Today we went on out for a adventure to Mindo, a town about 2 hours away. I went here back when I was an OSSO volunteer and remember it being a fun little town.
Jennifer about lost her breakfast through the winding roads on the way there (remember Quito is in the mountains, so in order to get anywhere, you have to get out of the mountains) but other than that, we did just fine.
Let's have a look at the day through pictures, shall we?
Butterfly Farm:
We visited this fun butterfly farm when I was a volunteer here and I remembered it being fun. It was a bit smaller than I remember, but nevertheless fun to see and interesting to learn a bit about caterpillars and the transformation to butterflies. You can see them in all stages of the game. The kids loved it, though no one was able to catch a butterfly to hold.
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| Outside they had this big pond full of the ugliest fish. They enjoyed the food we threw them though. |
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| Outside the butterfly farm |
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| Mindo is really a beautiful place! |
Chocolate Tour:
You may not know this, but Ecuador is famous for their Cacao bean. They export a lot of chocolate and it is delicious. We went on a tour of a farm that grows the Cacao and then does everything in the process to make chocolate. It was really fun- we got to see the whole process as well as taste test things along the way. At the end, they gave us a brownie made of their chocolate and a little cup of chocolate liquid (100%) with all sorts of different things with it- sugar, salt, ginger, BBQ sauce, and something else. It was very interesting and some were good. The chocolate alone was SO strong.
After the tour, we ate lunch in the same place. It was a fun little cafe.
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| Out of order, but here is some of the chocolate processing |
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| Jace at lunch |
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| Don't worry- that's not beer, it's just the most delicious pineapple juice known to man. |
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| The Cacao bean roasting in the sun. It was a hundred million degrees out there. |
Horse Ride:
After lunch, we opted to go on a guided horse ride. Mishell was initially super scared to get on the horse (though she rode at the farm, remember?) but once she got on, she loved it. We didn't go for the full hour because Jace was on with me and was complaining and Emma was on with Jennifer and she started to get a bit fidgety. We rode through the most beautiful jungle area outside of Mindo. It was gorgeous, gorgeous.
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| Jennifer's horse had a name that sounded an awful lot like Marijuana |
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| My horse, along with half the others was named Moro |
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| Sorry for all the scenery-- just so beautiful around here! |
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