Day 18 - Aug 10, 2018 Mindo, Ecuador

Today is our last day in Ecuador.  Our flight would depart tonight at midnight so we had a whole day left.  We told David (the owner) about our late check out plan and he was gracious enough to let us stay till 1p.  He also told us about a hummingbird reserve in the next valley which is worth a visit.  The hotel had been quiet since our arrival.  There were at most two parties each night so far including us.  But the hotel was fully booked this weekend as this is Ecuador's national holiday.  David told us to expect heavy traffic leaving Quite to the beach (opposite where we were heading).  We had a very leisurely breakfast and just relaxed on our balcony watching birds.

After we said goodbye to Mindo, we drove to the next valley as suggested to visit Alambi Reserve.  After paying $5 per person, we got a coffee and were led to the back garden.  We were absolutely astounded by the numbers of hummingbirds flying around the beautiful garden and all the feeders.  This is even busier than the hummingbird garden in Mindo.  And the best thing is: many hummingbirds here are of different species than the one in Mindo!  We just sat there and enjoyed the show.  There were hummingbirds that have long tails and medium long tails.  There were hummingbirds that are tiny and huge.  The owner put out some feeders that have only one sprout, forcing the hummingbird to line up one at a time.  It is great for taking pictures, one bird after another!  He taught us to take slow-motion video and it turned out great.  We took lots of good videos and photos.

The Best Hummingbird Garden Ever!

We met two American women there and start chatting.  They were on a personal tour and invited us to follow their itinerary to visit a coffee farm operation near the river below.  This coffee operation was run by a retired World Bank economist who wants to help Ecuadorian farmers to revert their cattle land back to vegetation by planting coffee as the cash crop.  Fascinating operation!  All these unplanned activities were a great surprising way to end our last day in Ecuador.

We drove to a big supermarket in North Quito to buy some cacao powders for ourselves as well as for gifts.  We then drove to the airport to return our rental car and have dinner there.  We did not check in early because we knew there is no Star Alliance lounge in Quito.  It's only later that we found out United has a contract lounge there for business class passengers and elite members to relax and enjoy before our flight.  It's a nice way to wrap up a wonderful trip.  Although our flight was delayed by an hour to Houston, it did not impact our arrival time in Vancouver where we were picked up by Preston our son.

BBQ Pork Hock - Tastes just like Chinese style BBQ pork!

Contract Airport Lounge in Quito

Sunrise and Stormy Clouds above Houston

Day 17 - Aug 9, 2018 Mindo, Ecuador

Our third day in Mindo started with a breakfast at the restaurant.  We found out that the staff would put out ripe bananas to feed and attract various birds to the front of the restaurant every morning so we decided to eat there instead of our balcony.  There were so many colorful birds come and go among the feeders.  We saw one particularly striking bird, the South American Yellow Oriole, that were all bright yellow except the black wings and eyes.  After breakfast, we went to hike the waterfalls.  To get to the waterfalls, we had to take a very old fashioned cable car across the valley and hike up a trail.  There was a series of 4 waterfalls along the route.  We met a young German woman who went swimming in each of the pools.  We subsequently learnt that she was working in Quito hostal in lieu of rent during a year of travel after her high school.  She had been to Colombia and Venezuela before coming to Ecuador.  She was robbed in Colombia and was stuck in Venezuela before.  We were just thankful that she had been lucky so far.

We went back to relax in our hotel before going out to hike the "Yellow House" trail which was mentioned by several tourists we met en route.  They said they saw monkeys there.  Unfortunately, we went too late to make it to Trail 4 where the monkeys resided.  Instead, we hiked Trail 1-3 and reached a nice mirador overlooking the valley.  Disappointingly, we failed to see any significant number of birds on these famous trails.

Day 16 - Aug 8, 2018 Mindo, Ecuador

Our second day in Mindo started with a fantastic breakfast at the balcony in our unit.  For no additional cost, we could pick whether to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant or have it on our own balcony.  We picked to have it on our balcony overlooking the wonderful mountain view.  Although the breakfast food was just ok, we loved the view.  After breakfast, we went to do canopy ziplining and it turned out to be the best zipline experience we ever had.  There were 10 ziplines lasting almost one hour with the longest line over 500m long.  We only had Daniel, a German tourist doing a year long journey around the world, in our group and it was super fun.  We did single normal run, couple run, bungee style run, swing run, and Yi did upside down Mariposa style run!  I did not know my wife is so fearless!  We saw a number of orchids on our routes as well a baby toucan on a tree.  We yelled so hard that our throats were sore.

Couple Style

Mariposa (Butterfly) Style

Our group

Our group and two guides

Next, we went back to the Butterfly Garden and saw numerous butterflies inside.  We were allowed to touch our fingers in nectar to attract butterflies to stay on our hand.  It is quite amazing how God give such delicate pigments and colors to tiny creatures like butterflies, even their lifespan can be as short as 3 weeks!  Outside the butterfly room, they had built observation towers with gigantic bamboo 6-8" in diameter.  Unfortunately, we did not see many birds there other than several hummingbirds.

Butterflies emerging from their cocoons

We then visited the Orchid Garden which, like many others in this town, is a side business of a hostal.  Although it lacks scale, we still saw many unique orchids there, especially the many super tiny ones.  We never knew orchids can be so small!

Orchid so tiny you have to use a magnifying glass!

Pitcher Plant

After dinner, we joined a night walk in the forest.  It was quite an experience to see all the nocturnal creatures that we usually do not see in day time.  We were picked up by a pickup truck and had to stay at the back of the pick up because it was full inside the cab.  After 10 minutes of bumpy ride, we were dropped off at a house and met by Eric who is a Canadian.  Eric had moved to Mindo due to his love of outdoor and nature.  He owned the big property where we started our walk and he kept pointing out numerous stick insects, frogs, millipedes, spiders, snake, cockroaches, and a very unique moth which can imitate an owl.  In our group was a Japanese woman who worked in Argentina.  She had great fear of cockroaches but she was determined to touch it tonight to help her overcome this fear!  I admire her courage.

Stick insect

This creature looks scary but it won't harm a thing (on Yiling's hand!)

Giant cockroach

Moth with wings closed

Moth with wings opened

Day 15 - Aug 7, 2018 Mindo, Ecuador

We drove through Otavalo after breakfast to see this town most known for its market.  The most vibrant market happens on Saturday so we did not see too much.  We did see many different indigenous groups in our drive as Otavalo is a meeting place for many to come to trade.  We turned west again and drove pass Quito to go to the Pacific side of the Andes.  This region is famous for its cloud forests and diverse bird populations.  It was sunny and clear when we left Quito and started to descend the mountains.  Lo and behold, the clouds started to roll in.  In no time, we were shrouded in clouds and it started to mist and rain!  We descended from Quito at 3000m all the way down to Mindo at 1200m.  There was absolutely no passing lane in Ecuador so you are expected to move to the right of the road and let others pass, straight road or winding turns!  We later learnt that Ecuador's accident rate is actually quite high and there are often deadly car accidents.  I can see why as many drivers have absolutely no patience for others.  I am just happy to let others pass since I rented a small car with a small engine.

Mindo has become a mecca for birdwatchers around the world.  Given its reputation, I was expecting tons of tourists but we were pleasantly surprised to find the opposite.  The town is quite small and laid back.  Many restaurant waitresses or shopkeepers did not speak any English.  I love the fact that since not too many tourists came by car, parking around town or attractions were easy.  We checked into our final hotel in Ecuador and it was the best.  Las Terraza de Dana is located about 2km outside the town center.  There were six individual units throughout its property, each with its own incredible view of the mountain and valley.  Each had a king size bed, a double jacuzzi, and a full width ceiling to floor sliding glass door leading out to a balcony where we can sit, relax, and enjoy the incredible view.  As soon as we settled in, we understood why Mindo is so popular with birdwatching enthusiasts.  There were birds all over the place.  Most of the times, to amateurs like us, we could only hear the birds but could not see them.  Hummingbirds were buzzing around us continuously.  Everything seemed to be flowering here in Mindo and there were all kinds of different fruit trees around: several kinds of bananas, guava, tamarind, orange, lemon, passion fruit, papaya, coconut, etc.

To get to our hotel, we had to pass two narrow wooden bridges like this one!

Our beautiful cottage with a balcony

Two person jacuzzi

Stunning view of the valley from our balcony

We wanted to see the butterfly garden but fortunately were alerted by visitors exiting that there were very little to see inside as most butterflies were sleeping in the afternoon.  We instead saw a group of Ecuadorian American tourists doing tubing down the narrow and shallow Mindo river (not much fun to us).  We then visited the hummingbird garden which is kind of informally run inside a hostal.  Like many other attractions here in Mindo, this seemed to be a sideline business to their hostal.  We went in and paid the lady $4 and just sat down in their garden.  Our jaws dropped as soon as we saw how many hummingbirds and how busy they were buzzing around the many feeders in the garden.  We had never seen so many different species of hummingbirds all in one place before.  We were so mesmerized that we just sat there the rest of the afternoon watching the birds.  Besides hummingbirds, they also put out ripe bananas around the garden to attract other birds.  They were so colorful and pretty.  Then the lady came in and let us handle a tiny little hummingbird in her hand.  This is so precious like a little baby.  She then pointed up and told us to look for toucans!  We saw at least two toucans chomping away at the bunch of bananas on top of the trees.  We also saw three red crown woodpeckers.  It was a very special afternoon.  It was also memorable for our conversation with the lady from the hostal as well as a trio of local visitors from Quito using Google Translate!  They were veterinarians visiting from Quito for the day.  We learnt quite a bit about Ecuador and its education system.  We also ate at the restaurant highly recommended by the hostal lady.

What's the fun to tubing in knee-deep water?

Finally, we saw wild toucan since we started traveling!

Ripe guavas kept raining down on the roof!