Mindo es Lindo.

Lindo means beautiful in Spanish. If it also meant ridiculous, adventurous, dramatic, terrifying, extremely terrifying, janky, unreal, and crazy, then the phrase "Mindo es Lindo"would accurately describe this weekend. This weekend was en serio (seriously) one of the most adventurous and ridiculous weekends of my life.

Mindo is a very small touristy town in Ecuador about a 2-hour bus ride through the mountains from Quito. We left on Friday around 4:00 luckily making it to the correct bus station and correct bus in time for our bus's departure. We were thirteen MSU/USFQ students who had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. The bus ride was...frightful to say the least. Our bus wound through the Andes mountains and through the ventanas (windows) we could see the absolutely beautiful paisajes (landscapes) around us. We passed an orchard reserve and tiny farming houses and it was incredibly gorgeous. We could also see the extreme likelihood of our deaths if our bus driver made a tiny little mistake. The road didn't exactly have barriers to keep us from toppling over the edge of the mountain and into the abyss. I was a little nerve-wracked. But we made it to Mindo! Success. The owner of the hostel we had reservations at (thanks to Allison!) met us at the bus station and walked us over to our hostel. Ah to describe our hostel experience in one word: Chévere (really cool in Spanish, a colloquial word of Ecuador). Casa de Cecilia. We had a whole house to ourselves, with lots of rooms and bathrooms, outfitted with linens and towels and mosquito nets. We ate a $2.50 breakfast that she made us while looking out at the river and the hummingbirds that always fluttered around. For all of our activities we just paid her and she called taxis for us and/or told us where to go. For only $6/night! Words cannot describe the great experience we had there. There was a reggae bar down the road that was also super cool, with rocks suspended from the ceiling and tables made of what seemed like trees. The bar was actually a three-story, open air, bar/restaurant/house where the owner's family lived. The first night we walked into "town" (really just one street with restaurants and stores on it) and found a restaurant to eat at. The owner was this adorable old man and the food he served us was delicious. We would soon learn that what we ordered at this restaurant was basically what all the restaurants had in Mindo, Pilsener (a very popular Ecuadorian brand of beer), Coke, Rice, this tomato and onion "ensalada," papas fritas (french fries) and some variety of fried sea food (fins & head included of course :/). While it is annoying to have to go out to eat for every meal when we go on excursions, it is amazing how much cheaper food is here compared to the United States, and it especially helps that there is a service tax that includes tip, so you don't have to worry about that and it's often included in the price of your food. For example, over the whole weekend (2 breakfasts,  2 lunches, 2 dinners) I spent a total of about $23 on food, something nearly impossible to do in the United States. Whenever we would go out to dinner or go out to bars (where liquor and beer is also much cheaper than in the U.S.), without fail someone would say, "I really don't want to go back..." :) We went out for a while Friday night, but we were all exhausted and wanted to have energy for the next day, so we went to bed at around midnight.

Hostal

River behind our Hostal

Then we get to Saturday. The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast by the river and started our day in a flurry of bug spray and sun screen. Our plan was to go "tubing." Now there are different kinds of tubing, and as usually happens to us, we all expect a specific experience (and our ideas of what our activities will be like differ) and usually none of us are right. Now there's the kind of tubing done behind a boat (this one we weren't thinking of, because we knew we'd be going down a river), the kind of floating down a calm river tubing (affectionately called "floating down the river with beer"), and apparently there's the kind of tubing where you need 2 guides, you're in 6 tubes all attached to each other, and you need helmets and life jackets because there are a RIDICULOUS amount of rocks in the river that you're attempting to tube down. Yep, that was the kind of tubing that we did. On our way to tubing we were in a taxi (a.k.a. a pickup truck with room for 3 in the cab and the rest of us standing up in the bed of the truck) and I kept seeing a river to our right. It had a lot of rocks in it so I kept saying, "guys is that the river we're going down?" And everyone kept responding, "well, probably, but we're probably not going down that part because there are too many rocks." Oh how we were wrong. We got out of our taxi, put on our lifejackets and helmets and were introduced to our guides. Given quick instructions in Spanish about how to maneuver the tubes if we were to get stuck on rocks, we were ready. We split up in two groups, got into the icy water, and we were off. What exhilarating and crazy fun. "Cuidados" were heard loud and clear and Mateo's girlish screaming was quite humorous. The chill of the cold water was no longer our greatest concern. $6 can buy you quite a bit of fun in Mindo.

Tubing

El Grupo

We went back to our hostel and changed clothes, immediately ready for our next adventure, ziplining. $10 buys you a ziplining tour of the cloud forest with 2 trained guides over 12 different cables. Needless to say I was terrified. My fear of heights was not the greatest thing for zooming on cables hundreds of feet above the ground. But it was an experience I am so glad I did not miss out on. The first and last trips were the worst, the first because I was terrified and I didn't know exactly what it would be like, and the last because it was the highest, probably 1000 feet off the ground. There were fancy tricks you could do with the guides (Mariposa y Superhombre), but I elected to not do those. Simply ziplining was enough of a challenge for me already. :) While you were "zipping" you could see everything around you and it was absolutely incredible. We talked about how in the United States you couldn't do something like that. A) because there is nothing as cool as the cloud forest in the U.S. B) Because it would need to be incredibly regulated, and C) Because it would probably cost about $200 to do 2 cables instead of $10 for 12 cables.

Tengo miedo de alturas

Cuidado

Éxito

Mindo Ropes & Canopy

What a crazy day. On the way back to our hostel (in the back of a pickup truck of course) we were talking about how we had never done so many ridiculous things in one day.

That next morning we took a taxi to this thing called terabita which goes to the waterfalls. It is this little cart that goes along this cable and brings you to this other mountain so you can hike around and go to the waterfalls and swim in them and such. This was also terrifying, you'll understand when you see pictures. I kept saying, "this is the craziest, most dangerous, jankiest thing I have ever done in my life." But we made it. Little did we know that we had to hike on paths in the mountains that were covered in incredibly slippery mud to get to the waterfalls, but it was a great experience. Beautiful waterfalls, some janky stairs, even sketchier bridges, etc. It was incredible and also extremely tiring. We went back on the Terabita, got back to our hostel, ate some lunch, and then everyone slept on the bus back to Quito.

Terabita

Sketchy Bridge

Una Cascada

What a weekend full of craziness and fun, I'm glad to be back in Quito because this weekend was culture shock for me with so much adventurousness. This afternoon I'm ready for a nap for sure!

-EM