Day 6: Goodbye Quito, Hello Mindo!

Close your eyes. Picture a forest filled with trees decorated with leaves big enough to swaddle a baby and flowers brighter than neon bands under a black light. Add in the sound of crickets and cicadas chirping in the distance with the occasional singing bird. Now throw in a million exotic bugs and mosquitos and you’ve got a pretty basic image of what it’s like here in Mindo.

View from Pululahua Geobotanic Reserve

Early this morning we left Quito and headed for our new Ecuadorian city. On the way we stopped by Pululahua, the first National Park created in Ecuador featuring a volcanic crater and breathtaking views. After taking it all in we continued on with our drive arriving at our next stop, Tulipe. Here we learned about the Yumba people and their culture.

Flowers in Tulipe

When we finally got to Mindo, we were greeted with a delicious three-course lunch provided by the hotel we are staying at.

Walking to our rooms!

After much eating, we checked into our rooms. Some of us are staying in the main building, but some of us are staying in rooms even further out in the forest in a complex a bit like a cabin. Each room is decorated slightly differently with their own flavor.  Compared to Quito, the weather is about the same temperature-wise, but it is much more humid… probably the reason why there are so many bugs.

Check out that fly!

After settling in we all got together in the forest for a drawing session. Halfway through our session it started to rain which left many memorable marks on our sketchbooks. Did I mention all the bugs that came to say hello to us? After our drawing session we headed back to our rooms for a little down time and met up again for another 3-course meal for dinner.

Great food. Great place. Great company… so far Mindo has been a blast.