Lindo Mindo

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This weekend was fantastic! I could not ask for anything better!

On Saturday, we woke up really early and had to get ready for our big adventure. Monika, Paul, Tabatha, Ruth, Katy and I all crammed into the car and we started the two hour drive to Mindo! The drive itself was incredible. We passed Mitad Del Mundo which is the equator! We didn’t stop, but it was still so neat to do. The road was crazy and the drivers could care less. The road is really narrow and curvy, but people still pass one another whenever they want! I though we would hit someone every two seconds. Finally we go to Mindo and we drove through the entire town to find our hotel. It was called the Mariposario... we thought it would be okay but it turned out that the little girl, Tabatha, has an allergy to the rooms. We then took a little tour of all of the hotels in town. We walked into a room of each hotel to find the one that we liked the best! At one, there was this really neat bug that was as long as my hand and green! I picked it up because the kids were afraid, and I got to look right into his eyes. They were big and yellow. He looked a bit like a leaf. Before we finally picked a hotel, we went to a juice bar run by a German woman who was in Ecuador on a vacation and fell in love with an Ecuadorian man. She now runs the best juice bar I have ever been to! I had a coconut milkshake- amazing!

Katy and I had our own little hotel room with a shower that actually had pressure. After we go settled, we went to get lunch. Monika, Katy, Paul, and I then went to do the canopy adventure. Katy and I were the only ones to do the 13 different ropes. We had helmets, gloves, and a belt thing. I am afraid of heights (thanks mom for passing that on to me!!!) so I was a tad nervous, but as soon as it started, I was happy as a clam!! We were just gliding over the most beautiful land with mountains surrounding us! Some of the ropes were very long. We had two guides. One would go first to help you when you got to the other side, and one who attached you to the ropes at the start. There were eight people in our group. I loved it! Sometimes there were really long ones and you could do either superman or mariposa. With superman, you were attached to the metal rope course with the instructor... but facing down! You had to wrap your legs around the guide so you didn’t just flop around. I was so scared, but it was incredibleeeeee. I have never done anything so amazing. On one course, they would bounce you as you went! You were supposed to slow yourself down on some by pressing down on the metal rope with your glove... but I wasn’t so good at that so I always had a good laugh when they had to grab me before I hit a tree! I did have to talk to a lot of them in Spanish which was just more practice… it was a little hard though because I hardly ever use words relating to canopy ropes courses!! Then, on the second to last one, I did Mariposa. This one, you are UPSIDE DOWN!! You go with the guide on this one as well. My arms were facing down, my legs straight up in the air. SO scary but incredible and exhilarating. I did not want it to end. We then went swimming and had pizza for dinner. We were all really tired after the big full day!

This morning, after being woken up by an over eager rooster, we had breakfast at the Dragonfly inn and I had amazing pancakes! Then we went to the mariposario where they raise butterflies. It was so neat! There are some butterflies that look like they have an owl eye and they also seem to have a snake on their wings so that predators don’t attack them. When we were leaving, we saw 20 hummingbirds!! They were so close and flew right next to my head! I have some amazing pictures! On the way there- yes this is necessary- there was an adorable little stray puppy who I of course had to pet. He was not foaming at the mouth so I think I was safe. After that, we went back to our hotel to meet the guy who was going to take us river tubing. Monika (my house mom) was not back yet and the guy said "¿Dónde está tu madre?" which means where is your mom. He thought I was Ecuadorian! At the end, he also gave me his business card to give to all my friends… I believe he thought my friends lived in Ecuador and not the US because that would be quite a long trip. I just went along with his thinking I was from Ecuador to avoid having to explain anything else. We then went to the tubing place. There are 7 tubes all connected with rope. You sit between three of them where there is only a tiny little hole and you put your legs on the other tube. I sat next to Tabatha who is 8 so I had to hold her arm the entire time. It was incredible! It was 30 minutes long and we were just bumping along the whole river. At one point, Monika fell in between the rafts and we had to pick her up! It was a little scary but really fun. You wore a life jacket and a helmet too, so it was pretty safe! Then we went for lunch at a little place where I saw another puppy... adorable. Absolutely adorable. I picked him up and cuddled him (of course). Then we saw more hummingbirds. Unfortunately, we then had to leave Mindo. Before we left though, we went to a bird refuge where we saw tons of hummingbirds. Apparently you can see many other birds there too- like toucans- but we didn’t have much time to see anything besides the humminbirds. It was truly amazing seeing as I had only seen 1 hummingbird before in my life!!

This weekend was wonderful and more than I could have ever asked for! If you ever go to Ecuador, go to Mindo... you will not regret it!!!

Hope everyone is doing really well!! I miss you all!! --- Eliza

Btw- sorry for all the ecstatic adjectives… there is simply no other way to explain

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