Backpacking South America- Ecuador: Mindo, Quito (Days 20-23)

The beginning of our journey in Ecuador was not… easy. We felt nickel and dimed from the moment we arrived, including being charged to leave the bus station. Bus information was nowhere to be found and yet there were twenty from which to choose.

Our few days of travel from Trujillo (or last stop in Peru) to Mindo, Ecuador was a bit chaotic. Here’s what we did:

Wed-Thurs, 10/7 – 10/8 10:30pm – 6am Huaraz to Trujillo

Thurs-Fri 10/8 – 10/9 Midnight – 7pm Bus from Trujillo, Peru to Guayaquil, Ecuador

Saturday 10/9 8pm – 11pm Bus from Guayaquil to Cuenca (stayed one night)

Sun – Mon 10/10 – 10/11 8pm – 6:30am Cuenca to Quito (Southern terminal)

One hour to figure out we needed to get to the North terminal

Monday 10/11 7:30am – 8:30am Local city bus to get to the Northern terminal, which ended up requiring one hop off and hop on, which we lucked out that simply continuing to go North was effective

Monday 10/11 9:15am – 11:15am Bus to Mindo from the Northern terminal

Not surprisingly, we intentionally planned three nights in Mindo to just relax!

Mindo is a small town known for their butterflies and birds, both which are plentiful in species and in view. We planned to camp, but it turned out that wasn’t much of an option. The first night we stayed in an adorable bungalow style private hut, and we already had the next two nights booked elsewhere. We had a hammock on our front porch and it was surrounded with beautiful jungle vegetation.

The first day, we essentially walked around looking for a campsite, walked around the very small town, enjoyed a spiked Spicy Mexican hot chocolate from a place that made chocolate (only our second happy hour on our whole trip!) and discovered our new favorite place to eat: Padrillo’s Pizza.

For just $6, we split a delicious medium pizza and watched as the entire town of locals came in to buy bread constantly throughout our meal. We had to know what was up with this bread! We bought some rolls to make tuna sandwiches the next day. There seems to be a brownie competition in Mindo so we indulged in a brownie with ice cream. It was incredible. Granted, we hadn’t eaten anything so divine on our whole trip, but it was just amazing! We spoiled ourselves with deliciousness!

We planned to visit a butterfly farm and zipline, but due to the timing of having to check out and into our next place we just opted for the zipline. After enjoying our tuna sandwiches with the first delicious, non-stale, flaky bread of our entire trip, we headed to hike to the zipline! You can take a cab, but we opted to walk.

While the road was paved with dirt, we were still walking for about 45 minutes in the “jungle” so we pretended it was a hike (since it was uphill). We also met a dog that followed us about halfway up the hill to the zipline, waited for us to finish, and walked back down with us!

Ziplining was a blast! The scenery was incredible and you get to “fly” in a superman pose or upside-down (definitely the best!). We walked back down the hill, and enjoyed another pizza, and saw that they had additional roll options this evening. We were so hungry, so we split one that looked like it was stuffed with cheese and garlic. We were surprised to learn that it was stuffed with panela (a type of South American brown sugar) and grated white cheese. It was sooooo good! We bought a couple of those to take back with us, some sandwich rolls and one cinnamon looking roll that was acutally chocolate to enjoy with another bland breakfast of plain oatmeal. We were living it up in Mindo!

The next day, we planned to hike to waterfalls, and quickly learned that only the hike to the “big” one was open. Heading back up the hill to go twice as far, the path deviated from the road to this waterfall was clumsily marked and had construction materials almost blocking the entrance. The area was beautiful and we couldn’t wait to experience the waterfall!

Turns out, the waterfall was… not impressive. We ate our tuna sandwiches and enjoyed hanging out in the jungle, but the waterfall was hardly a selling point! On our way back, we discovered some fun jungle swings, one made of an incredible tree branch and one man-made.

We hiked back for another night of cheap and delicious pizza, stocked up on rolls (we got four of the delicious kind) to prepare for our 30 hour bus ride from Quito to Columbia after one nights’ stay in Quito. We got to talk to the owner and his wife, both so friendly and kind, and learn some of the secrets to the bread making. Unfortunately, one of those is that he kneads them all by hand and it’s an “artisanal” craft. They asked if I’d be around Friday when he makes bread all day if I wanted to join. I would have LOVED to, but sadly we weren’t going to be there.

The next morning, we got on a 6:30am bus for just a couple hours back to Quito. We took the city bus from the northern bus station to our hostel in the center of the Old Town and walked around that morning and early afternoon. I fell in love with their main square with live music and grand, charming buildings (hardly captured by a photo). We went to the central market for some cheap and authentic food. We went to the top of the basilica for phenomenal views of the whole city. We went back to the hostel to figure out what we wanted to do next. We decided to get our first empanada from a restaurant just a few blocks away. We walked there, ordered our snacks, and watched as everyone around us had humungous servings of ice cream sundaes and desserts (literally, massive). And then it started to downpour.

The rain pounding the pavement outside of the restaurant walls, and here we were stuck with mounds of ice cream and desserts! After about half and hour with no rain reprieve, we found the strength to resist ice cream and ran back to our hostel in the rain. I’m grateful we walked the city before the rain, since it didn’t let up until it was dark. It’s recommended in Quito that you take a cab everywhere when it’s dark. The recommended restaurant by the hostel manager was quite close but was Italian food. Four nights of pizza in a row? We were hoping for a more authentic meal, but given the now intermitted rain and darkness, we went for what was most accessible. The pizza was a little more expensive so we bought two small ones to share. Luckily they were quite good, and we briskly walked back to our hostel, craving the ice cream that our eyes had been forced to feast on during our rain trap.

We already had spent our budget so we declined, but then we saw two gals with chocolate covered bananas. We spotted a tiny corner store with one other gal in line, and indeed, she took away a banana! We walked over and asked how much (cuanta cuesta). Twenty cents each? We can do that! We had exactly four dimes and enjoyed a perfect treat for the final few blocks walking back to our hostel. We packed up to prepare for our 5:30am cab to the bus terminal the next morning. We chatted with two gals from the UK who shared our room, and went to bed before 10pm!