MINDO!!!

So this one will be long, I am just warning everyone but it is worth the read!!

Last Friday after teaching we were off to Mindo, which turns out to be about 2 hours of windy roads on the side of a mountain, my stomach did not like the ride too much but the scenery made up for the windy ride. There was also a dvd player in the van we took so we watched a movie on the way as well!

When we got to Mindo it was already about 630 so just in time for dinner, the humidity in Mindo is a lot stronger than in Quito, so that took some adjusting to as well! We walked down the main road of Quito and found a nice little restaurant to have dinner at. Steak for $10 and a 750ml beer for $1.50..my kind of meal!! After dinner some of the group went out to enjoy the nightlife but I was very tired from the week so just headed back to the hotel!

Saturday morning is when all the fun began, and all my fears and boundaries flew out the window! We walked to a local adventure information shop to find out prices on a few different activities! All of us were thinking of only doing one or two activities but we ended up signing up for 3 different adventures!!

The first up was ziplining! Man was I scared! I have never done anything that crazy filled with adventure but I was looking forward to taking a risk! So we all get our harnesses and our short instructional session and then we were off! So we climb to the dock where the guide clips us on to the cable and then we fly across the jungle! I was so nervous for my first go, the tour guide only spoke Spanish and after telling him I was nervous, he laughed and told me I'll have fun and then pushed me and I was flying! I had no time at all to change my mind or get more scared! After the first zipline I was all shaky but I was ready for the next 12! After a few more lines the guides gave us an option to do a more risky stunt with them on the line. Being in Mindo already taking a risk, I couldn't say no! So I did the "superwoman" one and was cliped in on my back and was free flying across the jungle, it was so fun!! Lots of walking through the jungle and 13 ziplines later we were done our first of 3 adventures!!

Next up was tubing..which turned out to not be as calming as we thought it would be. We were told that the rapid season was over we were all still excited to have a calming ride down the river. We got to the site and look at the river and it did not look calm at all! We suit up and hop in the tubes! After about 3 seconds in the tubes it felt like we were white water rafting with tubes, our two guides were just kneeling on the edge of the tubes and not even worried, here are the four of us gripping on for our lives because if we didn't we would have flew off the tube! I took a couple pictures but I was too worried about flying off that I couldn't take anymore! I screamed a lot on this ride and was laughing the whole time so after the 15 minutes of fun I was happy to be on land again!!!

Last adventure for the day was canyoning! It is different than some places, here is it repelling down waterfalls. Interesting story to go with this one! We were driving with three tour guides and literally in the middle of no where on a gravel road the van stops and they say that we are here, even though all of us are looking at each other thinking something isn't right, we get out. We are now standing in the middle of no where with our guides and they tell us that we need to walk for 20 minutes to get to the site, so we start walking! A few of us are thinking this seems similar to scenes from scary movies but we keep going! So 20 minutes of basically climbing right up a mountain we arrive at the top of a waterfall! I was quite nervous to do this and I wasn't even sure if I knew how to repel down the waterfall! So again our instruction session was about 3 minutes long with the tour guide saying "this is how you stop, this is how you go and keep your legs straight" So a few people go and then it is my turn, it is very scary but I manage to get down the first of three waterfalls and I am so happy! I got down all three and then we had a few minutes to enjoy the view and take some photos by the waterfall.

We are now done our adventures for the day and head back to the hotel. We walked to a place to go watch a "frog concert" and it was quite cool. There are many different kinds of frogs and vegetation at this place and as you walk through the path all you can hear is many different sounds of the frogs which was very cool! We also had an english speaking tour guide with us that made the walk much better! As we were walking back he told us he does bird watching in the mornings and told us if we wanted to go we could meet up with him.

We all enjoyed some pizza later and some of the group went out for the night, I stayed back because I was falling asleep at the pizza place!

The next morning we were up bright and early for bird watching, this is not usually my kind of thing but I figured since I am in Mindo I will not get this opportunity again. We went on a 4 hour walk and did not see that many birds but our guide gave us a very detailed tour of the jungle we were walking through! We climbed straight down the mountain and learned a lot about the vegetation and animals that live in the jungle!

Some fun facts for all you readers:

- butterfly's fly at different levels of the atmosphere to protect themselves and that all butterflies are poisonous

-lizards cannot run and breath at the same time so that is why you seem them run a little bit and then stop quickly

-giraffes horns are fused to their skull, unlike other animals that have horns

-there are a few more but they are escaping me at the moment!

After this we headed back to Quito to relax before our last week of school!!!

thanks for reading!