Mindo!!

This past weekend I went with some friends and a few other people I didn't know. There were 8 of us staying in this awesome hostal that had one big room at the top with bunk beds and a few separate rooms with a neat little island in the middle to sit at, 3 hammocks on our balcony, and hot-ish showers! ha They also made us the most amazing breakfasts which only cost $2 so it was $7 per night including breakfast.. pretty sweet!

So on Friday when we got there, we just hung out around town for a bit and at night we played jumprope with some kids of the town. I figured out I suck. On Saturday we went ziplining (probably 12 or so ziplines) above the rainforest (called the Cloud Forest). It was super super cool, but I wore capris like an idiot (but so did a few others) and got eaten alive by mosquitos! They itch sooo bad and they are all over both legs from the knee down!! Then we went back and had a yummy lunch and went "rafting" down the river. The "raft" consisted of about 8 intertubes tied together and we have the ropes to hold on to! We had 2 ecuadorian men with us that would jump off at random times to push away from rocks and stuff so at least that was kind of comforting! The ride was a tad dangerous and I'm not sure that kind of rafting would be legal in the states! ha and the water, I'm sure, was about 30 degrees! It was FREEZING!! So fun though and only cost $5 including a driver that picked us up from the hostal and drove us back!
That night we searched the town for some things to make smores with because there was a patio thing in the back of the hostal. Me and Theo found some cookie things that were squares so we figured that would be our graham crackers and Ryan, Paula, and Taylor found some marshmallows, but there were seriously only 3 bags in the entire town so they bought 2, but the best part is they had strawberry flavored and orange flavored. Made for some very interesting smores, especially since it took like an hour to start our "fire" with wet wood and a candle with toilet paper and pieces of a magazine! ha

Sunday Paula, Ryan, Taylor, and I got up and walked for about an hour and 1/2.. probably about 5 miles there and back and saw some sick horses and cows, 2 big rivers (might have been connected), a nice "ranch", and lots of mud! I love how cheap everything was, but they want you to pay for everything! If we had gone to the waterfalls (which I will one day) we would have paid $3 just to see these natural things that no one owns! ha I had to mooch a little bit of money, but it was a wonderful trip! I'm still really really itchy though!