Mindo is a small town in Ecuador's last remaining cloud forest area. A cloud forest is characterized with persistent cloud cover over forests. Mindo is 2 hours away from Quito and most day tours that are offered felt crammed since there is quite a bit to see and do there. There were some overnight tour options but the price was quite high. After some online research we found that there are buses going from Ofelia (Quito's north bus terminal) to Mindo. The bus schedule varies by day and there are usually only 3-5 buses per day. So we decided to take a morning bus from Quito to Mindo, spend the night there and take an evening bus back the next day. We also made reservations for the night at the Bio Hostal.
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| Mindo Cloud Forest |
We weren't sure if there would be a rush for tickets in the morning so we reached Ofelia around 7:15 AM. The counter for the Mindo bus tickets had not opened yet, there was no rush and we were first in line. We got tickets for the 8 AM and left for Mindo. After a 2 hr bus ride with several stops in the way we finally reached Mindo. The town is pretty small and only has one main street. The hostel was a 5 minute walk from the bus stop in Mindo and had a very open feel to it. The common area had wifi and also had a comfy hammock. We checked in and headed off for a quick bite at a pizza place on the main street. Then we headed off to Hosteria Mariposas de Mindo, a butterfly farm.
The mariposaria is about 2 miles from the town and we set off on foot. There aren't any signs with directions on the way so as usual we went down the wrong route first. (But we got to see quite a few different birds in this route so we didn't feel too bad about the extra walk). Once back on the right track we got to see some more birds along the way. We also took way too many photographs on the way and so it took us much longer to get to the mariposaria than it should have.
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| Butterfly at Mariposario |
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| That is how butterflies mate... |
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| A butterfly cocoon |
There was a $5 per person entrance fee at the mariposaria. That seemed a little steep at first but once we got inside we felt the price was easily justifiable. There were several different species of butterflies being bred here and we got to take a lot of pictures. They also showed us different life stages of a butterfly. Once we got tired of taking pictures of the butterflies we headed to the garden area right outside the farm. There were a few humming bird feeders stationed here and there must have been at least a dozen humming birds flying around. After another photography session here we headed back into town. We had planned on going for a bird watching tour early the next day so we called it a night early.
The bird watching tour started at 6AM from the hostel so the hostel staff were kind enough to provide breakfast for us at 5:30AM. We hadn't booked our return bus ticket yet and asked if we could do so quickly before the tour started. Instead the hostel staff said they would book our tickets for us (their service in general was pretty good and they were very helpful). The tour was headed by Irman Arias and there were 4 people taking the tour that day. Irman had been leading bird watching tours in Mindo for several years and his experience showed throught the tour. He knew the spots that different bird species preferred and he was also able to spot the birds in well camouflaged situations. The tour was 5 kilometers each way and we got to see lots of birds. Apart from the variety of tanagers and flycatchers, the main highlights for us were the colourful toucans, the woodpeckers, the parrots, and the crested guan. We did not get to see the cock of the rock though :(
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| Toucan |
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| Woodpecker |
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| Crested Guan |
After the tour we had lunch at a juice bar that also served veggie burgers. We checked out of our hostel and left the luggage there. We still had some time to kill before we had to catch our bus back to Quito. Not enough time to explore any of the several waterfalls in the surrounding area but enough time to visit
El Descanso. El Descanso is a hostel in Mindo which also has a garden in its backyard with a couple of humming bird feeders. We spent a little over an hour there trying to capture some good humming bird photos.
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| Humming birds at the feeder |
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| In flight |
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| Another one in flight |
It turned out that we had some more time to kill and so we spent some time sorting our pictures and generally talking to Irman. The 5 PM bus brought us back to Quito by 7 PM and as soon as we reached Ofelia (north terminal), we headed off (bus + taxi) to Quitumbe (south terminal) so we could get on the bus to Guayaquil the next morning.
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