Adventurous or Crazy

 

Today is the first day that we have been able to get on Wi-Fi for about 2 days!  This wouldn't be a big problem, but I also ran out of minutes on my phone a lot sooner than I should have too.  I know its pitiful, but it is much more difficult to be in a foreign country without being able to talk to my husband.  So needles to say, as much as I loved the beach on Friday, I am very glad to be at a location with functioning internet!  Getting to this location however, was quite an adventure...

This morning we left Coijmies Beach around 9:30 and went to Santa Rosa for lunch before catching a bus to Mindo.  According to the hand-dandy guide book, the bus from Santo Domingo to Mindo was supposed to take about 2 hours and only cost $2.50.  Four and a half hours and $4.20 later, we arrived in Mindo.  At some point on the very crowded, full of rude people, bus ride I began to wonder what we were thinking.  Two twenty-some year olds on a public bus, in a foreign country, with no idea of exactly where we are going. 

The second shock of the trip was when we got off of the bus and didn't see a taxi anywhere!  We are so used to being able to catch a taxi just about anywhere that we definitely got a little nervous about walking around in a town that we knew nothing about and had no idea where our hostal was located.  After asking 3-4 people we finally found the hostal we called and made a reservation with yesterday morning.  When we got there, they apologized and said they had already given away our room.  So we walk back a few blocks to another hostal that was recommended by the guide book and it was also completely full.  So we walk back to a hostal that was across the street from the first hostal and finally get a room.  Then we walked back to the second hostal for supper and their world famous hot chocolate.  Since it was almost dark, we were walking very, very quickly this entire time.  I was exhausted when we finally sat down to eat...and very hot.  Thank goodness I cooled down by the time we got to dessert.  We had hot chocolate and split some banana cake and a brownie.  It was the first dessert we had from a restaurant in Ecuador in 3 weeks....we are very satisfied!!

Tomorrow the plan is to visit a chocolate factor (my sweet teeth are very happy!) and go hiking in the cloud forest.  I am very excited about our second adventure in Ecuador!

P.S. On Thursday when we arrived at the beach, I was handing my camera to Stella to take a picture of me in the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and I dropped it in the sand.  So now there is little bitty pieces of sand all in my camera which no longer turns on and the lens no longer moves in/out.  If anyone has any suggestions of how to fix this or where to go to fix it, they would all be greatly appreciated!!!