Our last day at Bellavista! :(
Nelson decided to take us
ziplining (that’s right… ziplining in the Andes) We drove to Mindo (some more gorgeous
views of the mountains; these views never get old…), which is a cute little
town of about 4,000 people. There are a lot of tourist-y things to do in Mindo,
but we chose Mindo Canopy Tours! It has 10 different cables, all varying in
length and steepness and I was super pumped!
They got us all harnessed up, and
then we headed off! This place was awesome! Deb, Jon, and Joe all got videos of
a few of the cables, which I’m super excited to see and I’ll be sure to get
them up here at some point so you can see the views and stunts we did! Haha!
First I tried the Superman! I was paired up with our guide, Nelson, and I
lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist (yes… I know what some of you goofballs are thinking… )
and I went down the cable head first! Looking down into the jungle! It was
crazyyyy!!! I went down this way a few times because it was so incredible!
(including the last one which was suuuuper high and suuuuper long!!) The other
position I had gone down in, (one that I wasn’t really expecting at the time!)
was going down the cable upside-down! This was also super crazy! But I decided
not to do it again because I kept getting the feeling like I was going to slip
out of my harness and dive down into the jungle. But at least I can say that I did
it! :D
Then we decided to reward ourselves and all of our bravery with a nice
tour of an Ecuadorian chocolate factory! :D We went through all of the steps of
how chocolate is made (the good kind of chocolate, not the Hershey kind ;) )
and then got a tasting at the end! Abby (the British woman we met, who came
along on this trip) dove right in and ate a bit of the chocolate set out, not
realizing it was still unsweetened! Man, was she surprised! For those of you
who don’t know, pure chocolate is extremely bitter! So you can imagine when you
expect something sweet like the chocolate we all know and love, and you shove a
glob of bitter cacao in your mouth, it’s quite the shock! We took small samples
of melted chocolate (pure chocolate) and added sugar, took another and added
sugar and chile peppters, and then sampled a few of the syrups made from the
cacao bean during fermentation! And of course at the end we got some nice warm
brownies! :)
Then we had to head back to Bellavista for a quick lunch (soup,
porkchops, salad, and cake!), packing up, and our goodbyes! Then it was back to
Quito for us! So now we’re sitting back in our hotel in Quito, catching up on
whatever we need to do before going to bed because we have another early day
ahead! Guess who’s climbing a volcano tomorrow! ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment