El Mindo

On Sunday I traveled to the small town of Mindo located in the cloud forest about two hours outside of Quito.  Mindo has breathtaking views  of natural landscapes and is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet; it is known for bird watching, butterflies, and its adventure sports.  While in Mindo we decided to zip line through the canopy.  The zip line route consisted of more than 10 lines, and a decent amount of walking through the forest to get from one line to the next.  The views from the zip lines were amazing.  On three of the zip lines I rode upside down, which they referred to as mariposa (butterfly). Following ziplining we went white water rafting.  It was a lot of fun, but not as strong as I had expected because the river was pretty small.  Also the water was freezing because a storm was coming in.  As soon as we exited the river, it started pouring rain, and unfortunately continued to rain for the rest of the day.  Since Mindo is a rainforest, rain is very common there.