Mindo

So on Friday afternoon, four young adults and I boarded a bus in Quito and headed two hours towards the coast to a little town named Mindo.
 The bus ride there made me feel quite car sick, and although it wasn't too long of a drive, I was happy to reach our destination. Mindo is kind of a tourist town, which means it's pretty safe, unlike Quito. We stayed in a super nice hotel while we were there. It included a pool, breakfast, a room with a bed for each of us and a nice bathroom and it was only $15! The first night we were there we just walked around town a little bit and got something to eat.
 The next day, we had breakfast and then headed into town to start all the activities we had planned for the day. We started the day with a hike. A couple of us rode in the back of a truck to get to the trail. I will never get tired of riding in the back of trucks in Ecuador. The scenery is so beautiful everywhere and it's nice that the cops don't care if you're in the back ;) It was a really nice hike and it ended at a beautiful waterfall with little pools around it. We hung out there for a little bit and then headed back to the beginning of the trail to continue on to the ziplines.
 The last time I went on a zipline was when I was 12. I was hyperventilating the whole time, and it really wasn't even that high off the ground so I figured ziplining above the rainforest was going to kill me. I decided I needed to get over this fear though, so I hopped on the first zipline and hoped for the best. I ended up loving it! Even when one of the workers was bouncing the line! There were ten ziplines in all and the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen.
 After the ziplines, we headed down the mountain a little bit to go tubing. It definately wasn't what I expected. There were a bunch of tubes tied together with ropes for us to hang on to. We all climbed onto the tube raft and started heading down the river. There were some decent rapids and we got soaking wet. I definately think that this was my favorite part of the day.
 After that, we headed back to the hotel so we could shower and pack everything up. We then walked around town a little more, ate some lunch and then headed back to Quito.
 During the day, I had gotten a TON of bug bites on my legs. I didn't realize how bad they were until I was home and I showed Julianna and Katelyn. There's more bug bites on my legs than actual skin, but after that amazing trip, it was worth it (: