A Few Days in the Cloud Forest of Mindo

Greetings to Y´all.
I just had a wonderful two days in Mindo and enjoyed the tranquil, warm climate. Mindo is a funny little town. First it is very small. There is one main street and there is so little traffic on it that most people just walk in the middle of the street. It reminds me so much of the mythical town in Alaska in the TV series ¨Northern Exposure¨.
In Mindo there is a doctor in town who is there on a one year requirement of doing rural medicie for a year before you can get your medical license. She is a very young, very nice, single young lady who lives at the hotel where I stayed. There is a Sheriff and a police station in town, but often no one is in their offices. Everyone in town knows everyone else. Everyone lives off of the tourism. The town is full of unique ¨personalities¨ with the kind of curious tensions between the personalities that would be a perfect model for a new TV series on this small town near the equator in Ecuador. The could call it ¨Mitad del Mundo¨, Middle of the Earth.

Unfortunately the trip was not without its difficulties. On the bus from Quito to Mindo one of my cameras and a lens were stolen, and most unfortunate of all the camera was my 5D, my best, most expensive camera. It was literally stolen right out from under me too. When I got on the bus I put my camera backpack under my seat. Apparently the person behind me slid the backpack from under my seat just enough to open it and snatch the camera. I didn´t discover it until I was about to go to bed the first night in Mindo. I made a police report, but that is all I can do. The brighter side of it all, if there is one, is: a) it happened near the end of my trip instead of at the beginning, b) there was no violence involved, c) they did not take the whole back pack, so I still have a camera and two of my lenses, and d) they did not take the device that holds all of the photos from this trip.
Well, other than that, it was a fine trip, very relaxing, and I enjoyed being with my friends who own the hotel.
I need to get some groceries, so ¨adios¨ for now.
Love to you all,
Glenn+