Mindo - Hosteria Arasari

While in Mindo, we stayed at a place called Hosteria Arasari. It was set back a couple of kilometers from the smallish town of Mindo, close to the banks of a decent sized, muddy river. We rented the house so that we could all fit. The grounds were quite pretty, with a mix of tropical flowers and fruit trees. The sky here, just like in Otavalo, was in constant motion; one minute bright and sunny, and the next minute exploding with a tropical shower. Here is a picture of the grounds looking out from the side of the little patio.  

On the patio we were lucky enough to have two smartly situated hammocks. Of course, with two hammocks and 7 people, I think we spent half of our time at the house in dispute negotiations. 

The hostel came with a nice pool and even a hot tub that actually warmed up to a semi-hot state. The kids have missed swimming since leaving Hong Kong, and would have probably spent the entire time in the pools had we let them. One night as we were sitting in this hot tub, we saw something moving on the bunch of bananas that you can see in the background, behind the chair. We looked closer and saw a seriously huge rat climbing up to the top of the bunch. It looked to be nearly a foot and a half in length, and definitely meaty from eating its fair share of fruit. 

This was Grandma´s favorite spot during out time in Mindo. I think she may have gone through a couple of books during her time in the hammock. Can´t say I blame her...

One of the things we love most about visiting places with tropical climates is the size of the bugs. Nope, this isn´t a plastic grasshopper glued to the window to surprise guests. This is the real thing. Gigantic.









For scientific purposes, here I have placed my hand near the beast so you can get a sense of its relative size. This one made me feel kind of like when I smashed the tarantula in our bedroom. A feeling like this thing is more animal than insect, and just trying to smash it with your hand or a shoe would not actually kill it, rather it would merely infuriate it and then it would end up attacking my face or something.