Time Flutters By

Longer Than Expected

The city of Mindo as seen during our walk up to the Tarabita.

After spending so much time in and around Quito, we welcomed the tranquil atmosphere of Mindo, Ecuador.  The town of a few thousand people was exactly what we needed after being packed in with the 2+ million residents of Quito.  It was also the first city we visited where we weren't greeted with constant gusts of diesel exhaust.  We had planned on staying here for 2 nights and ended up staying 5. 

Butterflies (flutter by...)

The first tourist attraction we visited was a butterfly farm, Mariposas de Mindo. Along the walk to see the butterflies, we caught a glimpse of some tourists enjoying the local version of tubing. It looked like loads of fun and we were planning on tubing as well but the owner of the hostal we were staying at warned against it because several people had died while tubing during the past year :-(

Butterflies landed on us within minutes of entering the butterfly farm.  There were also plates of mashed bananas that we dipped our fingers into to help us make new friends.

We were quite happy to meet our new friends but, apparently, not everyone likes butterflies :-) ...

This kid was visibly upset each time a butterfly got within a meter of him :-)

I don't recall exactly how may species of butterfly they had but we encountered at least a dozen. Here are some of our better pictures.

This next guy hung around and let me take some closeups.  Truth be told, it was hard to get this guy off of my finger.

I didn't know this... species of butterfly that nest near streams and rivers produce shiny metallic looking cocoons.  I suppose to disguise themselves as drops of water?

I was able to snap some neat pictures of a couple hummingbirds on our way out of the butterfly farm.

Waterfalls

We heard of a cool gondola that could be ridden to a nature reserve with several waterfalls. We set off with a slight misunderstanding of the distance and incline... Nevertheless, the walk provided the picture of Mindo at the top of this post, hands-on experience with the local roadway infrastructure, and a glimpse of local horse-keeping practices.  If there isn't enough grass in your pasture, let your horses graze in the road.

We finally arrived at the Tarabita and were greeted with a rather long line due to it being a holiday weekend. I had seen several kids playing with leaves nearly as large, and sometimes larger, than themselves. I was finally able to snap a picture of one while we waited. As we neared the front of the line, the operator of the Tarabita became visible. The gondola is literally operated by a dude driving a car engine attached to a manual transmission. He simple shifted into gear, eased out on the clutch and away the gondola flew across the canyon.

The hike was incredible. It really made me appreciate the name given to the climate, Cloud Forest.  At times the path was quite steep and small waterfalls ran over and along the path.

 

A small waterfall running over steps on the trail.

Caskaffesu & El Quetzel

We don't have any pictures to share for these two places but I think they're worth a mention.

Caskaffesu is the hostal we stayed at and I would recommend it to anyone. It contributed greatly to us staying an extra 3 days. The owners are an Ecuadorian and his American wife. There is a relatively nice restaurant in the hostal and they serve coffee from their small coffee farm :-)

El Quetzel was our favorite restaurant in town. It doubles as a chocolate factory and the owner is justifiably proud of his brownies.  I ate an amazing omelette there that rivals the best brunch food in SF.  All the foods, homemade jams/spreads, coffee, and juices we had at this restaurant were top notch.