Mindo -- Butterflies!

It was an early departure from Quito. As it turns out, there was only one other tourist with me, a woman a few years older than me, taking a year sabbatical from teaching high school in Germany. We had an indigenous guide from Otavalo named Vinicio. And so the day was however we wanted to structure it. Turns out that a friend of mine from my Spanish school was in Mindo -- her husband is a doctor and they had built a clinic there. I had hoped to see her, and we talked about various options on the drive up, but sadly, I didn't get the chance. If I'd been able to stay for a few days as I'd originally planned, that would have been great. Oh well.

 We made a quick stop on the way at Pululahua Crater. This was an active volcano once, now it's settled and has farming. It's quite beautiful, and the name reminded me so much of Hawaiian.

Our first stop was the butterfly house. It was still early in the morning, so wasn't crowded when we got there. Thankfully, she and I were well matched and had similar interests, so it was not a hardship for either of us to stay and marvel for a long time. There are 26 types of butterflies in Mindo.

 Some of the chrysalis look like jewels!

Aren't these interesting?

 If you put some of the banana on your finger, sometimes a butterfly will come with you. My traveling companion caught one on my back too.

 This was great fun. This little one stayed with me for some time, about 30 or 45 minutes, I think.

 I failed to take pictures of the signs, so I don't know what they are. I suppose I could look them up. Or I could just enjoy their beauty and my ignorance.

 Yup, still with me. Really enjoying that banana. 

 A whole bunch having some fruit snacks.

 Same species, different individual, this one on my leg.

 We even watched some butterfly births! They get a couple every morning. When we came back to this area, we'd noticed that about four had emerged.

 They pin all the chrysalis here. You can see a few new butterflies here, drying off. It was fascinating to see the pools of liquid they discard once they're out.

And then we watched this one emerge completely -- that was quite remarkable.

Next, we were headed to a waterfall for a bit of pre-lunch hiking.

It was a beautiful drive up the mountain, into the cloud forest. What I didn't understand was that we had a trip first, to get to the trail to get to the waterfall.

 And so, off they go! Being the adventure wimp that I am, and getting vertigo sometimes too, I was not eager for a canopy adventure. In fact, I'm pretty certain that when we talked that morning, both she and I declined the canopy adventure. I guess that only applied to zip-lining.

 So I hiked myself on the path up the mountain, and looked at the beautiful plants and birds.

 One of the crew there tried to convince me to go with him across the valley in the cart -- just there and back, and with him I'd be fine. I really was fine where I was.

This might look like fun to you, but not to me. No worries, I still got my nature fix.