MUNGO EATS Latin America

We left Otavalo today, bound for Mindo.  Mindo is a small town northeast of Quito, located in the cloud forest.  The town is starting to become a bit of a tourist location for people seeking eco-minded adventure.  There are ziplines, butterfly gardens, bird watching tours, river rafting, etc.  We are hoping to do a bit more ziplining for a lot less than we paid in Costa Rica.  To get to Mindo, you have to pretty much go to Quito, but hopefully not get too sucked into it.  The key is to skirt the northern edge of the city, enter straight south, then quickly change directions to northeast.  We got sucked in…but not to far!  The bonus part of being sucked in, is that we found a large grocery store and got some  items that have been harder to find, like corn meal ground for polenta and peanut butter (it is terrible to be excited by cornmeal and PB!).

Today we crossed the equator…five times!  We were going to visit La Mitad Del Mundo (centre of the world) monument, but it was crazy packed at 1pm on  a Sunday afternoon, so we will try it earlier in the day when we head back to Quito on Tuesday or so. 

We are staying at a pretty nice hotel tonight.  Actually, it is a bunch of cabins surrounding a picturesque little frog pond.

There is a decent restaurant, and if you wish, you can have your morning coffee on a table in a floating patio on the pond. 

There is a small butterfly garden here which contains mostly owl butterflies.

These are quite huge, and at times they zoom around at high speed, buzzing passed your ears.  Very cool!  They also have a few hummingbird feeders located near the restaurant and patios, so you can watch the hummingbirds zip back and forth.  I could watch them all day!!  They are so amazing!!