Mindo

Canopy Swinging

Mindo is a small town, sitting in a peaceful green valley within the heart of the cloud forests, and by all accounts, is considered an excellent spot for weekenders wanting to escape the big city and retreat into the blissful calm of nature. So on one weekend myself, Sarah, Alvin, Craig and Maha gathered our belongings and our wits and did just that, we all headed off to the jungly paradise. The journey is 2 and a half hours by bus, through the winding Andean mountains, west of Quito. When you arrive you pretty much fall immediately in love with the place (well I did).

Mindo is essentially one street, with a few side dirt tracks which house the odd hostal. The main road has primariliy restaurants (often selling deliceous pizzas) and the occassional coffee shop, selling freshly picked and ground coffee and chocolate brownies plucked almost straight off the Cocoa Tree - well the chocolate is anyway. The place is very into it's nature and preservation of all things that grow and because of this Mindo attracts a steady stream of backpackers disguised as hippies.

We stayed for two days in Mindo (one night). On our first day we took a taxi just out of town to the canopy swing. High up in the trees canopies, a Costa Rican guy has decided to place ziplines from one tree to another and then allow paying customers to swing between them. For just $10, you get to experience 13 different canopy zip-wires. You are kitted out with appropriate clothing and harness, and then with a couple of experienced guides your group is treated to some hi-flying swings. Because your up in the trees canopy, these zipline's take you from one tree to the next at heights of at least 300 meters. The views are incredible and you get to see nature right up at where it's all happening.

The ziplines are pretty fast and they say they get a lot faster in the rain, so when it proceeded to downpour we knew we were in for a ride. Thunder and lightning appeared to be right on top of us at one stage, to the point where you could really hear the air cracking around you, yet although we were swinging on metal cables, high up in the canopy, it wasn't the lightning that stopped our fun, but instead the rain. We were traveling so fast that the guides were having trouble stopping us, so after completing perhaps 9 of the lines we headed back. We did have the chance however to pull a few tricks. Mostly when you zipline across you do it solo. But you can zipline with one of the guides and then be placed in ridiculous positions. Alvin was harnessed completely upside down with his legs in the air. I decided to do the superman, lying face down, flat, so as you swing, your really flying. It certainly gave me the best view of the whole day, a birds-eye view you might say. It was a lot of fun despite everyone being completely soaked by the end, but hey, if you go playing in the rainforest you have to expect coming out the other end a bit wet.

On our second day we trekked off to some waterfalls. First you again travel across the trees canopy (but even higher this time) in a cable car which more resembles a metal bucket. Luckily, fantastic views distract you from the potentially dangerous swinging bucket and the lack of saftey ropes to hold onto. At the other side its about an hour or so walk to some great waterfalls and all round beautiful natury things.

The area of Mindo is real rainforest. It's famous for it's birds of which we saw many including a couple of stunning humming varieties. The rest of them I have no idea what types they were - i'm from London - we only have pigeons. Mindo is also teeming with creepy crawlies including some of the largest spiders I have ever seen and which would insist in hiding amongst all our clothing. If you can handle the bugs (and the mosquitos) then you will love this town. There was still loads of things that unfortunately we missed here but you can't do everything in a few days. I guess thats a good excuse for a return visit!!!

The only downside to this trip was that during the constant downpour my camera suffered miserably. Unbelievably the screen is now totally useless and again with no view-finder I have another camera which works but I can't see what the hell i'm taking. In the few years that I have been travelling the world now I have just gone through my third camera due to either damage or theft. I don't have much luck with these electrical devices and I really don't know whether to purchase a new one with the track record I have. If I do decide to buy however, it will be made of titanium and resistant to atomic explosions and nothing less will do!!!

That one night we stayed in Mindo was the very night that Chile was struck by it's devastating Mw 8.8 earthquake. The event sent shock-waves around the world, both seismic and media related. My friend Anne-Marie was on a boat out in the Galapagos that night. It would be three days until I found out that she was okay, apart from the odd bruise where her boat had been swung around in the strong waves that emanated from the earthquake focus. When I returned to Quito I checked my seismograms - a fuzzy squiggle completely dominated the screen for some hours. That was the only consequence of the natural disaster experienced in Ecuador.

A large earthquake is expected to go off in Ecuador at some point in the near future. Myself along with about 14 million Ecuadorians hope that the near future is more geologically speaking than any other type.................