Ecuador, the best and the rest.

Our last week in Ecuador has flown by! We got back from the jungle and after some laundry and showering, we made the most of our remaining time in Ecuador. We spent one last night in Banos before getting on the bus to head to Mindo, a small city north of Quito. It turned out to be a long travel day,7 hours to Mindo. We also learned our lesson about the bus, even after many warnings about how dangerous it is, we still managed to get robbed. On the bus right outside of Quito, a couple of guys reached under Torianns seat and took her Zune and sunglasses! Irritating to say the least! But we managed to make it to Mindo, even if in terrible spirits. We checked into a ´recommended´ hostel, which was basically some guy named Juan's house, haha. It definitely had a special aroma, but we were too tired to look around town for something different. After checking in, we headed off to explore and as soon as we turned the corner, we were greeted by 3 of our friends from the Galapagos, Nick, Charlotte and Brad plus a friend of Brads that had just arrived from Texas. It was the best feeling, to come to a city and be greeted by friendly faces! It was what we needed to cheer us up! We vented to them about the frustrations of our day, and funny enough, Nick had had his Ipod stolen in Quito as well! That made 3 of us that had lost our Ipods in 3 days. Crazy. But life goes on, and so must we... Charlotte, an avid frog lover, convinced us to go to an evening ´Frog Concert¨. We were a little weary of what a frog concert would entail, but it included a glass of wine, so we decided to go. It turned out to be pretty cool. It was basically a man, who loved frogs, that had created a beautiful garden with a huge pond that had attracted 18 different species of frogs and toads. While we drank our wine, he played the noises that the frogs made and the frogs would sing back. We then, armed with our flashlights, wondered around the grounds to look for frogs. We did not see a ton of frogs but it was pretty cool when we did. Needless to say, if you are ever in Mindo, we would recommend the frog concert.
Afterwards, we headed to an organic restaurant near their hostel that had just opened. We met Zac, a peacecore from Texas (so many Texans in Ecuador!), that was friendly and extremely helpful in planning our next day in Mindo. Zac had originally come down to Ecuador to work with coffee, but the Peacecore had transferred him to Mindo to help kids learn how to sell chickens door to door, apparently a new project for them. Somehow, I don't remember the details, he is now managing a restaurant. After brownies and ice cream, we headed back to Juans house to get some sleep.
The next morning, we met up with the gang and caught a taxi truck to the waterfall Nambilla. My family, when they had come to Ecuador, visited this waterfall, which also has a water slide, and they highly recommended it. Quote from my mom, ¨don't worry, you may think you are going to die, but you wont!¨ The water slide, which actually did not look so bad, for Latin American standards, almost killed Brad. He thought he should lie down in order to go faster, but the slide was pretty fast itself. He flipped over the side before getting all the way to the bottom and almost landed on a boulder in the river. After that, everyone was pretty nervous to go down but we all did it! None of us did get up the courage to jump off the waterfall though...but, you have to leave somethings for next time, right :) After the waterfall, water park adventure, we decided since we were already freezing and wet to go tubing. Tubing turned out to almost be more intense than rafting, going down rapids on 6 tubes tied together with guides pushing us through.
Toriann and I had originally planned on leaving back to Quito that afternoon, but for a couple of reasons and to extend our time with friends, we decided to stay one more night. We hung out at the hostel and cooked a delicious steak dinner.
In the morning we took an early bus, well, semi early, since we decided to have the pancakes again at the organic restaurant (and i don't even like pancakes!), and rode to Minda del Mundo, the equator. We somehow got into the main compound with paying, but after taking a quick picture, we wondered over to the alternative´ museum that is apparently on the real equator. The story is that the Incas had found the real equator, but the French came and said that was wrong and moved it. GPS now shows that the Incas were correct and the museum on the actual equator is really cool, although some skeptics don't believe the tricks they show you, such as balancing an egg or water falling straight the drain.
After the museum, we got back on a bus and found our way to the Quito airport. It was really bittersweet leaving Ecuador. We both felt our time was too short here and really enjoyed everywhere we went. However, we are on our way to Peru to volunteer and hike the Inca trail, so we cannot be sad for too long!