Day 12: Santa Cruz to Mindo

Today starts Part 3: Cloud Forest. The only planned adventures for today are traveling back to the mainland and driving to the town of Mindo, which is in Ecuador’s cloud forest region. We have an early wake up (5:45 am) to make to the airport for our 9:50 am flight.

As we were only allowed a small carry-on for our inter-island Galapagos flights, we packed VERY light. This makes it really easy to get ready in the morning and have plenty of time to enjoy breakfast. Based on Martin’s recommendation yesterday, we had yogurt and granola. It was, in fact, very tasty yogurt.

Non-endemic LEGO plum blossom spotted

Martin and Higinio picked us up and 7:00 am and we headed north across Santa Cruz Island. The drive took about 40 minutes, where we proceeded to board the ferry. We waited about 20 minutes more until the boat was full before departing. We didn’t see any tiger sharks (as Martin has before), but we did spot a sea turtle. The boat ride only took about 5 minutes, and we boarded the bus to the airport. The driver carefully avoided any land iguanas on the road.

Driving back through Santa Rosa

View of Baltra island from the highlands

Thanks for the ride, Notorious H-I-G!

We made it to the airport at about 8:30 am. Good thing the airport only has three gates. Pretty much everyone on the boat/bus was on our flight. Since we didn’t have any bags to check and we already had our boarding passes, we were ready to go. We bid farewell to Martin and headed through security.

Thanks for everything, Martin!

We had two missions before boarding the plane. The first was pick up a copy of Galapagos Uno. We saw it at the bar yesterday, and they said we could find it at the airport. They were correct. Next mission: relax in the Priority Pass lounge. We found a nice seat outside(!) and grabbed a latte and some snacks. But then we immediately heard the announcement our flight was boarding. Ah well. Still, mission accomplished.

We proceeded to the gate, which was right outside of the lounge (to be fair, all of them are), and boarded the plane. Like the flight to the Galapagos, this one was definitely not full, so we were able to take the aisle and window, leaving the middle seat open. Also, we were assigned “plus” seats for free this time.

Back to slightly larger planes

Flying over Baltra – you can see the road to the airport and the water we crossed

The flight went well, except during our first approach to the Quito airport, we had to pull up just before landing, circle around and try again. The captain said the landing was called off by the tower, and that everything was fine… “standard operating procedure.” We think today’s winds are stronger than normal (and confirmed that later with Santiago). Everything was smooth on the second go-around.

Fun fact, when deplaning, Avianca re-closes the curtain between first class and economy sections until the first class passengers are deplaned. Really guys??? You know we can still see you around the sides of that cheap gray shower curtain.

Approaching Quito

Love they made a sloth the mascot of their health insurance wellness program

We met Santiago outside of baggage claim and found our (upgraded) van in the parking lot. We made a pit stop at the Wyndham to pick up our large suitcases before continuing on to the cloud forest. The winding road that drops in elevation after leaving Quito put Jo to sleep immediately. Our lunch stop was at Mirador Guaycapi, where there were multiple humming bird feeders and bananas set up. We sat outside and watched the birds while we ate delicious fish.

Good to see you again, Santiago!

Lunch stop…

…with a view

…and the biggest juices ever!

Next stop was San Tedeo Birding. We will be back very early tomorrow morning to try and catch sight of the Cock-of-the-Rock bird. Santiago wanted to let the owner know and figure out the best time while we bird-watched. We observed a bunch of hummingbirds and a variety of other colorful species. We also saw an Ecuadorian Thrush that is endemic to Ecuador. One appeared to be feeding a much larger crow, which has been “adopted” by the Thrush thanks to a “swapped egg in nest” behavior from crows… like the movie Elf, basically.

Admiring the birds

We went to a different part of the trail where there were TONS of hummingbirds. We held bottle caps of sugar water in our palms and hummingbirds landed on us to drink. It was all a very cool experience.

How many hummingbirds can Matt attract… so far… Zero…

One…

Two…

Theee…

Four! Disney Princess Level Unlocked

It started to drizzle as we were leaving, and turned to full rain by the time we passed through the town of Mindo about 10 minutes later. Apparently, it’s common to rain in the afternoons. This is the rainforest after all. Fortunately, we had no other plans for the day. We checked in and relaxed in the room for the rest of the night.

Bird lady goes through 5kg of sugar a day to feed the hummingbirds

We’re special!

Relaxing in the rain

Tomorrow we have an early bird-watching and a tour of a chocolate factory. We’ll try not to fall in any chocolate rivers or eat anything we aren’t supposed to.