Mindo Information

About the town of Mindo

The town approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Quito, you can visit here on a day trip or stay overnight at one of the several comfortable cloud forest lodges out of Mindo or in one of the "Mindo hotels" in the town. Mindo has tourist attractions like tubing, orchids, butterfly gardens, bird tours, cable car, waterfalls. Easy access to different private reserves in the cloud forest area. Highly recommended for Nature Lovers on Tripadvisor.

What to do in Mindo? and where to go in Mindo?

In addition to "birdwatching in Mindo" with "Richard Hernandez" , Mindo has many other activities and "Mindo tours" to keep nature lovers occupied. The green, lush landscapes are punctuated by nature trails, freshwater rivers and waterfalls, which can be explored by foot.
Discover the best places for birding nearby or around Ecuador, south America - Neo tropical Incredible ebird hotspots for bird photography or bird tours contact to "Ecuador Bird Photography" with Richard Hernandez.

Mindo river is a low-level rapids which is perfect for tubing so it is no surprise that this is one of the most popular activities in Mindo. For about $5 to $7 ($24 the whole ride) per person, you will be driven up to the launch point and will be given a helmet, a small inner tube that will be tied to the inner tubes of the other members of your group, a life jacket and a tubing local guide. This Mindo tubing is not rafting, so it will be a mellow float down the river—no need to navigate advanced rapids.

Two other major attractions is Mindo butterfly farm. In fact. About two miles outside of town, along the road that goes to the waterfall, is the Mariposas de Mindo, or Butterfly Farm. This is the most well-known and most professional of them all. Admission to the Mariposario costs $7.50 per person. The other butterfly garden is Jardin de las Mariposas, a bit more out of town, as good as the Mariposas de Mindo, you have to take the road to el Cinto - Saloya, this is the road by the stadium. The 2 butterfly gardens are reccommended to visit.
Another great way to get introduced to the local flora and fauna is to participate in the nightly Mindo frog concert just outside of town. The name may be misleading, because the frog concert is less of a concert and more of a night walk in the forest and around ponds where an informational guide points out the different nocturnal species that inhabit the area, including the many species of frogs. The tour takes place at 7 p.m. daily and costs $5, which includes a glass of wine.

Adventure-seekers will not want to miss one of the canopy tours offered along the road to the waterfalls. Mindo Canopy Adventure is the the major company (the one with good reputation) that has set up cables through the Mindo cloud forest that tourists can zipline on. A canopy tour costs $18 for 10 lines and $8 for 2 or 3 lines. The price includes all the necessary equipment, a professional guide that can help you with tricks along the way, and the tour itself, which includes Mindo ziplining on more than 10 different cables.

Another activity in Mindo is riding on the Mindo cable car called tarabita (Mindo gondola), which stretches across two of the mountaintops. The ride provides some beautiful, photo-worthy views of the cloud forest. A roundtrip ride costs $3 per person, but you can also gain access to the Mindo Nambillo private reserve on the other side for an additional $5 per person.

Teleferico in Mindo - Mindo Joy is the new way of enjoying the canopy views, its cost is USD.8 per person for a round trip of 20 minutes. At the half part of it you can get off and hike to the cable car - tarabita and return the same way back to catch again the teleferico.

Everybody talks, visits and enjoys Chocolate, if you want to support Organic Mindfully produced Chocolate please buy and support reliable and serious choclate brands. The farming and production of the chocolate is very far from the pristine cloudforest area. In the Tropics. They are tropifarmers (farmers from the tropics) committed to plant to bar chocolate making, perpetuating sustainable and traditional ways of agriculture while re-existing and saving a human heritage in danger of extinction. When choosing organic chocolate you are contributing to the generation of environmental justice, together with social and ecological sustainability in the forests of Ecuador.

Public transportation from Quito to Mindo and from Mindo to Quito.
From Quito or from Mindo: Flor del Valle bus company.
For your information and confort we recommend a direct option that starts your journey at the La Ofelia Transport Terminal, north of Quito:
Cooperativa Flor del Valle, phone: land line: 022-364 393. The price of the ticket is $ 3.10 and its schedules are:
From Monday to Friday:
From Quito to Mindo: 08h00 - 09h00 - 16h00
From Mindo to Quito: 06h30 - 11:00 - 13h45 - 15h30 - 17:00
Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays:
From Quito to Mindo: 07h40 - 08h00 - 09h00 - 16h00 on Saturday. Till 17:00 on Sunday
From Mindo to Quito: 06h30 - 11:00 - 13:00 - 14:00 - 15:00 - 16:00 - 17:00
On its return itineraries to Quito, this company leaves from the following address in Mindo: Quito Avenue, next to restaurant La Sazon de Marcelo.