The road to Mindo from Quito winds through the northern parts of the city and then through dry mountainous cliffs and then finally verdant dense forests until you reach the tiny town. Full of charming bed and breakfasts and backyards that have been transformed into small orchid gardens, the town’s main industry is clearly tourism and the locals don’t waste any opportunity to offer their knowledge about the unique cloud forest climate in which they live. In addition to visiting the myriad of local orchid gardens and the butterfly garden, visitors can also hike outside of town in pretty much any direction for a spectacular day hike.
Our group went to the ziplines outside of town which were AWESOME and only $10 per person. I thought I would be slightly terrified as zooming along a large expanse of small cable suspended above a cloud forest sounds like something that might make me cry a little bit, but it was much less scary than I imagined and the views were much better.
The zip lining itself is very easy and there are just two things to avoid: Don’t put your hand in front of you on the wire as you will cut off or crush your own hand from the momentum, and do not brake while in the middle of a zipline as you will then either have to drag yourself across to the other side with your hands or a guide will have to fetch you by wrapping his legs around your torso and dragging your sorry ass across.
The most difficult thing was hiking up to the zipline platforms. There are ten ziplines and you do have to hike up hills to reach them and I was sweating and panting. Although you should keep in mind that I have a bum leg and could hardly walk for a year and have had two surgeries. In other words, I think most people could do it no problem.
The guides offered for me to go in tandem with them to try “the butterfly” and “the superman.” While performing “the butterfly” you face your guide, jump up on to him so your legs are wrapped around his waist, and then throw your torso backwards so you are upside down and then zoom across the cloud forest like that. I declined that one and went for “the superman,” which is actually more awkward if you can believe it, but so worth it.
You stand in front of your guide facing the same way as him, hold on to the wire and swing your legs backward so your legs are wrapped around his waist and you are more or less crotch to crotch, then you drop your torso so you are hanging forward and down, arch your back, spread your arms, and then when you zoom across you feel like you are flying. We tipped our guides at the end because they were so much fun and did things that felt dangerous like bounce the wires while we zoomed across so we bounced up and down about 20 feet.
I highly recommend visiting Mindo, but like most places in Ecuador Mindo is small, rural and beautiful with plenty of daytime outdoors activities, but not very much night life to keep you busy after dark. There is something called the frog garden which is a just after sunset walk where a guide shows you the animals that glow in the dark or fill the wet air with their various forms of music. We saw one pool hall filled with locals and there is a disco which was closed when we were there. I suggest going for an overnight or maybe two nights.
We stayed at a hotel called Caskaffesu which was really charming, with a great interior courtyard, delicious restaurant, and helpful owners. It was a little pricy at $15 per person, but we really enjoyed our stay. Try the homemade plantain chips as a snack and they also sell organic coffee from Mindo which is really quite good.
Tips for Mindo:
Bring bugspray and use it. We walked to the butterfly garden from town (really cool by the way) and I got bit up badly by giant sand flies. Really painful and the bites itched and swelled and didn’t go away for weeks.
Bring cash. There is no ATM in Mindo and the closest town with an ATM is an $8, hour-long roundtrip cab ride and when we got there our cards didn’t work. Bummer.
I feel I should pass this along although I can’t verify whether or not it’s true and I don’t want to negatively affect tourism in Mindo, so heed the warning and do what you think is best. We were all set one morning to go tubing down the river, which is a really popular thing to do in Mindo. We were strongly advised against it and warned that five people had died doing this in the last two years. So we opted not to do the tubing and went for a hike instead.
Our kitchen.
The blue building is The Bird House and the upstairs is a restaurant called Green Eggs and Ham with the best breakfast in town by far. You can get eggs, bacon, home fries and coffee for 15 soles, and they also have delicious pancakes, waffles, and fruit salad. 
Along the path to Mancora Chico and right near our house.
After living here in Quito for four months the main thing my boyfriend and I missed from home was red pepper flakes. Don’t they have spices in Ecuador, you ask? Yes, they do. But no red pepper flakes. We tried the local markets, the supermarkets, the supermaxis, the mega maxi, the specialty food stores near Santa Clara trolley stop and the only trace we found of them was one lone flake in a giant empty glass jar. We asked the sales girl when she would be getting more in. She shrugged and continued eating her sandwich. After about 30 seconds, when she realized we were red pepper flake crazed and had no intention of leaving without an answer she slowly swallowed her food and said, “I don’t know. Sometime. Maybe.”
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