Bottoms in Ecuador (Our FIRST Visitors!) - Mitad del Mundo and MINDO

Christmas was great, but this year's December 26th brought a special treat that would top any gift from Santa....our first visitors: Scott and Kelsey!!!  We know it made for a bit of a stressful holiday for them, but having my sis and bro-in-law so quickly after Xmas day certainly made for an exciting holiday.

Don't we look excited?

While our Galapagos adventure was certainly the main event, we also wanted to cram as much of Ecuador into their two days prior to the boat trip as we could.  Which meant an early morning after their midnight arrival in Quito so that we could start where all journeys should...the center of the world! Or Mitad del Mundo!!  Even though the equator is only 25 minutes outside of Quito, Javier and I had yet to make the trip and therefore joined the Bottomses in their touristy joy at discovering the wonders of the invisible line...

We started with some standard Cabezas in the southern hemisphere, Bottomses in the northern hemisphere shots

The picture above is at the grand monument built roughly 30 years ago to mark the invisible line, but more recent measurements seem to indicate that this line is actually off.  But it's quite beautiful and picturesque so we joined the crowd in taking the standard straddle the line picture.

Just 200 or so meters away, another museum commemorates the sacred line down the center of the world.  Not wanting to miss out on all the center of the world has to offer, we also attended this attraction.  While it didn't include a flashy monument, our tour did walk us through several tests to prove the gravitational pull from one side of the line to the other.

Like balancing a fresh egg on the head of nail - possible on the equator.

a demonstration of how the pull effects your strength and resistance on the line.

an attempt by Scottee to walk the line with his eyes closed and arms out (a surprisingly difficult task...)

And another split-by-hemisphere picture just incase this location is actually more accurate.

After some touristy fun, we jumped in the car to head to Mindo for a day of further adventure.  As you read, we were big fans of Mindo and looked forward to sharing some of its beauty with the Bottoms.  But first...we were hungry and wanted the Bottoms to try some authentic Ecuadorian cuisine.  This required a stop along the way to try some fritada, empandas, and bolones de verde.

Kelsey was trying to capture the atmosphere of the restaurant.  It was packed and, as usual in Ecuador, open to the air (you can see the bright sun shining in from the front wall that was completely open to the street)

And here is our fritada....it's not necessarily good to look at, but it's delicious and salty and goes perfectly with that roasted plantain you see in the bottom there.

After some twists and turns we arrived in Mindo.  Remember, Mindo is a cloud forest which means lots of lush scenery, beautiful flowers and wildlife!

We spent the first hour or so in Mindo watching hummingbirds and drinking beers.

I attempted about a million pictures, but none seem to capture the multitude of birds that we were watching.  Here I managed to catch two hummingbirds (left: you can see how different their coloring is...) and a finch (right: that, though beautiful, seemed to be the bully of the bird feeder)

After some relaxing we decided it was time for a more active look at Mindo.  Since Scottee and Kelsey were less than 24 hours into their altitude ascent, we decided that hiking might not be the best option.  Instead, we opted for a ziplining adventure that would allow us all to enjoy the scenery from the air :)

Here we are all helmeted up and ready for ziplining.

Here is Kelsey trying the mariposa (butterfly) position on the zipline

And Scottee coming in quick!   (Can you see the spray of water from his line? It started raining and everything...everything was a little wet.)

Here we are a little wet and a little dirty after flying through the air in the rain.  (PS I still haven't gotten all of the mud out of that pink jacket...)

We tried to go see the butterflies, but the exhibit was closed so we headed to the chocolate factory to get a hot beverage and warm ourselves up.  The chocolate is delicious so we ordered a brownie to split too!

It was a rainy trip home, but we had packed a lot into the first day so naps seemed warranted.  As much fun as the day was, we kept reminding ourselves that everything pre-galapagos was gravy!