Of Ski lifts, Waterfalls and Facials

January 10, 2023 - I slept very well after passing out at about 8pm. There was heavy rain again during the night. In the morning you could hear the bird chorus.

We had a lie in until 7:00 and met for breakfast, before starting our hike. It turned out the power went out last night - I wonder if that''s why the water wasn't very hot for very long.

We walked from our hotel to the teleferico (ski lift). Along the way Lisa and I made a side trip to the river. Lisa wanted a picture of me on a rock, but it was too far for me to hop. She tried and almost slipped, so I took a picture of her from the river bank.

The teleferico was basically a ski lift which passed over the route we took yesterday. It was slowish and took us up from Mindo across two hill ridges to just past the road from yesterday. Ann and I shared a lift chair. Not a lot to see other than the forest and some cows, but we did get a beautiful panorama view of Mindo and saw a Choco toucan.

At the other end we walked about 100 feet along yesterday''s road to the Tarabita Mindo. This is a kind of mining car attached to a cable, powered by a Toyota truck engine,

that took us across the valley to the start of our hike. This moved very fast and I was afraid we wouldn't stop before hitting the end. Some videos of this crossing.

We went on the Rita 3 Trail which was a big downhill with a lot of switchbacks, until we finally got to the first waterfall.

We hiked about 4 miles and about 400 feet in altitude. Along the way we saw huge rhododendrons (not blooming), millipedes, impatiens, a spear plant, tarantula holes, armadillo dens and a funny orchid flower. The flower was a small slipper-like shape that lay across the leaf, collapsed.

There were not too many people coming down and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. At the bottom was a cement bridge across the river and finally the first waterfall. Looking back at the bridge it didn't look to substantial!

We backtracked and started up a path to the second waterfall and here the path was a steep uphill and then up/down. We got to the end of the path and there was no bridge, only water! So we had to stand in the shallow part of the river to see the waterfall. So glad I had my heavy boots on and I waterproofed before I left Liphook.

A bad thing about going downhill first is that you have to go uphill on the return. The return way had a lot more people coming down, but that gave us a chance to stop and catch our breath. One interesting thing we saw was a palm tree from where they harvest hearts of palm, my favorite.

The way back up wasn't nearly as bad as I feared and from the top of the hill we retraced our steps. We met a Swiss couple at the end of the cable car and the woman seemed to have had a serious drop in sugar level. Luckily I had some hard candies that Chris gave me 100 years ago and I gave her a few.

It was after 11 o'clock and I broke my fast with some ginger flavored chocolate from Yumbo's yesterday. It was surprisingly good.

We had lunch upon our return: fruit salad with lots of papaya and pineapple. For the main I had grilled chicken which was a bit too dry.

After lunch it was time for a shower which was still not super hot. It was hot enough and I got clean:)

Next on the itinerary was Gloria for a facial. She wore rubber gloves which are never ideal. I like to try facials in different places and this was interesting because it included microdermal abrasion and automated extraction. After the manual extraction (ugh - hate this and she found a lot to extract) there was micro current stimulation for skin and then for the scalp with a brush attachment. This last felt quite good!

There are now other people staying here and they are loud. Luckily they eat dinner later than we do. Had chicken soup and a shrimp sandwich for dinner with a crepe for dessert.

Today's route: