Mindo and the Otavalo market

14 February 2014 

Left Latacunga, I went back to Quito to take a bus to Mindo, a little village in the cloud forest. I arrived with the rain, but despite this, I decide to go visit the town. Mindo is very little, you can visit it in less than 30 minutes. Walking around I heard some music: another big political party before the elections that will occur in 10 days. Here people love to mix politics and Fiesta. Every one seems so involved, when you walk in the street you can see flags of different parties on the houses, people wearing shirts with political slogans or children playing with balloons with the name of a party. 

People that visit this town can spend time in many different ways. Even if Mindo is a very little town, it has lot of attractions around: mountains, waterfalls, zip lines, tarabita, birdwatching, mariposario,  tours in a chocolate farm etc. Unfortunately I had only one whole day in this town (on Saturday I want to be at Otavalo where they have a big artisanal market). In the morning I visited a Mariposario, a big tropical garden where you can observe butterflies and colibrì. Then I decided to hike to the "santuario de las cascadas", a trail with different waterfalls. I visited many different places till now, but one my favourite is the cloud forest. The green vegetation and tropical flowers make of this place something really special. I hiked for some hours, then on my way back to the town it started raining. This is typical in the cloud forest : sunny in the morning, raining in the afternoon. 

Mindo is a wonderful village that is discovering tourism only now. I'm afraid that in few years it will become another Banos, a city based completely on tourism. 

Tomorrow morning I'll leave for Otavalo, where there is the most famous artisanal market of Ecuador. The city is only few hours from the border with Colombia, so probably this will be my last stop before leaving Ecuador. I didn't know so much about this country when I first arrived here, but I learned to love it day after day. 

Mindo

At the Mariposario 

Colibrì - Hummingbird 

Santuario de las cascadas 

Otavalo and the market