This morning, Daan and I woke up before dawn for a guided birding hike! We had found one other Canadian tourist to join, making the price of a four-hour walk only $20 (still the most expensive activity in Mindo by far.) We ate yogurt and bread we bought last night, equipped ourselves with binoculars and cameras, and followed our guide Danny Jumbo into the gray mist. We walked through town, over the Saguamy River, and up the road towards the waterfalls.
Binoculars and bird shirt, ready to go!
The road to the waterfalls.
The foggy town of Mindo as viewed from the mountainside road.
Danny informed us that Mindo sits at 1200 meters of elevation (lower than Quito but still a high cloud forest) and that last year during the Christmas Bird Count, over 600 species were counted in this small town! That puts my 50 species in Edmonds, Washington to shame.
This one's called a Crimson-Rumped Toucanet.
Can you tell why?
Pale Mandible Arancaris. How did our guide spot them from so far away?!
A yellowish bird... I wish I remember what it was called! It's hard to line up photos with lists sometimes.
A flycatcher, probably Social or Rusty-Margined.
Plain-Brown Woodcreeper.
Tropical Kingbird.
Tropical Gnatcatcher.
Green-Crowned Woodnymph.
Strong-Billed Woodcreeper. We were watching the hole when he popped out and posed for us!
Shiny Cowbird.
Tropical Kingbirds love telephone wires, just like Eastern Kingbirds back home!
Female White-Necked Jacobin.
Female Lemon-Rumped Tanager eating bananas from a feeder.
Rufous-Tailed Hummingbird.
Blue-Gray Tanager.
Bananaquit. First, I love the name. Second, I love how these little guys steal sugar-water from hummingbird feeders!
Yeah, I don't know what this is.
A dead snake in the road.
Heliconia, the favorite food of hermit hummingbirds.
Heliconia flower.
Strangler fig flower.
We saw or heard 64 species of birds in four hours -- that's 16 birds an hour. Is that breaking some kind of birder speed limit? When the walk ended, my companions were ready to never see a bird again in their lives, but I could have kept it up for another eight days. I think that nine-day dream bird tour is still on the bucket list!
Daan and I bought a few picnic groceries at the mini market and headed straight to our next activity, Las Cascadas, the waterfalls. The little tram car over a gaping jungle valley was a big shock, but we made it to the other side. I felt like a National Geographic videographer in an airplane while I was filming this:
I loved having a fit, energetic hiking partner. We ran up and down the muddy staircases and forded rivers to reach four of the five waterfalls. It’s amazing how little bird life you see when you aren’t looking for it specifically. (And when it’s the middle of the day.)
This ladder had seen better days. (No, we needed climb it.)
I liked the trickling-over-mossy-forest-rocks waterfalls better than the big, showy ones.
That's me.
That one time the waterfall became the path.
We ate our canned tuna, bread, and bananas at the last waterfall. We felt safe and secluded because other hikers probably turned back at the high river we'd crossed barefoot. It was chilly, but we went swimming in our underwear anyway!
Like a jacuzzi with jets. And a broken heater.
Our secret picnic spot.
After the long walk back into town, we were beat, but we weren’t going to let our $4.50 Frog Concert tickets go to waste. We walked past exuberant political demonstrations (the mayoral elections are like the World Cup in Ecuador!) to a little hostel known for its guided night walks. While we waited, I met an American vet on vacation with his wife who showed me his high-end photography equipment and warned me severely never to become a veterinarian, even though he loved his job. We saw lucienagas (lightning bugs), giant fishing spiders, glow-in-the-dark wood from a decomposing bacteria (which I think might actually have been a fungus), and green baby walking stick, and a brown tree cricket with long antennae. I couldn’t take photos because flashes were prohibited.
The nice American couple took pity and agreed to give us a ride back to our hostel in their personally hired SUV. It sure feels different to travel by public bus rather than a chauffeur!
Once again, I woke up in my comfortable bottom-bunk in my six-bed dorm room with no plans. Heaven, after the madness of Brazil! I know I’ll get antsy soon, though.
After a breakfast of fresh fruit and bread at the hostel bar, I noticed a hand-written advertisement on a blackboard for a free walking tour of Quito’s gorgeous Old Town, el Centro Historico. Even though I’ve been down here a couple times before, I thought it would be a good idea to get oriented by foot and learn some new historical details.
The Basilica, which is visible from my hostel's rooftop terrace -- along with a panoramic view of the city and mountains.
The Basilica's only deviation from typical Gothic style is its replacement of gargoyles with native Ecuadorian fauna.
There were even Galapagos giant tortoises!
We arrived to the main square just in time to see President Rafael Correa waving from his balcony.
This statue presides over the four historic buildings in Old Town's main square.
The Andean condor represents freedom for Gran Colombia, the original country which encompassed Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. I hope I get to see one of these endangered birds in the wild.
The angry lion represents the Spanish empire, and the broken ship and cross behind him represent colonization and the Catholic church.
I had de ja vu from eating lunch in this very room a few months ago with the GAIAS study abroad group! It feels very different to come upon the place alone.
An Ecuadorian flag between the towers of the Basilica
One of the seven crosses on Calle de las Cruces.
An elegant courtyard visible from a public rooftop.
We explored the dark, narrow, winding tunnels under this church where a strange artisan crafts market is now held.
After the tour, we all decided to grab $2.00 lunches at Almuerzo Como en Casa (Lunch Like at Home), the restaurant our tour guide had recommended. Then, three chill British guys from the tour and I headed out to play frisbee (YEEEE) at a park. My two-person team smoked theirs, and the guys were all naturals at defense. We asked the trash-collector lady to please leave the foam cups we were using to mark the end-zones, and almost ran over a businessman in a suit who had inadvertently cut across our field. We got lots of smiles and funny looks from Ecuadorians who had never seen a game of ultimate. It was so much fun!!!
Sorry for my month-long hiatus. After those mandatory daily journal entries in Brazil, I was a little burnt out! I’ve spent the last month travelling in Ecuador. I’ll try to catch you up through photos. You can always find the more complete set of photos at my Flickr account.
To pick up where we left off, here is my journal entry from my first day in Ecuador:
Saturday, February 15
Last night, I said goodbye to my AZP group in Brazil and saw them off on their journey back to the US. I then found a Starbucks and waited a couple hours until I was allowed to pass through security (I was really early.) I departed on-time from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Panama City, Panama at 2:50am. Surprisingly to me, my ticket was first class! I have never felt so pampered.
I slept and read my book during a three-hour layover in Panama City before boarding another on-time flight to Quito, Ecuador. We arrived at 11:40am, just one minute ahead of our 11:41 scheduled arrival! I guess the airplane gods were on my side today.
I passed immigration and customs with no problem, picked up my bag, and found the driver holding my hostel’s sign. Last night at the airport, I had pre-arranged a reservation in Old Town, Quito and an airport-to-hostel pickup service. The cabbie was a really nice guy who let me stop by an ATM to pick up US dollars and told me about his 10 children.
I spent the afternoon doing laundry (in a machine, hallelujah), finishing many many many internship applications/e-mails/plans, and meeting my hostel-mates, all of whom are fricken awesome. I'm in a co-ed, six-bed dorm room. Right now I'm sitting on the rooftop by a campfire staring at the most gorgeous view of the city and mountains I have ever seen.
I got the $3.00 chicken masala dinner offered by the hostel, and now I'm off to bed. It's been a few weeks since I got more than 5 hours of sleep in a night, and around 48 hours since I slept in a bed at all. Hooray for sleeping in tomorrow!
The map at the entrance to my hostel. I feel more and more acquainted with the world, the more I travel.
The first of five steep flights of stairs leading to the hostel's reception.
Remy tending the garden pools inside the front door.
