Mindo es Lindo.

Well, I himmed and I hummed Thursday (June 29) about continuing my streak of weekend travels. I had said to myself that I was surely not going to do anything because I had a lot to do and would have a lot more to do very soon. However, as you can tell by the way I am writing and by the fact that I have not written in 2 weeks, I became more sympathetic to the idea of traveling again since after all, it is not always that I am in Ecuador. Thus I left Friday morning on a bus to Mindo, a town about 2 and half hours away, with some friend from the states with the assurance of returning home on Saturday at a reasonable time.

The bus ride was fine … we got to watch the typical action-packed movie buses here almost always show. Also on the bus I started out the day by making a bet with our guide who was quite insistent that his Argentineans would beat Germany, the host country of the World Cup. I don’t necessarily like Germany, but to go against a lucky and strong team at home, I had to at least say I disagreed (I am sure that if you ask Fer or David, they can tell you that I never disagreed with them on who I think is going to win a game) and thus there was the bet of one beer. Well, needless to say, I had a beer that night which I did not pay for.

So back to Mindo, once we arrived in Mindo and went to our cabins, our first destination was probably an hour and a half hike through the wilderness following a small river up a mountain. After trekking across bamboo bridges, some steep and narrow passages, and countless steps carved out of the earth with some being reinforced with a root or a piece of wood, we arrived to a couple of waterfalls. One about 40 feet high we all propelled down by rope. I thought going down would be kind of easy but it was actually a bit harder than I thought. We all enjoyed the scenery before we left and rested a bit before I had my fresh fish for dinner along side a campfire. Then we went into town to enjoy the night there.

The next day would prove to be very tiring since we opted to take a walking route and not pay for all the car transportation. We all thought it was a good idea since there are not too many options to walk in pristine air in Quito. Well, after 24 kilometers later either walking down or up steep sides of mountains, I am not sure if everyone still felt the same. The walking though was worth it. Our first stop after about an hour and a half was more waterfalls from which you had the opportunity to jump from. One spot was seemed relatively easy and safer. There was a rock in the middle of the fall in which you jumped about 20 feet into the center of the river. At another spot much higher than the waterfall itself, you could jump from the side of rocky cliff into the river just below the waterfall from about 50 or 60 feet. The first one I did still with some hesitation because first of all, I am tall. I am taller than probably 99% of the people I see. Thus I was a bit worried but did it anyhow without problems. And the other one, well you can see the picture below with the caption.

So from the waterfalls, we hiked back up the mountain side, took a gondola like thing across a valley, went down an even steeper mountain side to get to another river where we would go tubing (Oh, while walking through these trails, we would look for vines to swing from … I swung from one but not some since all I could look at is where I would be going if the vine broke or I fell. And let me tell you, in spots it dropped really fast and I don’t think that the trees would break my fall very nicely.) This tubing was a bit different from what I and probably you are thinking. This was not some lazy river, it was a fast river filled with tons of boulders, but boy was it fun. With that done, we took ate lunch, and took the next bus out at 5 (so I guess I would return home at a reasonable time).

Since I am writing this from a bit back, I don’t really know what I did that day … but wait, I do. I studied. Something I probably should have been doing that whole weekend but looking back from where I am now, it all worked out. Also, I went to mass again in the historic district this time going to the cathedral – no pictures though since they don’t let tourists in during masses and well, I already look like a tourist and if I had a camera, I don’t think there would be much I could say to get in.

Also I wanted to say I was definitely thinking of everyone over the holiday weekend. I missed all the gatherings of family and friends, the fireworks, hot weather, and refreshing fresh water lakes. What especially brought on my missing the events was that I had drunk lots of watermelon juice while at the beach the week earlier. Somehow I just correlate good, juicy, sweet watermelon with all the good things that summer represents to me.

On a side note, it was my second 4^th of July in my life that I have spent outside of the US. My first time was when I was in Austria 4 years ago. Interestingly, both times I was with a host family and both times they fed me lasagna for supper – pretty coincidental

A view of Mindo
The church in Mindo
Here is a picture of an open area on the hike wee took the first days. I thought the trees looked neat because of all the moss and the flowering plants which grew on them
One of the waterfalls on the first day, this one I only stuck my head in, nothing more.
Propelling down the waterfall --- yes, the water was cold
The second day we all stopped for a break from our 24 kilometers of hiking. At this time, we were hiking up a road, the easiest part of the walking trip.So here is the place where you could jump off the waterfall. On the right you can see the ladder to get up and way in back behind the waterfall is a pretty big hut where I think you could get a bite to eat. It is funny though because this place was literally in the middle of no where and you could not just drive right up to it.A closer view of the hut in back plus you can see the rock in the center of the falls in which I jumped off. There is a bridge in back to get on to the rock.
So here is me thinking before I take the plunge --- so how deep did you say the water is?And yes, here is me jumping from the rocky cliff side too. I decided to do it and made it out alive.




Transportation across the river
One picture of what the trails looked like that we were hiking
Another friend we found during our travels.
Neat picture from above of us all tubing. Note the helmets. They were definitely needed for the boulders and for each other
Tubing again
and again

Lesson 6 --- How to use your horn

If “fútbol” is the first sport of Ecuador, then I would suggest that beeping of the horn is the second. Now let’s compare 2 big cities --- Grand Rapids and Quito. Go downtown to Grand Rapids and yes it is going to be a bit loud and people are going to beep the horn, but I think you can still have a reasonably peaceful time walking the river or traversing through Monroe Center. However, in Quito, people beep there horn a lot more often. If I am in Quito and don’t here at least a good 30 solid honks on my way back from school, I get a little fear in me because it means something out of the ordinary is happening. People down here beep their horn for crossing almost every intersection whether there is a green light, stop sign or no signs or whatever (I can understand this since like I have said, following traffic laws are at a minimum). People beep their horn when they spot someone near the street --- which is pretty much every moment since there are tons of people on foot and tons of people that need to cross the hundreds of streets. People beep their horns at the dogs in the streets and they especially beep their horn at each other --- I think there might be a higher epidemic of road rage here due to the lack of following traffic laws or maybe the altitude – I am not exactly sure. People beep their horns of course when someone is blocking the way and also when there just are a lot of cars and things are going slow. And when they beep and someone else, it is not just once and then just calls it quits. They can have a determination of pushing that horn until something changes. People beep their horns when they want to pass another vehicle and they beep their horn when they are about to turn into an intersection. Sometimes I can’t seem to find a reason why the horn was beeped. What I do know is that the horn business here must be booming. Oh, and taxis or buses beep at you as you are walking to signal that you can come on aboard --- of course there are probably 5,000 buses and 10,000 taxis each within the city (this is probably a pretty close estimate to the actual number). Thus city life is a bit loud, and I fear when I get back I will either be immune to the sound which I used to dread or will need people to start beeping at me in order to feel comfortable outside. But really, it is not too bad and I suppose it cuts down on accidents with cars and pedestrians significantly.