Last weekend we went to Mindo, Ecuador to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary, which was on June 5th. We took the bus from Quito to Mindo, which is about a 2 hour drive northwest through the winding mountain roads.
Hannah in front of the ticket office
Hannah in front of our bus
We stayed at a hostel called Bio Hostal, and it just so happens that we were given room #11...very fitting.
Mindo is a small town with one main street that has restaurants, hotels, tour/activity offices, and some shopping. Our hostel was a couple blocks away from the main street.
Mindo
There is a lot to do in Mindo, including: ziplining (if that's a word) which they call "canopy", hiking, waterfalls, butterflies, bird-watching, horseback riding, and canyoning (repelling down a waterfall). We did not get it all in on this trip, but we plan on going back.
We went on a chocolate tour, where we learned how this...
...somehow turns into this.
The seeds from the picture above are put through a drying process and end up looking like this
Then they are spread out on this table where they are picked apart by hand...
...by this guy.
These "chips" go through a couple other processes (heating and cooling) where they turn into pure liquid chocolate
A few pictures from the butterfly exhibit:
We did a lot of hiking to get to a few different waterfalls. But first we had to ride in a cable car ("tarabita") across the valley.
The hiking was challenging, but seeing the waterfalls made it mostly worth it. At a couple of the waterfalls we could get in the water, and we were prepared to do that. Although we weren't prepared for how cold it would be...yikes! I'd like to say I'll never complain about a cold shower again, but...
From the cable car, it was a 50 minute hike to this waterfall, to get to it we had to first...
...get up these "stairs" - a log with some flimsy boards and half a railing.
Afterwards, Hannah was pretty nervous going down the stairs
Another waterfall where we could take a dip
We also did ziplining, we joined up with 3 other couples who were also there at the same time. It was a course of 10 cables and it was a lot of fun.
It was a fun weekend, and nice to get a little break before our busy Summer schedule.
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