable car. We decided we didn’t want to pay the $7-$10 for a taxi to take us up to it, and would try hitching a ride with a  truck on the road for a dollar each.

Shortly after starting our walk, we were out of town. Just a little further and we were walking along the River Mindo where it is popular to go down with a guide on “rafts” of 6 or 7 tubes tied together.  A taxi pulled up next to us and we thought this was our chance to get a cheap ride to the Tarabita. The only problem is that I only learned the name of the cable car AFTER we returned from Mindo. So instead of clarifying that he was offering to take us there for 2 dollars, I just assumed it was the only place along the road that we could go. Wrong. We went a mile on the wrong side of the river with this taxi driver to the Mariposa (butterfly) attraction. When he said it was still $8 from the Mariposa to the Tarabita, we had to walk back a mile on the road until we got to the bridge that got us on the right road. I felt very dumb but Michael was nice to me and just said that in the future I should confirm that taxi drivers are really going where I want them to go.

When we finally got across the bridge, we saw a sign that said the Tarabita cable car was 6km down the road. Er, rather, UP the road. It was a reasonable hike, and we were booking it so that we could get to the Tarabita and still doing some hiking on the other side and get back to town before the last bus left at 5. No trucks came that we could jump in with, but it was good for us to be active and sweat out our frustrations and anxiety from traveling. It united us as well, to have a common goal of getting to the top, and that was a needed break from our seemingly constant debating of what to do and how to do it.  All in all, I think we got up in about 40 minutes.

The Tarabita Cable car runs from a platform on one side of a river valley to the other side. It is reported to hang 152 meters above the ground.  Maybe it was once hand powered, but they had a truck motor of some sort on the starting side that powered it back and forth.

On the other side we hiked in the Bosque (forest) Protector Mindo-Nambillo to see 5 waterfalls (of 7 or more total). I’ve named them in their captions. I was glad I wore my Chacos and could wade as much as I wanted. The water was cool and clear, and we were hot from hiking so it felt good to get wet.
 I wished I had been prepared to get more of my body wet. It was a perfect place to swim, but would have been cold to have wet clothes when we were done. I did put my head in to get my hair wet, because I knew we would be about 24 hours before even a chance of a shower.

We saw all the waterfalls and rode in the cable car and had time to walk back to town. So, besides our taxi ride that went in the wrong direction, we carried ourselves to our destinations on our own two feet. And that was it! The only other thing to say is that with all that hiking in my Chocos, I got a little raw spot on both of my feet – breaking them in! Michael likes his new hiking boots too and is happy with their waterproofness. With no access to internet that day, we thought of Ann but couldn't get any messages to her to say happy birthday. So...Ann, if you read this, happy belated birthday!