Que Lindo es Mindo

Okay, sorry it´s been a couple weeks...again...This past weekend we went to Mindo. It´s a very ecologically-friendly, waterfall-packed town about two hours from Quito. We arrived (in the rain) on Friday night. Of course we were immediately attacked by hostel owners as we got off the bus who were trying to get us to stay at their respective places. So we picked a place, grabbed some dinner, and laid low for the night so that we could get an early start in the morning.

On Saturday morning, we went on a hiking tour of a bunch of waterfalls. There were actually supposed to be seven, but I think we only saw three...it´s kind of hard to tell. Our adventure started with a six kilometer hike to a cable car thingy that took us to the other side of the semi-jungle (We´re not really sure if it was jungle, forest, or what...) Once we got there, we hiked to our first waterfall. At this point it had started raining, which wasn´t really a big deal because we were mostly covered by tree branches and such. When we reached the waterfall, there were dozens of people swimming right beneath it....they pretty much looked really cold...but when in Rome....so we jumped right in there too. Possibly the coldest water I´ve ever swam in, but totally exhilarating. You pretty much had to jump right in otherwise the sharp, pointy rocks would dig even further into the sole of your foot. Ouch. But it was super fun.

Then on Sunday we did some extreme tubing down the rapid-y river. It was really cold, and really scary, but completely worth it. It´s kind of hard to explain, but there are a bunch of huge intertubes tied together and you sit with your butt in the middle of all of them with your feet toward the outside. Basically you go crashing and thrashing down the river in which the huge pointy scary rocks are everywhere you look. We had two guides with us and luckily one of them was pretty much on top of me the whole time because otherwise I would have surely fallen off and been a lost little river rat. When we finally got back onto shore, we all got attacked by a bunch of little bugs (especially on our feet and ankles) and are still scratching today, which is a bummer, but such is life. In fact, the little bug bites woke me up last night because they itched so badly! Yikes. Once again, though, it was totally worth it....as is everything I´ve done.

On a more exciting note....my sister is coming!!! Julie gets here on Sunday night, so I´m making sure to be back from whatever adventure we go on this weekend in time to pick her up with my host brother. I´m so excited to see her, and then my parents come on Friday...keeps getting better and better. Though I CANNOT believe that it is already our Spring break...I´ve never experienced time moving at such a rapid pace before coming to Ecuador. I can´t wait to show my family around and let them get a little taste of everything I´ve been exposed to while here. I´m so lucky!

Hope this finds everyone happy and healthy. Love you all!