Mindo Madness, Part 2

I took almost 900 photos this weekend, probably about half of them of hummingbirds. Here's the highlights.

First of all, the first thing I saw upon entering Mindo was this ridiculously adorable puppy.

There are maybe 24 hummingbird species that frequent Mindo, and just about every restaurant and hostelería has feeders set up to delight visiting clientele. I spent an embarrassing amount of SD card space on them over the course of the weekend...

I also went to a butterfly garden, where unlike in the States, visitors are encouraged to pick up butterflies and let them lick banana bits off our hands.

Pretty flowers!

I also took a "chocolate tour" the same day, the main focus of which was the demonstration of the by-hand chocolate making process, which involves roasting and shucking chocolate beans, grinding them into a paste, and then cooking the paste in water with some added vanilla paste. We got to taste 100% cacao chocolate (bitter as coffee) as well as the stuff we saw get made, which ended up with a fondue-like consistency, and with only two ingredients (chocolate, vanilla), was surprisingly sweet and tasty.

In Mindo, I stayed at a place called La Roulotte, whose special feature is that guests stay in "gypsy caravans," three renovated wagons that are styled to resemble a rustic but very attractive caravan set. The grounds are also lovely (although the two ponds give them a large mosquito/sandfly population) and the owner (my host mother's cousin) and two staff members always went out of their way to see that I was well-fed. Also, I got bacon here.

Yesterday, I took the main local tarabita across a large gorge to some trails which led down to a series of waterfalls.

Hiking around them was great fun, and after the nearest couple, there weren't many people on the path, which really let me enjoy the area. During my return, clouds had surrounding the higher areas at the top of the trail and the tarabita was completely swathed in mist.

Tarabita view on the way over:

(Yeah, that guy's just hanging off the back, no big deal.)

Tarabita view on the way back:

After the tarabita, I hiked a little over 2 km out to a very rustic lodge to inquire about a lek of Gallos de la Peña (Andean Cock-of-the-Rock) that occurs daily there. Mindo is famous for its multitudes of exotic birds, but the Gallo de la Peña is particularly famous and sort of a town mascot. The British couple who are taking care of the lek reserve for a six month stint gave me the details, and I was up at 3:45 this morning to take a 4:30 cab, hike an hour in darkness and about half an hour more in the pre-dawn light, and be at the lekking site for the 6 AM excitement. Here's some shots of the fellows:

Honestly, I think these guys are just about the cutest little suckers ever. Curious, adorable, enigmatic; I love them. They make sort of a squawking call and bob their front halves up and down in a funky lekking dance. Unfortunately, I don't think they attracted any females today, but they certainly did charm me! Also, the one on the bottom has bands on its legs because there is a lot of research being done on this population and it has been mist-netted as part of a study.

Watching the lek and trying to get photos today really gave me a new respect for nature photographers. It was pretty tough to get clear shots of the birds, and I had to set all of my camera settings manually. I'm sure it's a little easier with a pro-quality, longer lens (and the photography skills to match, which I definitely don't have yet), but doing this sort of thing full time would be a challenging job. Nevertheless, at the end of the hour-or-so of prime lekking, I headed back feeling like I had just gotten a taste of David Attenborough's life... Incredible!