A Family RTW Travel Adventure (2008-2009)
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More Than Meets The Eye

Dani

For a different view of Ecuador, we headed to Mindo, in the Cloud Forest, for a few days. But when we arrived, instead of clouds, the roads were what caught our attention. And we wondered if we’d made a mistake in coming.

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But were were there. So we settled in to El Descanso (clean and with a lovely hummingbird garden behind the dining room).

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We took a long walk up the tropical path to the Butterfly Garden accompanied by “Friendly” the dog. He became our spirit guide for the afternoon; he walked us everywhere until we got back to town. He made us realize that it’s not the condition of the road, but who you’re walking with that matters.

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Inside the butterflies’ enclosure, I was most excited to see the irridescent blue morpho; Caroline had done a project on this very butterfly in Sra. Newman’s class in third grade. The morpho was shy, but this Ojo de Buho (“owl eyes”) butterfly found a nice spot to pose for our camera.

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Early the next morning (after a 5:30 breakfast!), we joined Julia Patino, a birdwatching guide, for a trek into the misty hills to see toucans, tanagers, cuckoos, and parrots. This less rare beauty served as our alarm clock:

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We spent the afternoon on the river in tied-together inner tubes while guides muscled the make-shift craft around boulders and through coursing rapids. (We left the camera at the hostel for fear of losing it in the water.)

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As we prepared to head back to Quito, we stopped in for a delicious fruit shake at our favorite place in town – this juice bar run by a young ex-pat from Germany.

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Mindo had grown on us, and once again we were reminded that first impressions are often wrong.

There are more pictures of Mindo posted here.

August 26, 2008   4 Comments

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