Birds, Bailes, and Bad Geography in Northern Ecuador

***Some of the pictures and videos don’t always show up on this post. Usually rebooting the page works. Try that if things are missing.***

Our first trip out from Quito was a week of varied adventures in the northern part of Ecuador. John and Annie Rose joined us for this whole segment of our trip, sharing their bounty of snacks and as well as their wit and willingness to explore.

From Quito we took a drive down the mountain to the beautiful valley of Mindo. Mindo is in the cloud forest, around 4,000 feet above sea level (so the walking was much easier than at Quito’s 9,300 feet). We stayed at the Terrabambu Lodge, about a 20 minute walk from the center of town, where we had a little two bedroom house to ourselves with gorgeous views…

The only problem with the place was the ginormous spiders. We found one in the bedroom and shooed it out onto the deck. Then, later, another one was on the stairs and Jessica bravely used a game board to scoop it out the door. Only trouble was, it came right back in about 3 minutes later. So, I proclaimed death to spiders. And when the other one snuck back into the bedroom later that night, it had to go too. I’m an arachnophobe, what can I say?

Other than the unwanted guests, the rest of Terrabambu was awesome. The central part of the complex served a great breakfast (and a decent snunch!), had a nice ping pong table, and used oh-so-tempting bananas to provide an excellent set up for birdwatching.

(Not pictured: Coati! I was in the bathroom when JBAR and Jess went down to the main lodge. As I showed up, two coati were making off with the leftover bananas from the day. I just saw them disappearing into the woods. We saw an agouti on the property as well.)

There was also a couple of nice ziplines through the bamboo forest…

…and a giant swing over the river.

A bit up the hill from us, we took the “tarabita” — a large basket on a cable that took us over the river — to a hike that led past seven incredible waterfalls. We swam in the pools, marveled at the crazy plants, and just took in the joy of being in such a lush and gorgeous place. The only downside was that the last (and most incredibly huge) waterfall was overrun by a school group on their end of-the-year trip. It turns out that other people get to enjoy themselves too.

Also, this is good for a laugh. I love how AR and Jess are completely in synch with their timing.

Our other big outing in Mindo was a morning birdwatching tour. Birdwatching in Mindo isn’t just a thing you can do, it’s considered one of the best places for it in the world. There are over 500 species in the area, including the horribly named “cock of the rock” (which we didn’t see because they’re in a different part of the valley). Regardless, we’re not birders. Getting up at 6:00am to wander around and look for birds with our crappy cell phone cameras isn’t really our usual M.O., but we all gave it a shot. Our guide was super-serious about birding. He’s been doing this for like 20 years and was intensely focused throughout our time. I think he was a little annoyed we weren’t all more into it. But there were some awesome birds: trogons, toucans, hummingbirds, and more. At times we tried to get some pictures through a telescope lens, but regardless of our second-rate photos, it was pretty cool to see such a great variety of birds. Nevertheless, by the end, we concluded that an hour or two of bird-watching would be enough–four hours was a bit of overkill.

In general, we enjoyed wandering around the sleepy little town of Mindo…

…and learning that the pink bananas are strictly ornamental, not edible.

As with Quito, there were several nice murals in Mindo, this being my favorite.

But, most of our free time in Mindo was spent at El Quetzal, a cafe that is also the home of Mindo Chocolates. We went there three times–literally every day we were in Mindo. A tour there on our first visit showed every step of the process of making chocolate. They emphasized the use of the red cacao which takes in the flavors of the plants growing around it, creating unique fruity flavors. Mindo Chocolates has just five guys who take the beans through every step of the process–we saw them in the final stage, tempering and forming the chocolate into bars. And the tour ended with the chance to sample dozens of their chocolates. Truly excellent. (You can order Mindo Chocolates from this place in Michigan — see the rustic collection for most of what we tried — at a ridiculous price.)

But what kept us coming back? The drinks. Jessica, John, and AR got addicted to the juice made from the cacao pulp, and I loved the ginger beer they made there. So refreshing on a steamy afternoon.

After a few days in Mindo, we zipped a bit further north (and back up in elevation) to Otavalo. However, along the way we made a few stops.

First up, our driver suggested the beautiful overlook of the crater of Volcan Pululahua.

And literally a few steps down the hill was the Templo del Sol, a structure created by the artist Cristobal Ortega Maila to celebrate ancient traditions and to display his works. Visiting was through a tour that was a mix of explaining traditional beliefs, selling local products (particularly herbal remedies), and showing off Ortega Maila’s artworks. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I wasn’t blown away by most of the experience (it varied from too cheesy to overly commercial), but Ortega Maila’s paintings in particular (less so his sculptures) were quite beautiful and were interesting way of reinterpreting traditional indigenous themes in a more modern format.

And at the base of the volcano was the Mitad del Mundo, a giant monument built along the equator. (We had already crossed the equator several times on the road to and from Mindo.) There’s not much there other than a great photo op, but…it’s a great photo op!

Sadly, it’s not even an accurate photo op. It turns out it’s maybe a hundred or so yards off the equator. Oops. We tried to walk to where the equator actually is, but ran into a wall and gave up. Alas…

Also of note, there were more interesting murals around, and have you noticed all the signs advertising the names of cities and parks? There was one here too.

Later in the afternoon we ended up in Otavalo. Otavolo isn’t exactly a big city, but it isn’t a small town either. It has a quite busy city center and sprawls out from there to more rural villages surrounding it, each hidden in a different valley among the volcanic peaks of the area.

The town is most known for its huge Saturday market that spreads well out from the one city block where there’s a permanent daily market. The regular daily market includes lots of beautiful textiles and such, but a lot of it actually feels less interesting and unique because of the giant quantities in which its produced. Beautiful to see, but it’s also quite possible that it’s all factory produced (in many such places its all from China, just following Andean patterns).

Nevertheless, one of my favorite sights was watching the end-of-day cleanup at the market. Every night all of the goods are packaged into giant bundles and folks load them on their trucks to take home only to bring them all back the next day. These folks are seriously strong…

In contrast, the Saturday market has folks from all over the region selling everything: hand-sown goods, second hand clothing, fruits and vegetables, DVDs, and more. Most of the sellers are women, many elders, but also some middle-aged, and often they are aided by young kids. It’s fun seeing the wild mix of goods and people in situations like this.

Nearby, the Mercado Municipal was a more traditional market, with sections for fruits and vegetables, a whole potato zone, parts set aside for clothes, electronics, and more. I liked the semi-open-air design, with an open central square for gatherings and a stylized roof on the two-floor encircling market.

We spent a fair amount of time just wandering the streets of Otavalo, admiring the lampost decorations, tiled sidewalks, and the area around the main square: Parque Simon Bolivar.

There were also more exciting things to see, like this rather serious looking male mannequin wearing a unicorn onesie.

There were also actually interesting things to see, like the fact that Otavalo is totally covered in murals. There was one celebrating that a coalition led by indigenous communities had recently forced the president to leave office and call for new elections, another supporting the uprisings in Peru, several with interesting takes on pandemic-era mask wearing (Ecuador had more masking still happening than in the US for sure), and a number of celebrations of the indigenous community.

We took a jaunt up the hill from Otavalo in a taxi that stalled multiple times on the steep bits of the road. Actually, my favorite bit of the ride was the very sharp curve in the road where a guy stood outside his shop directing traffic and letting people uphill and down know when it was safe to go around the curve. He wasn’t an official traffic control agent or anything…I just think he didn’t have too much to do in his little store.

Anyhow, at the top of the hill, we visited El Lechero, a very old tree with supposedly magical powers. Underwhelming, but evidently a popular weekend destination for picnics. The area around there had great views over the surrounding countryside and the sizeable Lago San Pablo.

From El Lechero, we walked over to Parque Condor, a Dutch-owned combination zoo and rehabilitation center for birds of prey. Many of the birds they work to re-release, but others are not able to go back to the wild, so stay on at Parque Condor. The highlight was a demonstration/lecture where a trainer showed off a number of the birds that they were rehabilitating (these were ones too used to humans to be re-released).

Several of the birds were so attuned to the availability of treats that they simply wouldn’t leave the trainer alone…

The show was great for getting up close and personal with several of the birds…

Beyond the show, there were dozens of hawks, eagles, condors, and a ton of owls to see, each beautiful and different.

Nearby, we spotted a couple of more unusual birds.

Our other big excursion from Otavalo was to the nearby Laguna Cuicocha, a lake in the middle of an active volcanic caldera. The name Cuicocha is simply the combination of two words, cuy and cocha. Cocha means lake in Quechua (or Kichwa as it is known in Ecuador), the language spread by the Inca Empire. Cuy is the word for guinea pig, and the two islands in the lake are said to look like the backs of guinea pigs (which you can kinda of see from certain angles). We had a great hike around the lake, following the ridge line up and down through a varied landscape of wildflowers and grasses and even a fairly dense forest on one side of the lake. Cuicocha was gorgeous the entire way around and there were amazing views out to the surrounding villages and farmland.

From Cuicocha we went to the nearby town of Cotacachi, famed for leather work and as a destination for expats. We didn’t see much of either, but the town was in a pretty location (like pretty much everywhere in the area).

Overall, though, we were underwhelmed by Cotacachi…until Inti Raymi descended upon us.

Inti Raymi is a festival descending from the Inca Empire (and probably before) to modern times celebrating the sun god, Inti. It is held near the solstice and involves lots of music, dancing, and general good times.

As we were getting ready to give up on spending the afternoon in Cotacachi (it was rainy, we were kinda bored…), a parade of dancers swept down the road. Some were school groups, others seemed to be groups of friends, maybe some were by neighborhood or village. It was hard to know, but each group of 20 to 50 people had a few musicians and a bunch of folks dancing. Most of the women and girls were wearing some sort of traditional dress or costume, the men and boys mostly didn’t. Regardless, the energy was infectious and it was clear everyone was having a ton of fun.

Also, this is a dance I can keep up with! Mostly just wandering in circles. (You can even do it while on your phone evidently…)

When we went out in Otavalo later that evening, we first went to check out the celebration we’d heard would be happening at the Plaza Civica. We were not impressed…

So we went where a taxi driver had suggested we might look, the Plaza San Francisco–further from the center of town, and more of a community center for local folks centered around the church there. That was the spot! We were just about the only gringos there. A group of indigenous folks were celebrating a ritual sharing food with the community, a band played, and in the center of the square was a giant structure that was clearly set to light up. At first we thought it might be lit on fire, like a Burning Man kinda situation, but on closer inspection, we saw it was rigged up and down with fireworks. We decided to stick around to see what would happen.

While waiting for the big show we watched some cool fire-powered balloons head up into the sky…

And then, the madness. It started with people descending from the stage and dancing around the central structure, the band increasing its volume, and finally…a spark. It was pretty underwhelming at first, but it got pretty nuts. One guy in the middle (occasionally two) kept the whole thing rotating and set off the fireworks by hand. I don’t know how they survived being showered in sparks for that long. And this felt soooo not safe. But awesome!

(This is big-screen-worthy entertainment. You can skip to about 3:25 which is the first big step up and it just gets more and more insane from there with something new every 30 seconds or so. Listen for Jessica’s cackling and “wows”…and do watch for the guy underneath–nuts.)

Seriously…that was an experience.

And the night wasn’t over. When we headed back toward the center of town, John and I went out and found that the Plaza Civica had been transformed over the last couple of hours, from vast span of empty concrete to bubbling cauldron of dancers.

You can’t really hear the music over the announcer here, but you can see that the whole plaza was made of small circles of people dancing–each with their own band–circling one way, then turning and circling back. Dozens and dozens of these little circles, with people milling about eating and drinking and playing and celebrating all in between.

The streets of the area were alive too, with more and more groups headed to the Plaza to join in on the festivities.

I particularly liked this slightly older group. Who says you can’t enjoy a good time when you’re old? (My knees do…)

Anyhow, between the gorgeous hike around Cuicocha and the madness of Inti Raymi, this was probably one of the best days of our trip. Just a great variety of amazing activity.

And overall, the week we spent in Mindo and Otavalo with John and Annie Rose was wonderful. They’re such great people to travel with. Smart and thoughtful, but also goofy and playful. Always a pleasure to see them.

After a quick stop back in Quito, we went off to hike some volcanoes…more on that when I return to the keyboard…

1 thought on “Birds, Bailes, and Bad Geography in Northern Ecuador

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *