In the past few days we have been in Mindo a small town about 2 hours northwest of Quito. The main attraction here is the cloud forest, as the name probably gives away it’s a tropical forest surrounded by low level clouds. Our hostel here is tucked away in the forest and pretty quiet, there was hardly anyone else in the hostel, which was great as we got a dorm to ourselves and also our poor livers got a break for once. Weirdly, although it’s on the edge of a forest outside of a rural little town, the hostel had the best shower we’ve had in a while, it has both hot water and nice pressure! We are normally blasted by cold water or have warm water that dribbles out of what can at best be described as a modified hose pipe (and that’s still a luxury to be honest). The other attraction of the hostel, second only to the shower, is the beautiful surroundings, were right next to a river and the edge of the forest and just sitting eating breakfast we’re surrounded by hummingbirds, butterflies, capybaras and other nature things I don’t know the names for!
It was quite rainy on the afternoon we arrived so we watched a bit of Netflix and had an early night. On Monday we got up early ready to head into the cloud forest, we had read about a trek around waterfalls in the forest that was meant to be beautiful, it was supposed to take about 6 hours in total so we stocked up on snacks and headed the cable car you have to take to get into the trek starting point.
The cable car was a tiny cart that fit 4 people in, connected to a peak in the forest by a thin cable dangling above a vast forest. I was quite terrified to get in, as anyone who knows me will know I have a fear of heights, well specifically being high on things that feel unstable, which I would say is quite a fair and rational fear! But as the cable car cost us $10US(!! A fortune in Ecuador, the 2h30 bus to Mindo only cost $3US) I told myself at least some of that would be put into maintaining a good cable car I got in, we were also joined by a super cute dog, who obviously regularly made the journey as she knew when we were arriving and got up.
The dog (the guides had named her Poco – which means small) decided to come on our trek with us, the trek consisted of 7 waterfalls of various sizes and it was actually really useful having poco with us as she was obviously a seasoned pro and knew the way, even if she did make us feel a bit inadequate as she ran up the steep bits and then came back down trying to round us up when we were to slow for her! The forest was beautiful we saw lots or orchids, cool bugs and hummingbirds and the trek itself was really enjoyable, we were mostly up and down trails in the forest, although a bit of rock climbing and crossing rivers was involved. I got to use my Dora the explorer walking boots, after weeks of ridicule for bringing them, they showed their worth when they stopped me skidding on slippery paths and at one point when a misplaced foot ended up in the river I discovered they were also waterproof! Which was really useful until the next time when my whole foot went in up to my shin, turns out water can still get in the top when you fully submerge them! Luckily they also dry quickly….
Safe to say the hike was knackering, we walked back to our hostel covered in sweat and headed straight for some food, a traditional Ecuadorian plate of rice, beans and meat and then had an embarrassingly early night!
The next morning after a solid 11 hours sleep we booked onto a chocolate tour, it was a bit overpriced at $10US per person but I really enjoyed it, they took us through the history of chocolate and the whole process of manufacturing it, which they did on site. Showing us the Cacao tree and fruit that chocolate comes from, the cocoa seeds that chocolate is made from are surrounded by a fleshy pulp inside the fruit, which was news to me! We even got the try the fruit, you put the seeds in your mouth and suck the pulp off, it has the texture of pumpkin but tastes like passion fruit and lychee.
They told us that traditionally the seeds and pulp are fermented with bananas, this kills the stem inside of the seed which is what gives dark chocolate it’s bitter taste, modern chocolate companies don’t do this as it takes too much time. After fermentation the pulp is separated (the company here uses it to make BBQ sauce!) And the seeds dried out in the sun, once dried the seeds are crushed up, and the inside is melted down to make a concentrated Coco paste, (the company uses the shells to make Coco tea). We got to try the paste, it smells delicious but doesn’t taste so good, at this point the paste is either crushed to sperate out the liquid and dry parts to Coco butter and Coco Powder or sugar is added to kill the acidity and make chocolate. We then got to try lots of samples of dark chocolate, they consider milk chocolate or indeed anything less than 77% concentrated to not be real chocolate but a western butchering of it. I’m not a fan of dark chocolate but the samples we tried were a lot nicer than dark chocolate I’ve had before and you could really taste the difference the fermentation made, it was hardly bitter at all! But most of all I enjoyed the brownies they made with the chocolate, some of the best I’ve ever had!
After filling up on chocolate we made a run for the bus and just caught it, getting back to Quito in the afternoon, we’re staying here the night before heading to Cotopaxi in the morning.
I’ll keep you updated on what we get up to there.
Lots of love,
Alice x