Teaching in Ecuador: Weekend in Mindo!!

Two blogs in the past 15 hours, definitely back in the blogger's groove.

This past weekend we all traveled down to Mindo (A smaller town, full of adventure!). Our group was set to leave on Friday at 3 pm, and as of 2:45 pm I was unsure if I was going to come or not. I finally decided I would come because as Blair said "I can be sick in Mindo as good as I can be sick in the hotel". It was a good thing that I went on the trip. Friday night in Mindo was fairly uneventful for me since I went to bed early to rest up for a jam packed Saturday. On Saturday our group woke up early to book our adventure. We decided that we wanted to Zipline, White-Water Raft(Tube), and go Canyoning (Repelling) that day. The Ziplines were first on the schedule. These Ziplines were amazing. For only $8 we (along with instructors) went through a total of 13 Ziplines ranging in length from 100 to 1000 feet long, heights from 50 to 500 feet high, and in speeds from what they described as slow to moderate to fast. This all took place overtop a beautiful view of jungle, wildlife, water, mountains, and other people Ziplining. It was amazing. If you are ever in Ecuador it is something you need to do. All for the price of a popcorn at a movie theatre. Next we went on our tube/raft ride. We were all supplied with helmets and life jackets to make sure we would be safe. Our tube was six tubes tied together with rope handles to hold onto. We also had guides come along for the ride and steer us clear of anything too dangerous. That being said it was still a very rocky, bouncy, wild ride. If anyone let any part of their body outside of the tube it was likely to be cut up by rocks. Even through the tube a few of us got some bumps and bruises. Our final adventure was Canyoning/Repelling. For this we were driven down a gravel road to a point that appeared to be the middle of nowhere. At this point the vehicle stopped and our guide said everybody out. Some people in the group were certain we were going to get robbed or worse based on our location, but the guide explained that from where we were we had to walk twenty minutes further into the bush. "Reassuring" to say that least. After quite the hike (including climbing up to the top of the hill where the waterfalls were) our group began repelling down. We were all instructed to lean backwards, but it was very tricky to overcome the natural urge to lean forward (or at least the urge to not completely lean backwards over a steep rocky waterfall). Despite a few people with some uncomfortable moments with heights we were all able to repel down the 3 waterfalls to the bottom. For me it was a chance to push my boundaries and engage in an activity I have not had the chance to prior to the trip. I loved it! As I got more confident I began trying to bounce my way down but it is not as easy as it looks.

The rest of the trip was a different story. That night we all headed over to the "Frog Concert". The frog concert occurs at a special preserved area which attracts different species of frogs. At night they are all croaking away and it sounds really neat. We also got to walk around the area, looking at different species of frogs, insects, plants, and other wildlife in the area. Some interesting things I learned here were that some frogs eggs hatch tadpoles, while others hatch little baby frogs, that there is a type of plant which glows in the dark, a lot of the wildlife requires a certain humidity and temperature to exist, and that frogs will croak during certain seasons or when something is not quite right (for example the temperature was 3 degrees higher than normal, so a species of frog which normally does not croak in may was croaking). The next morning a student took us on a birdwatch/nature hike. We set out looking for toucans and other large birds but were only able to see smaller birds. It was still a nice morning which included a hike down a mountainside and a few more interesting facts; butterflies fly at different heights depending upon their colour (In order to use the Sun as camouflage and avoid predators), Lizards can not run and breathe at the same time. That is why they seem to run in spurts, because they use the same muscles for locomotion as they do for breathing. Following our guided birdwatch/hike we decided to pay a visit to the butterfly sanctuary. It was home to 25 species of butterflies, which was a good experience (especially if you like that kind of thing).

Our weekend in Mindo was a great experience! I expected to use the time to recover but that was not the case because there was just too much awesome waiting to be experienced.