Mindo
Ecuador
It was a miracle we made it to Mindo after the bus drove off without us. To be fair, it left 15 minutes before its scheduled departure time. We arrived 14 minutes beforehand, just in time to see it pull away. We weren't the only ones left stranded. A couple of minutes later, another bus pulled up, ordered us to jump on board, then proceeded to chase the first bus down on the highway. Once we had successfully caught up with our actual bus and flagged it down, we transferred over on the side of the road. Who knows what happened to the people who only arrived at the bus station 10 minutes early.
Mindo is a small mountain town surrounded by cloud forest. I presumed it would have the charm and beauty of other small towns we had travelled though in Colombia, but I wasn’t taken aback by it. Mindo was more rustic, with no effort put into aesthetics. It definitely catered to tourists though, with dozens of tour operators and hostels, as well as being a chocolate lovers dream. There were several chocolate stores, multiple chocolate-making tours, and even a place selling wine and beer made from cacao. Danny wasn’t complaining. It was also a bird watchers paradise, but as we know nothing about birds this wasn't a drawcard for us.
At 7 p.m. we were picked up for our night walk, a 2-hour hike through the forest searching for nocturnal animals. Our guide was clearly very passionate and knowledgeable, describing the flora and fauna in intimate detail and using long, technical words I hadn't heard since my high school biology class. We spotted the usual frogs, spiders and insects, including a spiny devil katydid that bit our guide on the arse (it was hilarious). However, it became more interesting when we turned off our torches and he waved a UV light around. Some of the leaves that appeared green before now lit up in a range of fluorescent pinks and reds. Tiny scorpions glowed bright white, bioluminescent fungi dotted a tree stump, and an almost transparent spider shone neon green. It was like something out of a movie.
The biggest animals were saw were 2 kinkajous, which are related to the raccoon but look like possums. They came scurrying down a tree to eat bananas offered by the guide before disappearing just as quickly. Our guide then left a couple of bananas out on a tree and had us turn off our torches again. A flurry of bats suddenly surrounded us, desperate to reach the fruit. With the lights back on we could see bite marks left in the fruit.
Just before the end, our guide played frog noises on his phone near a small pond of water. Nearby frogs joined in, replying with a croak that sounded remarkably similar to one on the phone. It was like being privy to a private frog concert.
The most popular tour in Mindo is the cable car/waterfall hike. Most people take a taxi to the start point, but as it was only 5 km from town, we decided to walk up the dirt road. It rained the entire way. Not a great start to the day.
When we arrived at the cable car it had miraculously stopped raining, but the clouds were so thick we couldn't see much of anything. Instead of taking the cable car we walked down the valley and up the other side (known as Route 1), passing our first waterfall on the way. Water was gushing down the river at a ferocious rate, no doubt due to the rain that probably constantly falls year round in this region.
At the other end of the cable car we commenced Route 2, an out-and-back trail that ventured past 5 waterfalls. A local dog had followed us all the way along Route 1 and was apparently keen to join us for this leg too, acting as an unofficial guide. We had these falls all to ourselves, which was surprising given it was a weekend. Two of the falls were hidden behind a rock wall, only visible if you were game to enter the freezing water (or, like us, extend the arm holding your camera as far as possible around the rock while standing on dry land). Although each cascade was pretty, none was particularly noteworthy.
Back at the cable car, our furry friend left us to explore Route 3 by ourselves. It was the longest trail by far, with only one waterfall at the very end. This didn't concern us, as the hike through the cloud forest was spectacular. The foliage was deep green in colour, the leaves were glistening with raindrops and low hanging clouds provided a misty backdrop. It seemed we had left the best till last, as the final waterfall was easily the biggest and most impressive, and it was here we found the majority of visitors. One other tourist was brave enough to swim in the tiny pool at the bottom of the falls, but I was happy just admiring the surging water spilling down in front of us.
Returning to the start of the trail, we opted to take the cable car back to the road. It was as rudimentary as some we had seen in Colombia, but we trusted its competency as it raced us across the valley. Even though the clouds had risen a little, there wasn't much to see other than the tops of the surrounding trees.
Walking back down the road towards Mindo, we passed a ziplining venue. We had been on several ziplining tours in the past and had no particular desire to go on another. However, they were offering an activity I had never tackled before: bicycle ziplining (in Spanish: ciclo canopy). Essentially it was a bicycle rigged up to a cable high above the ground, similar to a zipline, that you could pedal across. Danny wanted nothing to do with it, but I happily signed up and jumped into a harness, ready to ride.
It wasn't as easy as it looked. The pedals spun smoothly, but what I wasn't expecting was the up and down bounce of the wire alongside the side to side wobble of the bike. It was a double whammy that had me continuously questioning whether I was going to make it to the other side sometime before nightfall. I was holding onto the bike for dear life while wondering if any of the trees below me would break my fall. The relief of making it to the end was replaced by dread when I realised I needed to pedal back again. The second time was somewhat less terrifying when I accepted that I probably wasn't going to die and it was okay to look around the forest for brief moments. It was all over in a matter of minutes, leaving me with a natural high that lasted the rest of the walk back to town.
We left Mindo the next morning, with clear blue skies overhead not a cloud in sight. Why is there always perfect weather on our travel days??
