We all woke up on Tuesday slightly hungover from the three huge pieces of cake we ate in bed while staying up late and watching a movie. Short of bumping into Taylor Swift at the panederia, I don’t know if Mimi could have had a more perfect birthday evening. Thankfully the day turned around pretty nicely once we got some food in our bellies.
But that was yesterday. Today is about us finding a good cup of coffee. We needed it. So we set off towards the two sleepy blocks that made up Mindo’s downtown. Nothing opens before 9 am in Ecuador, except occasionally the most touristy of cafes. And I’m trying very hard to not fall into the “dad on a family vacation” stereotype, but it’s getting harder and harder to justify a sad attempt at American breakfast for three times the price of everything else here. So we asked ourselves what the locals did for breakfast. Most of them ate at home, I’m sure, but surely not everyone.
As we were sipping our coffees (or juices for our intrinsically caffeinated children), an older woman walked into the cafe and answered the local breakfast question for us. She exchanged some friendly words with the barista, and handed him what looked like a couple of tamales in exchange for a few small coins. She had our attention.
We had seen humitas on a few menus over the past week, but hadn’t tried any yet. In fact, we didn’t even know what they were until we heard the woman use the term when she sold the barista his breakfast. Now we could think of nothing else. So we paid our bill and set off on a hunt to find some of our own.
We walked past the central taxi stand for what was probably the 100th time since we got to Mindo. By now the drivers recognized us and knew we were “walkers.” So we all exchanged a round of buenos diases and other pleasantries, but I did have a question for them that day. These guys know the town inside and out, so I’m sure they could point us towards some humitas. One driver looked to another, thought for a minute, and said, “Oh yeah! The lady! Just down the street past the pharmacy.” Success! And the directions were even in reference to a structure that’s still in existence! A rare treat for the South American tourist. The day was looking up already.
So we walked another couple of blocks, and found the pharmacy they were talking about. Very promising. Then we even found a handmade humitas sign. Even more promising! But I couldn’t find anybody by the stand, and the table underneath it was empty and wiped clean. Ah! We missed her! But as I was commiserating with Aimee (both of us now quite hungry without the 2,000 calories of fresh blackberry juice surging through our veins like our children had), we heard a soft voice coming from nearby. “Hola. Quieren comer?” We elatedly called back in Spanish, “Yes! We’d love to eat!” We found the person that the voice belonged to as we looked up just above the sign. It was an elderly woman shucking corn on a second floor porch. “That’s her!” Aimee stage whispered to me. I took a look and immediately realized the same thing. It was the same person that sold our barista his breakfast (and unwittingly cost him a $20 pancake sale). We told her that we had seen her walking around earlier that morning, and how happy we were to be able to try her food ourselves.
The food was absolutely incredible (and collectively cost less than just one of our coffees from earlier that day), but the woman herself was just as much of a reason to eat in her tiny little shop. She was a super charming grandma that had been living in Mindo for 40 years. She recounted some of the town’s history for us as she cooked our humitas in what was clearly her personal apartment kitchen just next to where we were sitting. Even using the term restaurant paints an overly formal picture of the place. We sat on a 6 inch bench under an equally tiny countertop with nothing on it besides a communal salt shaker and chili dish.
We spent much of the morning there, watching a few locals come and go to get their own bags of humitas. Our kids entertained themselves with the hand crank mill our host used to grind the corn kernels she was shucking the whole time we were there. There was no menu, which only further reinforced what Aimee and I had long since discovered in places like this. There’s really no better food option than finding the place that serves just the one thing. When their very existence depends on a single item, the chefs don’t mess around. This was no exception. There were only humitas, but when you were there, you didn’t want anything but humitas.
I was just rooting around in my photos, a little bummed that I didn’t take a photo of the outside of the restaurant. It was such a core part of our Mindo experience. But then I found that I actually did! It was just by accident. It’s the elevated patio in the left of the photo, above the grill next to the green cross from the pharmacy.
This wouldn’t have normally been a photo worth sharing. I just snapped it for my “Kids getting along nicely and walking down a foreign city street” series. I have to stock up on them so that I can have something to look at while recovering from the “Kids losing their mind because we should have eaten ten minutes ago” series, which lives next to the only recently-retired “I knew we should have gone back to the hotel for a nap” series in our travel photo album.
Gosh. Where were we? I can’t believe it took me this long just to get through the breakfast stories. This wasn’t even the story I was planning on telling you today. That would be the colibri story. That’s what I sat down to write about.
Colibri is Spanish for hummingbird. And Mindo is awash in them. The lush sky-island rain forest seems to be an ideal climate for them, because they’re as ubiquitous throughout the city as pigeons would be in any other. And a few enterprising families have set up little amateur nature preserves. We were all about it. So on Alicia’s tip, we went out looking for one that she and her family had gone to during their trip to the city. She sent us the name of the place* and told us it was walkable. The town was essentially one long street, so the colibri preserve couldn’t be too hard to find. I did a quick search on the map and set off down the road to find it.
And kept walking. And kept walking. The road turned to dirt, but I was convinced (in classic dad fashion) that it was, “just a little bit further.”
It was most decidedly not. What I had found on the map was an AirBNB rental with the name of “Colibri Cottage.” Whoops.
These are their, “Did Dad just walked us two miles in the wrong direction?” faces.
But they were good sports. It didn’t hurt that everyone was very well fed at that point. So we walked the two miles back to town, and then the two miles back out of town in the opposite direction to where the actual colibri house was located.
*Aimee later reminded me that Alicia had actually sent the exact location. I just didn’t notice that. Not doing great at avoiding the “dad on vacation” tropes right now.
We did eventually find the place. And it was adorable. The daughter of the family running it (no older than Quinn) placed a little bottle cap in each of our hands and filled them with sugar water. Then she stood back as a dozen neighborhood hummingbirds flew up to us for a snack. We took no fewer than a bazillion photos. Here are three of them.
As you can see from the smile above, Quinn had a much easier time getting the hummingbirds to land on him than he did with the butterflies. Maybe too easy. Quinn even fed the wasps. I think he was just happy to be in on the action this time around.
That experience alone would have been worth the small entrance fee. And in retrospect, maybe we should have just kept it at that. But the family had also built a little lookout tower that was definitely not up to code. Even by local standards.
As you’ll notice, I have no photos from the top. It was not built for people my size. As soon as I stepped on the first rung, you could hear it groaning at having to carry my 220 lbs. Aimee, being lighter (and braver) than I am, went up with Quinn while somehow Mimi playing cliffside pole vaulter by the storage shed was the safer of two options.
Aimee and Quinn made it down safely, although Aimee can’t look at a bamboo pole anymore without breaking into a cold sweat.
The adventure continued from there. The hosts built a trail system through what can only be described as their massive back yard.
I’m pretty sure Quinn was trying to karate kick through a cobweb in that photo. Better him than me.
There were no maps or trail signs, so we just wandered aimlessly for the next thirty minutes. That led to us finding ourselves in someone else’s yard, getting chased out by their dogs. On more than one occasion.
At one point, we popped into a clearing to find a much better constructed lookout tower. Perpetually feeling like we were walking somewhere we shouldn’t be that afternoon, I wasn’t sure if it was part of the park we were exploring. But whether or not it was, the guide at the top saw us standing there awkwardly and beckoned us up. Sure. Why not?
We found an older couple from Quito at the top of the tower. They had advanced-looking camera equipment and seemed to be pretty serious birders. The guide that called us up was talking to them about some of the local wildlife and had a pretty amazing bird call. Actually several. He could mimic several of the tropical birds we saw flying around up there.
At one point, the guide whispered to us, “Look over there! I’m trying to call over a toucan!”
I had one of those killing-it-at-being-a-dad feelings when I turned to Mimi and said, “Wow! A toucan! We’re going to see a toucan!” Without missing a beat, she deadpanned back to me, “I’ve seen one. With uncle Jason. In Belize.”
For fuck’s sake.
I discovered in that moment that it’s possible to feel like a wonderful parent and a terrible parent at the exact same time.
That’s not true. I won’t pretend that’s the first time I’ve ever felt that. Maybe it was the first time that day, but just as likely, probably not.
But at least our 5 year old can still be impressed.
We eventually climbed down from the tower and made our way back to the loose trail system. But still lost and confused (geographically and emotionally), I did a so-so job getting us back to the house we started our tour at. A few more wrong yards and a few more tropical jungle cobwebs later, we made it back out to the main road and worked our way back into town. That was actually when the “kids getting along” photo up top was taken. That’s parenthood. I’m trying to wrestle with existential questions like whether it’s possible to show a kid too much of the world, while meanwhile that same kid is skipping down the street right in front of me.
I’m sure there’s a lesson there, but I didn’t have time to figure it out. As soon as we made our way back to the hostel, the staff ran up to us and asked us not to go into our room. There was a massive fire ant infestation they were in the process of cleaning out.
My first thought was, “I hope this isn’t because we ate cake in the room last night.” But before I had an opportunity to surreptitiously ask where the infestation started, the staff told us it had affected the entire premise. Phew. Not us. So then my second thought was, “We had fire ants all the time in Whiteriver. They’re not that bad.” But then I saw them. What could only be described as a river of ants surging along the path in front of our room.
Yep. Ok. You’re right. It’s bad.
And this was after they had spent the day clearing out most of them.
Every now and then, I dream about moving my family to some remote tropical paradise and setting up shop as the town doc. This was not one of those moments.