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Mitad del Mundo
Angela, Byron and Pieter It was Saturday and our host in Quito, Byron, took us out for the day. He brought along Angela. We took a metro bus out to the last stop past the airport. We changed to a bus for Mitad del Mundo (the middle of the world .. ie. the equator). The entire journey of 1.5 hours cost only 35 cents. Always nice to have a local showing you the way. Basically the middle of the world is a big complex of tourist traps. Still it had a funny kind of charm. Got some great views from the top of the monument in the middle. There were lots of buildings containing art and exhibitions. There was a really interesting exhibition about the space station in French Guiana.. reckon we should go there. And another about an expedition to Ecuador to measure the arc of the earth. One building contains a miniature version of the old town in Quito. While you watch, the sun goes down and then comes up again.
We had planned to return to Quito but Byron suggested that since we were already on the way, we might as well continue to Mindo and stay overnight. We thought
it was a good idea, bit of an adventure. So we flagged down a bus and jumped on. Only $2 for about an hour and a half. The countryside soon turned to lush rainforest and we climbed the windy road. It soon got misty and rainy. At one town in the mist a lot of people got off and a bunch of vendors got on the bus. We had corn and cheese. Nice and hot and very tasty. We got off the bus at the turnoff to Mindo. It was another 20 minutes down the hill but there was no bus. We had thought to hitch a ride but there was a man there waiting with a hilux ute so we jumped in for 70 cents each.
Mindo is a beautiful little town with one main road and wooden buildings and lots of people hanging around under balconies out of the rain. As we were not prepared for the rain or an overnight stay we went and brought some umbrellas, toothbrushes and hair combs. The essentials. Then accommodation. We wandered a couple of streets back from the main road through the mud and found 'El Rocio'. The friendly faced
hostess led us around the main building, through a beautiful garden, to a 2-storey wooden building out the back. Each floor was an apartment sleeping 5 or 6 people with bunks and double beds, and kitchen area and bathroom, mosquito nets and hammocks. For $10 each a night including breaky it was a good deal.
We went off in search of dinner and found a great place called Caskaffesu. They had tables on the porch and we enjoyed some great food.. and lots of it, including bananas and chips. Their ice cream was fantastic, all the local fruit flavours and they made great chocolate brownies. This was because a lady from Arizona owned the place with her Ecuadorian husband. They had been open for a week or two and had originally only opened as a cafe to compliment their hostel, but lots of people had come looking for a proper feed so they changed the menu and this week were offering great mains also.
Back at the room we found we had been invaded by two bloody big cockroaches and a big hairy spider. Pieter took care of one of the roaches and Byron chased the spider in
Mindo
Where we stayed the night. El Rocio a crack under the sink. He told me later that it had jumped at him when he tried to catch it. It was good that he told me after we had left the next day. He reckoned it was a baby tarantula. After a good night sleep we enjoyed a great breakfast on a porch again including Naranjilla juice, a jungle fruit. There were two cute dogs there that were in need of attention and 4 ducks waddling around. As we walked to the main square a very big frog was jumping down the footpath in the other direction. He made Pieter jump a mile when he caught him moving out of the corner of his eye. It was funny.
We decided to take a taxi to the butterfly park called 'Mariposas de Mindo'. Another ute, this time we climbed on the back and stood holding the cage while the driver negotiated the dirt road. Thoroughly enjoyable in the cool morning air. The butterfly place was beautiful, very green with fish in the creek. We had a brief intro to the butterfly house. They had caterpillars growing, some really big buggers a good 15-20 cm long, probably morphos, and
a hatchery for the chrysalises. They were hatching all the time. They had poisonous frogs in a tank and more fish in a pond. It was cloudy this morning so the butterflies were not flying. The staff rattled the netting walls and plants to give us more of show. There was at least one morpho butterfly and lots of other big species. A varied collection, we stayed for quite a while taking heaps of photos. As we left our attention was drawn to the hummingbird feeders. Standing for 5 minutes very close to the feeders we saw at least 4 different species of hummingbirds. We walked back to town, seeing many more butterflies along the way.
After a quick drink we went off in search of more hummingbirds. We could pay to go into a garden where might find hummingbirds, but when Byron asked the man at the gate if there were any around, he said something like 'I can hardly open my gate if there are no birds'. He was grumpy and his neighbour agreed. She sent her son off with us to take us to another place on road out of town. Turned out it was a
second butterfly park, not some many butterflies, but lots more hummingbirds attracted to the feeders around a viewing platform. At least 5 different species, one with a red tail was intent on chasing all the others away.
We had to get back to the main road to catch the bus so this time we hitched a ride. A young fella stopped with his red chevy ute and decided to play a game of 'how fast can I go through the potholes and around the corners with 4 tourists in the back'. His girlfriend in the front was trying to get him to behave but you could tell she was getting nowhere. We were quite grateful to survive back to the turn off where we jumped out and waited for the bus. Didn't take too long for it to arrive, and it was only $2 and 2 hours back to the Quito bus station across from Byron's house. Very handy and a great weekend.
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