 | Soon enough we realize that we need to leave the crater for our final destination on our trip, Mindo. The ride out is something comical. It's a paved mountain road, not wider than 2.5 cars wide. Passing is done at your discretion, on blind turns, 3 cars abreast whatever. At first the concept is incredible unnerving. 30kms later its actually simply effective. Turn at the big bird stature, and drop into the valley of Mindo. We reach city center a bit sooner than expected.We pull over to try to figure out what the heck the GPS is saying. A bit distracted, a tall man north of 6'4 appears from behind us. He places his hand squarely on Bruce's shoulder. In fluent English, this tall man proceeds to tell Bruce that it is he we are looking for. Craftily, Bruce asks how he knows this. The tall man replies...he knows those Freedom bikes. As our spidey senses relax, the tall man proceeds to tell us to turn around and follow him. Sure enough, we are suppose to stay at the Dragon Fly inn. I had noticed how cute the building was as we initially past it, but the name plate was mounted backwards to our approach direction. |
We met our new tall friend as he opens the castle doors for us. Intricate wood working on the gate.
It's clear that someone is a wood worker, and built this as a labor of love. Every piece of wood has a high sand finish, and just oozes with appeal. It turns out that there is a high concentration of German immigrants whom settled in Mindo. The tall man, our host Ingo, was also from Germany. In true German fashion, he speaks about 5 languages fluently. Just like in the fatherland, someone has the design for tree house building.
They were also a small German micro brew, making beer from only the 4 allowed German ingredients.
They were also a small German micro brew, making beer from only the 4 allowed German ingredients.
It will turn out that Mindo will be one of the highlights of the trip, and it wasn't even on our original itinerary. Absolutely, recommend it!
We have a little less than 1 hour to get up the CaCao (chocolate) tour. It's seems it's going to a rough sell to get Bruce out of his perch.
A view from the room.
