Maya in Flight and on Foot

We spent a long weekend (Saturday to Monday) in Mindo, a small village about 1 and 1/2 hours drive from Quito. Mindo's climate is in a transitional area between high-altitude temperature zones and lower-altitude, humid, sub-tropical forests, so we had to pack both long sleeve and short sleeve shirts. Also, because Mindo borders these two climates, many species can thrive there, so it has hundreds of bird and butterfly species and over four thousand varieties of orchid in the area. There are also hammocks. Here is Jonah putting Mommy down for her afternoon nap.

If you are super into birdwatching, you can rent guides for $100 a day and go out into the forests and see hundreds of different types of bird species. We aren't that into birdwatching. Our idea of birdwatching was to look into the nearby trees as we sat in the hot tub. Just doing that we saw some very brightly-colored and oddly-beaked birds. I suppose a guide could have told us the names, but I would have just forgotten them anyway.

We were really excited to stay at the hotel that we did, El Carmelo de Mindo. We wanted to be in the forest (since we live in the city) and the hotel delivered on that count. It was set a few kilometers out of town, had hiking trails on the grounds, beautiful flowers, birds and butterflies, and you could hear the nearby river as you lay in bed. We wanted something fun for the kids to do there. It delivered by having three different pool areas (and a pool table). And the pools were not boring old rectangles. These were Caribbean-quality resort-type pools. And no, Opa is not sucking in his gut to puff up his chest.

And, to top it all off, you could rent a tree house as your room. When Rebecca and I went to India in the late 20th century, we stayed in a tree house at the beach in Goa, so I was thinking we'd relive that time (without the morning, noon, and night sex).

But alas, although we had planned to stay in a tree house (this one even had a satellite TV dish), we ended up staying in an alpine-style cabin. The tree houses didn't have much living space (big enough for a bed and table and toilet and sink) and anyone who has invited us to stay at their house knows that the suitcase we have vomits clothes all over the room as soon as we arrive. Plus, getting into and out of the tree houses several times a day wouldn't have been practical with Maya and Jonah. It sucks to be a grown-up and think about these things, but at this point in my role as parent, I am resigned to it. Oh well. We had a fun time in the cabin. Here is a photo of Maya and Jonah on the balcony.

And here is a photo of Opa giving Maya her first lesson in breaking and entering.



The town of Mindo itself turned out to have that third world look that makes you feel like you are living on the edge - even when you just put on clean underwear that morning. Because we were trying to save space on our camera's memory card, Rebecca deleted the photo I took of town. But despite it's muddy street and packs of wild dogs and chickens, it has an incredible amount of things going on. There are dozens of hotels and restaurants in the two or three block area that makes up the town center, as well as dozens of tour operators promoting various activities to keep you entertained.

The few restaurants we ate at were good. Though, I have to say, the place we ate lunch on Saturday, called El Chef, turned out to be the best. I was happy to discover a new meal that I can eat for the rest of the summer and can recommend highly - churrasco. Churrasco is thinly sliced beefsteak accompanied by two fried eggs, rice, fried plaintains or french fries, and vegetables or a salad. El Chef sells it for $3.80. Another place we lunched sold it for $4.75. The eggs were perfect and it came with patacones (which are thick-sliced, fried banana chips) but the steak was tough, rendering the meal disappointing.

We were joking that in a small place like Mindo, there are probably only a few good cooks, and probably only one is outstanding. So if you own a restaurant, the competition to hire the outstanding local chef is probably intense. If you miss out on hiring him or her, you may as well open a place that offers bird-watching or adventure tours. We guessed that the best cook in town worked at El Chef (and got the place named after him or herself).

As for activities other than eating, in addition to the birdwatching, butterfly-ing, and orchid-ing, you can go horseback riding, tubing on the river, four-wheeling, take a cable car to a waterfall hike, or go on a canopy tour on zip lines.

Zip lines are cables strung from tree to tree over a canyon, gorge or other valley-like place. You get yourself all geared up in a harness, lock yourself onto the cable in a few different places, and zip over this vast drop to the opposite platform, which could be 300 or 400 meters away. Then, hike up or down to the next launch point and do it all over.


Here is Rebecca on her way out of the first launch station.


Rebecca and I had never done zip lines before (Opa had done it as a day trip on one of the hundred cruises he has been on) and the first launch, as you sit suspended in the air hundreds of feet above the tree line, was pretty intense. After I got over the adrenaline rush of the first few launches, and could focus on the views, it was pretty outstanding. Rebecca needed an additional rush, so did something called the butterfly. The butterfly is when you hang upside down from the cable and flap your arms and legs like they were butterfly wings. Our camera battery was dead, so we didn't get a picture of Rebecca doing this enormously funny-looking stunt. But we did get a picture of a me and Opa looking serious and of a woman we were with doing the butterfly stunt.


Maya was pretty upset when we got geared up and readied to do our first launch. Her eyes were tearing and she was being very brave not to cry. I guess she thought we were going to plummet to our deaths (the thought actually crossed my mind as well). But, by the time we got back, Maya said she wanted to try it! It may have helped that a whole family of kids around her age were just getting set to take off.

Since it was getting late, Rebecca and Maya only did a launch out and back. Rebecca said Maya was smiling the whole time. And when she came back, you couldn't help but notice that she was glowing. We were really proud of her. And, she surprised us even more by saying that the two zips wasn't enough, she wanted to do all ten! So we went back on Monday so she and Rebecca could get the full monty. When we asked Jonah if he wanted to go, he said "No. Maybe when I'm five or six."

Because our camera was kaput for the weekend, Opa and PoPo took all the pictures. Since we've returned, we keep forgetting to ask them to bring their whatchamacallit so we can download the pictures they took of Maya in space to our computer. Also, they have all the photos of the following adventure on their camera as well. So, I'll post extra pictures to this entry in a day or two. Incidentally, I posted some pics to the "Religion, Brought to you by the City of Quito" entry tonight. So you may want to check them out.

Maya also wanted to do this thing called The Tarabita. The Tarabita is a cable car ride across a river valley, and then a variety of hikes to seven different waterfalls. The cable car turned out to be more scary to me than the zip lines. Picture the carriage-type thing from those old school swing sets that you and I grew up with hurtling three hundred feet in the air across a river valley, and propelled by a car engine. Then picture a guy that looks like Chong from Cheech and Chong at the controls. Then imagine your fear.

But, we made it across the valley and did the shortest hike (about 20 minutes) to a waterfall called El Narambillo. It was a small waterfall, but Opa and I had fun swimming in our underwear in the pool at its base. Maya, Jonah and Rebecca actually had their swim suits with them (well, Jonah had his birthday suit) but couldn't take the cold water so just stood around looking wistful. And, the most impressive thing was that both Maya and Jonah walked about ninety-eight percent of the hike (and it was fairly steep on the way back). The hike must have really worn Jonah out because he fell asleep on the car ride home at about 5 p.m. and slept through the night.