Mindo Lindo Day 1

Bright and early Saturday morning, Justin and I headed off to the town of Mindo, which is about 2 1/2 hrs outside Quito by bus. Of course, getting there is never as easy at it would seem. First, you have to figure out where to catch the bus. Our guide book lied to us, yet again. Bad guide book. Very bad guide book! :( But eventually, with the help of many really nice people we managed to find the right place to catch the bus. One lady actually went so far as to come up to us in the bus station and say that she'd overheard we were trying to get to Mindo, that she was taking a taxi that was going right by the place we needed to be to catch the bus, and that she would take us and drop us off there - and we didn't need to pay for anything. I have to admit that after a trying morning, this completely uplifted my spirits. It's nice when one person manages to brighten your day :)
Off we went, and Mindo truly was as lindo (pretty) as we'd been told: I don't know if you can enlarge these photos, but the size just doesn't do them justice. There were so many beautiful, quaint little buildings. The landscape reminded me in a way of my old home in northeast Alabama. Sometimes it even smelled the same. We spent over an hour walking around outside of Mindo in search of a restaurant (we were given wrong directions, shocker, but I didn't mind so much as every step involved breath-taking scenery).Streams ran all through Mindo and the surrounding countryside. It was amazingly beautiful, and I only wish I could post all of the photos that we took. I loved this covered bridge:Anyways, after we finally found a restaurant to eat lunch, Justin agreed to go Canyon Zip Lining. As this involves a harness and heights, I was pretty impressed that he was completely nonchalant about going. See picture below:

We harnessed up:
And away we went:)

After zip lining we tried to visit the Mariposario (butterfly farm), but since it was raining they recommended we return the following day when it was sunny and the butterflies would be more likely to be out. Exhausted after a long day of walking and zip lining, we collapsed on a bench just outside the Mariposario and enjoyed watching a gazillion hummingbirds flit about.Finally, we headed back into town to find a place to eat dinner. Randomly, we met up again with four girls who were staying in the room right next to us in our rather interesting hostel (complete with drunk Brits partying loudly until about 3 am, a Spanish dude with a mediocre voice serenading his American girlfriend on his guitar, and a Godzilla-rooster who decided that the morning had arrived around 4 am). With the help of Benadryl, I managed to sleep through a decent portion of this, but Justin and a couple of other girls weren't so lucky. We ended up eating dinner with them and another guy they knew, and basically hung out with them the rest of the trip. Though Justin and I always have fun on our weekend adventures, it was a blast to get to hang out with so many fun people. (From L to R: Trish, Amy, Lacy, Me, Ben, Kelsey, Justin)
Day one: Success :)