Things I Never Thought I'd Do..

This past weekend the group went to Mindo for a little excitement. What an awesome weekend it was! Friday after school, we all packed up our bags and squished all 10 of us into the van for a 2.5 hr ride to Mindo. The scenery along the way was unbelievable (and so was the driving! people passing on a single lane highway around a blind corner. Some very close calls had us on the edge of our seats at times!) Ecuador is honestly just such a beautiful country with rolling mountains and valleys everywhere filled with lush, green forests. Sometimes you feel as though you're in the clouds! We got to Mindo, an extremely small town, and found our hotel that was costing each of us about $20.00 a night. The hotel pretty much had a jungle with a river flowing through it as its backyard and each room had a balcony with a hammock that faced the street or jungle. After settling in, we set out on the town to find a place to eat. There's really only one main road with a few roads that branch off it but its a very touristy town so there aren't really that many people that live there. As we're walking we see the end of the main road blocked off to traffic and tonnes of people so we went to investigate. Apparently there was some sort of festival this weekend that was starting on the friday night so there was a stage set up with a live band playing some sweet tunes and a group of people dancing. The rest of the people were just hanging out listening to the music. We ended up going to a little restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet book. The food was delicious as always and we had a good time. We all had the intention of going out on the town that night but by the end of dinner most of us were exhausted and ready for bed. The weeks here at the school are amazing, but long and tend to wear us down more than we expected. I also think the constant struggle of translating and trying to understand things is extremely wearing. A few of the crew went out to a couple bars in Mindo but most of us went back to our hotel to sleep.

Hiking to the waterfall

Hiking straight down a mountain

Our legs from the bug bites. Ouch!

Our cute room in Mindo

Saturday morning we still got up fairly early and met down in the hotel restaurant for 8:00am. We wanted to do lots of activities during the day so we made sure to be up early. Even getting up at 7:30am is an extra 2 hours of sleep we don't get during the weekdays. We had a good little breakfast and then decided to head to the location that we knew had at least zip lining. We figured if we went early in the morning it'd be better and probably less busy. While at the office, we all decided to go zip lining (called canopying here) followed by a tube ride down the river and then repelling waterfalls (which is called canyoning here). We went zip lining first, which was amazing. I wasn't sure I could do it because I am scared of heights but its so exhilarating and the views are absolutely unbelievable. With this company, there were a few zip lines that you could try different, more challenging positions by going with one of the guides. One was the superman where the guide is behind you and you look like a superman with your legs wrapped around his waist. You go across the zip line in this position, and I didn't think I could do it since you aren't holding onto anything and only your legs are wrapped around the guide but in the end I did it and it was crazy! There was also another position called the butterfly but there was no way in hell I was doing it! The guide goes with again but rides behind you while you're completely upside down with the guide holding your legs up in the air and spread eagled! You're actually in a star fish position upside down while zip lining. A couple people in the group did it and they're crazy!

Ready to go zip lining!

After zip lining we were all sweating pretty good from all the hiking around so we were glad to head for the tubing activity. It was a good thing we had gotten up early because by the time we finished zip lining there were tonnes of people there that had to wait for a while before they could go. We met some Canadians from Vancouver (they were wearing a canucks shirt and so was a member of our group) who we said we'd meet up with later in Mindo. We piled back into the van and headed to the tubing activity. We had all thought it would just be a mellow tube ride down the river where you go by yourself and just relax and do whatever. Boy, we couldn't be more wrong! They had like 8 huge inner tubes tied together with rope that we went down on. We had to go in groups of 4 and each group had 2 "guides" with them. They gave us quick instructions to keep our feet up so they don't hit the rocks, and to hold on tight. That was pretty much it. They told us where to sit in the tubes to try and disperse the weight and off we went down the river. It turned out that "tubing" here is pretty much white water rafting, Ecuadorian style. I've never had so much fun in my life! The guides were in jeans and t-shirts wearing big rubber boots. They would hop on the tubes and then when they wanted to steer us they would hop off, run along the bottom of the river or stop and work to turn the tube then jump back on. Sometimes they'd push off the rocks down the river to keep us controlled. It was seriously nuts. I don't even know how to describe it. It apparently isn't rapids season here, but I definitely don't want to see rapid season because it was a rough ride! Super fun though.

Best pizza ever!

After that rush, we were on our way to the canyoning. When we had signed up for it, I hadn't thought much of it, even though I'm pretty scared of heights. We all piled into a van again and picked up our guides and then headed off. After about a 15 minute ride the van pulls over and they all tell us to get out. We were basically in the middle of no where. We were thinking "okay. so this is the point where they just kill us all and no one ever finds out what happened to us!". Luckily that wasn't the case. They tell us its about a 20 minute hike back into the forest/mountain to get to the waterfalls. So we follow dutifully. We get to this opening and they tell us we need to get harnessed up and that we could leave our bags here. We all get prepared, spray on some bug spray and then follow our guides again. This time, we were heading straight up a mountain. Let me tell you.. I had better be in the best shape of my life after this trip! We've done so many mountain hikes, plus the air is so thin here, it's unbelievable I'm still alive since I hardly exercise at all. We finally got to the top of where we needed to be and then we had to kind of scale our way back down the mountain a bit to get to the waterfall. I can honestly say I'm not meant for rock climbing! We get to the waterfall and it hits me that I was crazy to think I could do this and that's the point when I almost started to cry. I'm afraid of heights! Why would I ever sign up to do this?! It was one of those moments that I often have where I agree to do something without really thinking it through. Luckily for me in my life, everything has worked out for the best for me and this did too. We had very quick instructions from our three guides that basically consisted of "hold the rope here to stop, do this to let more rope go, lean back really far, and spread your legs". IS THAT REALLY ALL YOU'RE GOING TO TELL ME?! I was one of the last people to go and almost cried a couple times thinking about going over that ledge while only being hooked up to one rope. Apparently when you do something like this in Canada, you are attached to two ropes. One is the rope that you use to repel yourself down but the other rope is one that the guide has just incase anything happens. Not in Ecuador! Its you and you alone. If you let go of that rope.. it may not be so good. I finally did it and it actually wasn't so bad. I just didn't let myself look down and focused on where my feet were going. When I got to the bottom, my face probably look like a kids on Christmas morning. I couldn't believe I did and I felt like I did it properly! It was amazing. It's not like it was a huge waterfall but as you got half way down it,  the water started running over you and it was just such an exhilarating feeling. I think the first waterfall was about 12 meters high. High enough for me! Once everyone had gone down, we went down another one and then a third one. So much fun! I'm still so proud of myself for doing it. One unfortunate thing about this part of the day was the little itty bitty black flies. We didn't know it at the time but it turns out we're still suffering from their bites. Although their bites hurt at the time and we could see they made us bleed, we had no idea they'd swell up so bad, be so itchy, and last for about a week. Most of us look like we have chicken pox!

Once we got back from canyoning, we all took a much needed shower and then decided to head to a "frog concert". Just outside Mindo, there is this guy who rebuilt some marsh area that used to be farm land. Within 5 years, its grown into quite a forest with many animals now living there. It's called a frog concert because at 6:30pm all you can hear are frogs, and all different types of frogs. It was really quite neat. The guy told us how he started the project and that he actually never brought any frogs into the area, they just came themselves after he had built the area up. There's now many species of frogs, toads, spiders, etc living there. We got to take a tour of the area and they showed us this type of wood that actually naturally glows in the dark. It contains some sort of bacteria and its not very well studied yet at all but it literally looks like you're holding it under a black light. So amazing! It reminded me of the forest at night in Avatar.

We headed back into Mindo after the concert, and were all starving. By this point, Saturday had been an extremely full day so we felt like having some pizza. Best pizza I've ever had. Seriously! So good! I wish I could have eaten it every day when we were there. The guys met up with some guys from Britain we'd met at the frog concert and decided to have another night on the town. Because of the festival, there was a "Miss Mindo" competition the guys planned on scoping out. I wanted to go out but was so burnt out I couldn't do it. Man am I ever old!

Although I wish Sunday had been a nice relaxing day, we'd been talked into taking a hike to try and see a toucan with a guide that is originally from the US. We had to be ready to go by 6 am because once the sun comes out, the birds hide from the heat. We got up, piled into the back of the bush and headed up the mountain. Unfortunately, we didn't see any toucans but we did see some birds and had an incredible hike through the forest down the mountain. There was another instance of rock climbing at a certain part down the mountain and I have to say I haven't gotten any better at it, but I survived.

We got back to the hotel, got some time to relax and then piled all 10 of us back into the van to head back to Quito. We were all exhausted from our weekend and pretty much slept the rest of the way. I have to say that Mindo was one of those weekends I will never forget. I may even have to get a tattoo just to commemorate doing the things I never thought I'd do. To be honest, I may not have been able to do them if it hadn't been for the amazing group of people I'd been with. They've seen my fears on this trip and have always been supportive and willing to help in any way possible. They've been there to go down before me just to make me feel better, and at the waterfall they were cheering me on the entire way down. I'm almost done with this group and I will definitely be thinking of them during my back packing trip.. I will have to keep their encouraging words in my mind to help me get through!