We arrived in Mindo on the evening of July 26. We walked to the town square to find food that night. It was nice to feel safe enough to do that. We stayed at a cabin that borders a river and is surrounded by trees. There was an open-air yoga studio with hammocks nearby. We slept lulled by the river and the first thing we saw when we woke up in the morning was the trees through the windows.

The cabin was so nice, that we scrapped all our plans for hiking, zip-lining, going to a butterfly house, and going on a chocolate tour. We were exhausted from all our traveling, and sitting on our balcony, laying in a hammock, and sitting with our feet in the river sounded a lot better than going on more adventures. We didn’t even have to leave the cabin to see hummingbirds and butterflies! It was the perfect way to end our trip.

We did that for two days and on Wednesday, we drove back to Quito, returned our car (they charged us extra because of how dirty it got in Cotopaxi), and headed to the airport to fly back to Guayaquil. During our flight, we were able to see the top of the Cotopaxi! At least I think it was the Cotopaxi. It could also have been the Chimborazo, another volcano, but I’m pretty sure it was the Cotopaxi.

We were in Guayaquil for 12 hours, mostly spent packing and trying to sleep. I got to see my mom for like ten whole minutes. She arrived in Guayaquil while we were in the mountains and was out with friends when we got back to Guayaquil, so I saw her at 3 am, as we were leaving for the airport to head home-ish. Monica is now back in Miami and I’m back in Nashville for a few weeks.