A Year with A Different View: Mindo, Ecuador: Birds, Coffee, Chocolate

In addition to great birding in Mindo, we have a couple of other topics that came to our minds during our venture to this particular area of Ecuador.

Mindo is a tourist destination for both foreigners and locals. For Europeans and Americans it is a bird lovers paradise; for locals it is an escape from the city and a place for adventure sports. Locals typically aren’t interested in the bird life and want more exciting ways to play. We talked to several local people who worry about these competing interests. More and more of the jungle is being destroyed for zip lining platforms, four wheeling and adventure lodges. We could “feel” that the area is at a tipping point and we hope that it’s decided to keep the area as natural as possible instead of creating an amusement park out of the jungle.

Mindo is also a vast coffee and chocolate growing region. Being regular consumers of both beans we were very curious about this and visited several growers. Our discussions with the land owners made us keenly aware that buying fair trade coffee and chocolate is an important practice. The farm workers are typically not paid a living wage and yet both businesses are hugely profitable. Others are buying up the farms and converting them back to jungle.

Life is complex….for us, balancing enjoyment and doing the right thing is difficult. We want to observe wildlife in it’s natural state AND consume great tasting, affordable coffee and chocolate. And we occasionally desire to take part in the adrenaline rush activities. Yes, we want it all. Tough balance. We’ll work on this for the rest of our lives.

On a lighter note…the birding in Mindo was fabulous. For bird enthusiasts Ecuador isn’t just the Galapagos Islands by any stretch. It is home to over 120 species of hummingbirds, 20 or so kinds of tanagers and many other great looking birds (Cock of the Rock!). We wanted to see some of these colorful creatures for ourselves and turned our sights to the various climate zones and elevations in an area just northwest of Quito. With it’s cloud forests and dry valleys, the variety of bird life is off the charts. A local guide enhanced our experience with his incredible eyes and ears. He would hear a faint call in the thick jungle, mimic it’s mate and entice it toward us. He did this several times bringing us some real beauties. We are new to bird photography and we don’t have a camera that focuses very fast, but you’ll get the idea of the variety and of the colors.