NONO - MINDO with the Biking Dutchman

I really wanted to post about this bike ride I took with the Biking Dutchman on Monday but it has been a hectic week which has leveled out today and I have some time to post to my beloved blog.

The day started off early (6:30 am) in the morning I made my way on my bike to the Mariscal area to find the meeting point : Magic Bean. Magic Bean is a great restaurant that serves great international mostly american cuisine and has pretty great coffee to go. There is a Magic Bean close to my work on Portugal and Republica del Salvador but Ive always preferred the one in the Mariscal.

Anyways enough plug-ins, Once everyone was there we hopped on the Landcruiser and were off to Nono. Nono is a rural town which is part of Quito, its complete name is San Miguel de Nono. It was founded by the Jesuits who baptized the town as San Miguel de Nono since Nono comes from the latin 9th and Nono was the ninth town the Jesuits created here. Its a nice oldish looking town with strange weather conditions (always cloudy) but it has a slight cloudforest feel, especially as you descend toward Tandayapa.

View going up to Nono

Once in Nono we got off the car and hopped on our bikes for our descent to Tandayapa. We used a route called the Ruta del Quinde which according to our guide used to be the old road to the coast. Now its an eco bike route which takes you to Tandayapa on a dirt road, full of dips and holes and at times covered in stones... quite a task to not fall. The bumpy ride has your hands and arms acting as suspension and you have to open and close your hands every now and then to relieve the "claw hands". Awesome downhill, very fast and the scenery is spectacular. After biking for about 10 km we found this hidden waterfall and took some pics.

The group
you can see the rock climbing equipment behind us
SO COOL

We kept on going and ended up at a trout or tilipia farm where we found this huge rock that had a rope tied to it and we climbed all the way to the top. (that was the easy part) but then coming down was rather tricky and somewhat nerve wrecking but really fun. For a moment there I was totally horizontal just sliding down the rope.

We kept going and came to the Bellavista Cloud Forest Lodge:

Bellavista CloudForest Lodge Entrance

 In the 10 minutes were stopped at Bellavista I was able to spot 2 squirrels (which I thought were long extinct in Ecuador) beautiful reddish hair, fluffy tails which they move in circles as they jump from tree to tree and seem to fly. Regarding hummingbirds I was able to see hundreds of them hovering all around, probably 20 distinct types of hummingbirds. Again all this was seen in 10 min.

After the Bellavista visit we kept on trucking and finally hit Tandayapa. Tandayapa is located in a beautiful area of the cloudforest, here they had some waterfall water faucet of sorts where we cooled off and drank some pure water. Nobody in the group wanted to do the 8 km uphill to the road to mindo so we jumped back on the Landcruiser and our driver/guide/owner of Biking Dutchman drove us all the way up to the main road.

This is the first time Ive biked on a main road, the asphalt felt great, and we biked the remaining 10 km to Mindo with the Landcruiser behind us keeping us safe. We quickly arrived to the Mindo exit and did the downhill on asphalt to Mindo. This was a lot of fun.

Once in Mindo it was really hot, no clouds could be seen and we were tired and sweating buckets.
My suggestion was to go get some ice cream at my favorite small restaurant in Mindo:

Mishqui Quinde
Great place for ice cream, and quinoa burgers, soup and pudding
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
https://www.facebook.com/mishquimindo?ref=nf

Once done with the ice cream and a little cooled down we headed towards the Chocolate Tour/Chocolate Store. There are two or three choco tours in Mindo, but I like this one since its short and sweet and its just more quaint. Pic below. 

Landcruiser at lesser known choco tour in Mindo.
How cool is this car 

 Loved this bike ride, Highly Recommended!

My Schwinn looking tough

ANTISANA with the Biking Dutchman

So, since I work in tourism, I was invited to do a bike tour of the Antisana with the Biking Dutchman. The Biking Dutchman are a very well respected company that offers various exciting bike tours all around Ecuador.  www.bikingdutchman.com

I was very excited about this tour and felt more than ready since I have been commuting to work on a bike since February 2015 and I do weekend rides to random sites. But alas, some of my friends and family kind of made me rethink if i could actually do this bike ride.

The tour started at the Mariscal area at 7 am. I had to wake up rather early and make my way there. The guides and driver were there on time with their Land Cruisers ready to take us to the Antisana.
*I used to have a red Land Cruiser 1988. Loved that car!!

The ride was short we got to the Antisana reserve pretty quickly and started the tour.

Top of Mica Loma great view of Mica Lake

The first thing we did was circle around MicaLoma which is a small hill next to the Mica Lake. where you can hike up on foot to the top take pictures and take in some amazing Paramo views. The paramo always has this mysticism to it that I love. Ive been visiting the Paramo (mostly Papallacta) with my father ever since i was a toddler. I'm going to look for that picture and post it on here. My father taught me to deal with the Paramo cold and to fish in the ice cold rivers that flow along the mountains.Such a great dad! Next year when my Father comes to visit Ill take him on this tour and have a great time!


It was really cold with strong winds slapping your face.

All geared up for the bike ride !

After this short hike we jumped on the bikes and started to ride. It was pretty high altitude and the first 2 kms. were uphill, incredibly tough but got through it like a champ and then enjoyed the amazing downhills. 

The downhills were awesome, all asphalt and the views and fresh air was incredible. 

The end of the ride:

End of the ride what a view!
Trek bike lent to me. 

And at the end of it all i got to see a Paramo chicken check it out. Oh and some Caracaras and a Paramo mouse. 

Paramo Chicken.. adapted for the cold. 

GREAT TOUR, GREAT RIDE, GREAT EXPERIENCE!!