Mindo

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Well Josh (writing this) was a moron and left the photo card sitting in the internet cafe in Quito so we have no photos of beautiful and lush Mindo, where we were last week with our friends Adam and Molly. They have some great ones of us visiting the waterfalls, the butterfly farm, and the amazing place they stayed and the less amazing (but still very nice) place we stayed. We camped right on the Rio Mindo which was a small problem after we came home from watching Molly trap bats late at night...we could not find the path back down through the mini-jungle to the campsite. Luckily a nice lady showed us the path despite the fact that she opened her door in her undies to find us arguing about directions in the middle of her yard! The next day I went to the waterfalls with Adam and Molly while Martina had some school business to take care of in town. Then we all went to dinner at our place to have the local specialty, fried trout, and the next day went to the butterfly farm. It was so amazing to see butterflies (large and small) hatching and drying their wings off right before our eyes. We then sadly took the afternoon bus back to Quito.

Mindo was one of the top three places we went in Ecuador, and I definitely wish we could have spent more than 2 days there - I am definitely going back. Birds (and hummingbirds) were all over the place, and it was so Eden-like in climate and flora and fauna.

Love
Josh and Martina

p.s. This is Martina, I just wanted to share a really quick anecdote on flying in Ecuador before I forget: we were taking a domestic flight from a city in the south (Loja) to Quito - we were the only gringos on the flight. We were first in line to go through the security machines, and yet kept on getting passed up by Ecuadorians cutting in line! In the States when you fly you are used to everyone knowing the drill and everything moving very quickly - not the case in Ecuador. An elderly man in a full suit who had cut in front of me caused the machine to beep, so they had him back up to empty his pockets and re-try. After two failed attempts and him dumping tons of change into the bins, right before our eyes he removed a toothbrush and razor! Then another elderly man moved me aside saying, "that"s my brother!" It was all so amusing, we just stood back and enjoyed the scene. Finally a security official who saw us waiting waved us on. Then the funniest thing happened as we deboarded the plane: an elderly couple asked the flight attendant if they could keep the aircraft security information card as a souvenir!

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