Today, Thursday, we decided to go on a popular cable-suspended tramway ride and hike a trail to waterfalls. First, we enjoyed the lodge’s breakfast of watermelon, scrambled eggs and a small “pancake” of ground cassava with cheese, served with pineapple juice and hot tea. Then we headed out under a gray sky to take a taxi to the tramway at 8:30 or so. We were their first customers and we had to wait while a worker was grinding or polishing a part of the metal tram car. It was a little unsettling to be the first riders after a “fix” that required someone wearing a welder’s helmet. The far-side tram operator rode with us as the tram car traversed high above the river canyon below. But everything went smoothly and reached the far side in about 3 minutes.
We started hiking downhill to the first waterfall. The temperature was in the sixties, very humid, but not raining. And we had the trail to ourselves. It was wide but fairly steep with steps. By the time we reached the third or fourth waterfall, I was quite sweaty and my glasses were continually steaming up. Nathan’s camera lens was steamed up too. So we decided to return to the top without seeing all 5 waterfalls. But we got some good exercise and saw some pretty falls. As we hiked back up, we met several hikers starting the journey down. At the tram station again, we watched the tram car go back and forth a few times while we rehydrated and cooled down. Then we took it back across the canyon. The operators had called our taxi driver already to come pick us up, so he arrived a few minutes later to take us back to town. The whole adventure took about 2 hours.
In Mindo, we stopped at the bus terminal to buy tickets for tomorrow’s ride back to Quito. Then we went to a little restaurant for lunch. Nathan had chicken and rice and I ordered a caprese salad of tomatoes and cheese with basalmic vinegar. After lunch we headed back to the cabaña and relaxed on the porch. It began to rain not long afterwards and didn’t stop all afternoon and evening. We didn’t feel like walking to a restaurant in the rain, so we ended up eating protein bars to stave off the hunger pangs ‘til morning.
Lori's Travels 