Rygsækrejsen 2015-2016

torsdag den 3. december 2015

Visit to the chocolate factory - and of course some more relaxing

The rain stopped during the night. A lot of rain in the past 36 hours but that might explain why everything here is so green. We woke up to a nice morning, a bit of clouds, lots of sunshine and breakfast served outside. Then we handed in an incredible pile of laundry collected before, during and after our Galapagos visit.

After breakfast we headed for the pool and hung out there for the rest of the morning. Doing a lazy swim once in a while to stretch the body and be reminded about our horse back riding only a couple of days ago. Still a bit sore here and there.

For lunch we headed to town, and on the way back to our hostel we decided to try the tour of the local chocolate factory. It's not a factory in that sense - but a small, local business doing handmade chocolate. Dark chocolate, of course. We had the introduction about the coco-pods and beans, sampling the raw coco-beans. Then we did a short walk with our guide in the garden next to the factory to get a look at the coco-trees, the place where they fermented and dried the coco-beans and how they processed the dry beans including doing the actual chocolate.

And then it was time to sample some pure chocolate and the different variants with added sugar, coffee and finally chili flakes. And also a small piece of home made brownie. We decided to continue our tour with a cup of coffee and some more chocolate. No need for dinner tonight, we've had plenty of good food today :-)

Beautiful morning in Mindo

"Our" hostel

Breakfast in the garden

Lazy pool morning

Coco bean tasting at the chocolate factory

Coco bean pods

Fermentation and drying of coco beans

Chocolate, sugar and a bit of coffee

onsdag den 2. december 2015

Eight different ways to relax in Mindo

It rained during the night. Sleeping just below the metal roof it was pretty obvious to hear the rain pouring down. We slept late and the rain kept pouring down during the morning. Our nice lady served breakfast for us.

There was nothing that could get us to hurry. Today was dedicated to relaxing and Mindo and Casa de Piedra turned out to be the perfect place for that. We had the house and the garden more or less to ourselves so it was time to catch up on the blog, so a lot of writing and a lot of reading and a lot of resting today.

Eventually we decided to find the umbrellas and do the short walk to town and the main street searching for some food. The town was more or less deserted, we sat a small cafe and were immediately joined by a bunch of wet stray dogs who wanted to keep us company. After lunch we walked a bit down the road, found another café for coffee, relaxing a bit more before heading back to our house and relaxing some more.
We tried our luck with town one more time in the evening, this time getting better Mexican food but still the place seemed to be quite empty. Just as we hoped it would be though - nice, quiet, surrounded by beautiful hills and a lot of green trees. This is the place to relax.

Wet

Clever when the fruit and veggie guy actually comes to you

Wet, wet

Wet bird

Still raining

tirsdag den 1. december 2015

Pululahua horse back riding - and then off to Mindo

Woke up to a beautiful morning having slept really, really well last night. Like in fantastic sleep. Feeling a bit sore in the body in unusual places. Most likely from have spent some hours on a horse yesterday. Astrid wasn't going to pick us up until 10 AM so we had plenty of time to relax, have breakfast and enjoy the sunshine.

We were picked up, taken back to the ranch and realised that it was only the four of us who were doing the horse back riding today. Mikkel had done so well yesterday that he was "promoted" to experienced rider. Unfortunately the horse he had been on yesterday were broken this morning, so he was also upgraded to a new horse - Gimle.

Malene were also given a new horse - one that was better going downhill since the ride today was going through steeper terrain with more ups and downs than yesterday. And then we were off on another full day in the saddles going the opposite direction of yesterday - this time around what is left of the magma that hardened inside the crater when the volcano erupted many centuries ago. The scenery was just as impressive as yesterday and apart from the uphill and downhill sections being a bit longer and steeper it was another wonderful day with the horses and the nature surrounding us.

We had such a good time at the Green horse ranch, Astrid was excellent at taking us around Pululahua and the horses were great. We left at around 4 PM, hoping that we could make it to the main road and catch the bus heading to Mindo. It took around 30 minutes to get out of the national park and then our driver did his best to go fast towards Quito and the bus station while trying to spot if any of the oncoming buses were heading for Mindo. They weren't.

Instead we stopped at the Mitad del Mundo landmark, one of the oddest places to visit. A giant stone landmark indicates the "middle of the Earth", which in fact has nothing to do with "middle" except it being relatively close to a random point on the Equator line. We did a couple of photos there, headed back to the van and just as we got there our driver shouted that the bus for Mindo was approaching on the other side of the road.

A few hugs and goodbyes and then we ran for the bus, just making it in time. And, success, we were heading towards Mindo. Sometimes it is OK to be a bit lucky. The bus drive was about an hour, the usual speeding local bus on narrow twisty roads. We arrived in Mindo, Mikkel spotted the sign for the hostel and we headed down a gravel road, the rain starting a bit and the daylight disappearing. We made it to Casa de Piedra, and it started to pour down. Second time lucky in the same day.

We had our room on the second floor of a big but nice building, the nice lady at our hostel cooking dinner for us. We didn't really bother to go anywhere after a long day. And the rain now pouring down even more. The next four days are going to include a lot of relaxing, catching up on the blog and maybe - just maybe, a visit to the local chocolate factory. Maybe.

And, no, we didn't really pay attention to the fact that this is the first day of the Christmas month. Too much sunshine and outdoor activities to think about that.