Mindo Cloud Forest was a truly magical place to visit, and one I didn’t know what to expect when arriving. Fewer than 1% of forests in the world are cloud forests, and nestled up 1,300 meters in the sky, it was a unique and unforgettable location to spend a couple of days. The biodiversity was incredible, with over 500 species of birds, as well as a multitude of reptiles, amphibians, and plants! While you can visit this place in a day trip from Quito, we decided to spend 3 days in the cloud forest to enjoy everything it had to offer!

Getting There

We got our first bus in Ecuador headed to Mindo. We were a little nervous after reading a lot of blogs about some of the risks of Ecuadorian buses (I’ve written my own take here!). Spoilers: this bus was super easy, felt really safe, and was full of back packers and tourists like us!

There was some discrepancies with times we saw online for buses to Mindo from the Quito terminal, however at the time we were there (mid October 2023), the times were as follows:

Quito -> Mindo, Monday – Friday  8am, 9a, 11am, 4pm, weekends 8am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm.

Mindo -> Quito, Monday – Friday 6:30am, 11am, 3:15pm, 5pm, weekends 6:30am, 11am, 3:15pm, 4pm, 5pm.

We weren’t able to book these tickets in advance so we arrived at the terminal at 10:30am for the 11am bus and were able to book 2 tickets with no problems. The ticket was $3.60USD per person.

Note that depending on where you stay in Quito, it can take a while to get to the bus so allow enough time – traffic in Quito can be nuts!

Accommodation

The town of Mindo was relatively small and no matter where you stay, as long as you’re close enough to the centre of town, you should find it easy enough to get around. I didn’t have a car and had no issues with any of the things we wanted to do. I booked in advance and there was quite a few hotels available that looked pretty good.

Things to Do

Feeding Hummingbirds – we wandered slightly out of town to Punto Ornitologico and saw a balcony and a small sign “Ingreso colibries” for $5 USD. There was a lovely older lady running this who filled up a bottle cap with sugar water for us and led us to seats on the edge of the balcony and instantly I was taken aback by the magic of seeing hummingbirds hovering around, the bright colours, the iridescent vibrancy of the feathers. I could not believe these little creatures were birds and just how quickly their wings really moved. We were allowed to sit there for as long as we wanted and the lady kept our bottle caps filled, I think in part because there was no one else there but it was an incredible use of $5 USD.

Zip lining – there was nothing quite like flying through the canopies of a cloud forest, something possible in Mindo! I opted for a 10 line experience for $20 USD each, and it took about 2 hours. There was some walking in the jungle between lines which was amazing, buy being free to zip around, take in the amazing views, and get a bit of adrenaline was something I will not forget. The tour operator we booked with in town drove us to the location which made things a lot easier as well!

Interestingly, in many parts of rural Ecuador, they allow you to ride in the back of a Ute/Truck which was such a fun and unforgettable experience (albeit a little dirty!)

Teleferico – this is an experience just down the road from the zip lining and so would be the perfect combination of activities. Unfortunately, a huge storm rolled in straight after I finished zip lining so I didn’t get the chance to do this one but I would recommend it.

Night safari – I found the provider for this ahead of time when researching online however this was an experience that was available for booking through any of the operators in the town. For $15 USD it was a 1.5 hour experience outside of town, complete with pick up in the back of a truck! Following our friendly English speaking guide through the forest, we saw frogs, spiders, and so many critters. Don’t forget the insect repellent because there was quite a few mosquitos around!

Bird watching tour – there was lots of options to do bird watching in Mindo, known as one of the bird watching capitals of the world. There’s actually more than 500 species of birds in this 86 square km area. There was group tours however I opted for a private tour. There is two key types of tours, one focused on seeing the cock-on-the-rock bird of the area, and the others where you go to a remote area of the cloud forest to see a wide selection of other birds – this is what I opted for. I saw toucans, hawks, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, and tanagers, it was an unbelievable experience. My experience was $95 for a half day but there are a lot of experiences for every budget once you’re in Mindo. This was 100% worth doing and I can see why this is one of the main reasons people go to Mindo!

Food

The food in Mindo was awesome! There was the classic touristy options of pizza and burgers but we ate some amazing Ecuadorian foods. Recommendations:

• Breakfast: try Bolon and xxx. Ecuadorian breakfasts were one of my favourite things about the cuisine in this country
• Lunches and dinners: we ate out every meal, I am vegetarian while my partner eats meat so we found some great vegetarian restaurants as well as places with vegetarian options. I’d recommend checking out Ceviche,

Other things to note

THERE ARE NO ATMS IN MINDO FOR FOREIGN CARDS! There is one in town but only works for local cards. The closest ATM is a 40 minute drive out of Mindo in Los Bancos, which can be costly in terms of time and price if you have to get a taxi there and back. Make sure you get cash out before heading to Mindo. We also had issues with our Australian bank cards working in certain payment terminals and so needed cash more than we expected!

We booked a lot of activities ahead of time however in our experience, there was so many tour agencies around town that allowed bookings for the same day for most things. We found a few of these agencies that spoke English, and where they didn’t, they were super friendly and delt with my very broken Spanish or were okay to use Google Translate to fill in the gaps.

I can not recommend a trip to Mindo enough. Being in a cloud forest was such a unique and magical experience, the amount of birds around the town was incredible and beautiful as well as the day trips, tours, and experiences possible from the little town. It was unforgettable to be sitting, eating a Queso Bolon and looking out over the park and seeing and hearing the songs of so many species of beautiful birds.

I am not associated with or sponsored by any locations or businesses mentioned in the above, and all thoughts and beliefs are my own.