Adventure Stories: Time and Curiosity

When the bus dropped us off here the first day I felt as though we'd landed in the middle of nowhere -- all out of kilter. We shouldered our backpacks and bumped our luggage along streets of half completed houses and as this eco lodge finally came into view with its third floor missing, I wondered how in the world I'd last here three nights.

But time has a way of altering perspectives and at some point during the next day I'd convinced myself that we had everything we needed here: a roof that didn't leak, clean sheets with no bedbugs, a fulsome breakfast, potable water and an on site ornithologist who is mentioned in The Rough Guide to Ecuador and the Galapagos.

Irman, the birder said we must meet him no later than 6 am the following morning in the dining area for our three hour, 7 kilometre trek up into the cloud forest. Otherwise we'd miss the Toucans and many other exotic birds.

It's no wonder people flock here for birds, waterfalls, butterflies and zip lines because Mindo, one of Ecuador's top five tourist destinations, is the go to place for all of these. You come here to soak into raw nature and I suppose as a sidebar to learn how people can live simple, healthy lives without a Starbucks on every corner.

As we are discovering, though, Mindo is undergoing a huge transformation and within a year or two, the main street will gentrify for the tourist industry. Little run me down vegetable shops sit next door to potentially spiffy buildings.

I say "potentially" because people here dream big, plan little, and often run out of money. Maybe their work ethic will develop as Mindo does.

I realized four things during the birding tour: the birds are so near and yet so far, you need sharp eyes, keen ears and tons of experience to have a hope in finding them, the experience is richer on foot than in a van and finally my camera lens is woefully inadequate for capturing the image of a bird 100 feet in the sky. Irman carried a powerful telescope with Leica lens and a tripod. And we saw in the flesh many of the exotic birds National Geographic photographers capture.

Yesterday we crossed the valley in a cable car to find a few of Mindo's famous waterfalls.

The climb there is not for the faint of heart -- up and down a narrow, slippery trail. But nature at its most beautiful doesn't often land on our doorsteps does it? Along the way we met a woman from San Francisco who is completing her master's thesis on sustainable tourism and another woman, a chemical engineer working in polymers who is here building irrigation systems for Engineers without Borders.

Then wonder of wonders Bob and I signed up for zip lining over the forest canopy. What an experience that was! Three lines with a lot of climbing in between. The last line is the rapid one and for that one you place your gloved hand on the cable behind your head. To brake you pull down on the cable.

But you mustn't brake as you approach the platform at the finish or you'll get stuck in mid air. I braked out of terror, got stuck swinging in mid air and had to be clamped to a guide to be tugged in. Gads. But, I've come a long way from the days when I crawled on my hands and knees over bridges and shrieked in small engine aircraft.

Ecuador is developing fast. Americans are retiring here in droves because the country is beautiful and health care is free -- free for everyone, even tourists. A coffee shop owner, originally from Germany said that you could live bare minimum here easily for $500 a month.

Here is a new five bedroom house listed at US $68 000. You could buy it for $50 000 cash. So if you have some wanderlust and a bit of cash your pocket, this would be a fantastic place to settle, at least for now because word is getting around!

Cheek by Jowl