MINDO

After a day in Quito I headed to Mindo for two days while Micha was learning Spanish in Quito. Mindo is a relaxed town in the mountains 3 hours west of Quito. It's much warmer (because it's not as high) than Quito, has nice fresh air, lots of birds and very friendly people. As usual the bus ride was quite interesting with nice landscape all around. When I got to Mindo, I had to find the hostel and asked someone on the street for directions. The man was very friendly, walked me the hostel (which was on the other side of the small town) and we talked in a funny combination of Spanish, English and German. In the hostel I got an amazing “room”.
It was basically a bed on a balcony with roof. Very nice. Sleeping outside with lots of fresh air. In the afternoon I walked around town (which didn't take very long), had a delicious mango batida and walked along the river for a while before returning to the hostel, where I relaxed for the rest of the day. The next morning, after a good nights sleep and breakfast I decided to go for a walk to the waterfalls before returning to Quito in the afternoon. I walked the road 4 km uphill before I got to the Tarabita (cable car).


The cable car was more than 500 m long and took me to the other side of the valley where I started my hike. Walking alone through the forest was nice and it was very quiet except the noises from hummingbirds, butterflies and other birds. I walked to two waterfalls. One was a little hidden behind rocks and it locked very nice with the sun and the water. Although the water was pretty cold I took off my shoes and walked all the way to the waterfall. On my way back I met a nice Ecuadorian from New York who gave me a ride back to town in his car. After lunch it was time to head back to Quito, where I hang out Saturday before leaving for the coast on Sunday.