Herein find the tale of our adventure to Mindo, Ecuador.
Ashley and I had planned on going to Mindo since Banos. It is a very small out of the way town about an hour and a half from Quito. The description was that it was a sleepy town, that it had a two hour hike circuit with seven waterfalls to view, and that it had a butterfly... museum I suppose that raised 25 different types of butterflies including the Giant Blue Morpho. It would be a quick one or two day trip depending on if we liked the town or not. As it turned out it was a one day trip but not because we didn't like the town. The reason was that we had to return the motorcycle that we rented.
That's right we rented a motorcycle and rode it to Mindo. Not only did we ride it to Mindo but to get there we took the back roads. Fifty five percent of the drive was mountainous dirt road. I rarely took it out of second gear the entire first day. I was wary because we rented at 200cc Suzuki dirt bike which I thought may be a little weak for two people. That little bike was loving life! It ate up the hills and bounced along the sometimes stony path with ease.
On the way there we followed streams through valleys and went up and down mountains all along through a cloudforest. About an hour into our backroad journey the cloudforest lived up to its name. We expected a drizzly mist and we got it. The wind and the mist were playing a game to see who would win. About two hours in, with two hours left, the cloudforest outdid itself and released a torrent of small but effective droplets. Luckily we were wearing rain jackets but anything waist down was thoroughly soaked. Even so with the uncooperative weather we still loved the entire trip.
When we pulled into Mindo we had puddles in our shoes, our pants stuck to our legs, and we were ready to be dry. We went to a few hotels which were charging a ridiculous price per person (apparently Mindo is a bird lovers paradise and apparently bird lovers will pay huge amounts of money to be comfortable while they journey). In my misery I mistook one hotel to be fifteen dollars per person instead of the fifty dollars per person that it was. Ashley went to pay while I started figuring if I had packed anything that resembled a change of clothes. Imagine trying to explain to a hotel owner that we thought the charge per person was thirty five dollars less than what he was asking while standing in a muddy puddle in one of his rooms wearing only a shirt and a towel around your waste. Now think of that scenario scrambling to think of spanish words to explain the situation. It got awkward. Real awkward. I suppose the jacuzzi jet bathtub should have stopped me from taking off my pantaloons.
Luckily the hotel owner took it well, though he wouldn't even think of giving us a discount. He did point us in the right direction and after a short walk through the main street of town in my underpants we came to a suitable hostel. It may have been my favourite hostel yet. We have our laundry done straight away and I spent the rest of the night without clothing to wear. Luckily Ashley packed workable clothes and was able to go out to find us dinner.
We were unfortunately unable to see the butterfly museum or go hiking due to the fact that we didn't get our clothes back until the next morning and we had to leave relatively early to get back on time. One pleasant thing (other than dry pants) about the morning was that we did not fully realize how stunning the cloudforest scenery actually was until we were on the bike again. The trip home completed a circuitous route and was all paved road but the sun was shining and the puddles in our shoes dried slightly (our clothes that we didn't have washed and dried did not dry at all throughout the night).
We made it back safely and on time even though our gps locator stopped working half way through the ride home. All in all 100% successful trip and I think it is already a highlight of our travels.
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