Summer in Ecuador : Saturday June 1, 2013

Saturday presented us with quite an adventure! We left Tumbaco at 7am and headed toward the beautiful town of Mindo. Mindo is where the cloud forests are. The cloud forests are different than rain forests because it barely rains! The clouds are critically important to helping the vegetation thrive in this environment. Many of the plants have other plants growing on top of them (for example moss growing on trees) and if it rained a lot those plants would not be able to stay attached. It is a very interesting concept.

When we got to Mindo the first thing we did was a zip line and suspension bridge canopy tour. Unfortunately we do not have many pictures because we were afraid to take our cameras with us. The zip lining was truly amazing. The lines were so long and our view was breathtaking! Once we completed three or four lines it was time to walk across the suspension bridges. I had never really done anything like this so I was not sure what to expect. The bridges were lower in the canopy and the view looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book! I could not believe my eyes. However, the bridge was quite terrifying. It was about the width of my foot and very wobbly. The bridges were also long and we were instructed to walk slow, one foot in front of the other, so it took us a very long time to walk across. It was an interesting experience. I am not going to tell you it was my favorite, because I honestly was very scared, but it was beautiful and I am glad I did it.

After we left the zip line park, we went to our hotel where it rained for about an hour or so. Our hotel was.............interesting...............It was similar to a summer camp. We were in a cabin with 4 other rooms and each room had a bathroom, a full bed and two sets of bunk beds. It was not the cleanest place I have ever seen and spiders were EVERYWHERE. I did not mind the spiders that I saw at first, they were small and easy to kill with a shoe. However, I heard one girl screaming at the top of her lungs and when we went to go see what was wrong, we found a spider. Not just any kind of spider, but the biggest spider I have seen in my life. It was about the size of a tarantula and had orange spots all over it. We could not even begin to think about killing it ourselves so we asked the grounds keeper to kill it. He said yes and comes to our room with a giant knife...a knife...needless to say I did not sleep well Saturday night.

Later in the afternoon we went rafting on the river next to our hotel. I was not quite sure what to expect because the river was raging. I did not see any tubes, helmets or life jackets and for a minute I almost backed out. The company came to pick us up from our hotel and drive us up the river. Once we got to the beginning of the rafting tour I still did not see any equipment. I was nervous to say the least. Within the next couple of minutes our tubes, life jackets and helmets did show up along with guides who would ride down the river with us. The guide tied tubes together to make a giant raft. There were six of us on the raft, plus two guides. The guides did not wear any safety equipment at all - no helmet or life jacket. The craziest part about the whole experience? The guides literally ran us down the river. They were wearing jeans and boots, running through the river, guiding us to make sure we did not fall out or hit any rocks. It was stupid crazy. They could have easily hurt themselves but they seemed to know what they were doing. The river was running so quickly that our ride only last about ten minutes. But an intense ten minutes to say the least.

After our adventurous rafting experience, we went into town to have pizza and beer. We could not have been more excited. The pizza was delicious and hit the spot.

That night we all crammed into a small room and slept together because we were so scared of the spiders. I hardly got any sleep.

Here are some pictures from the day!