Excursão pela Floresta Privada Mindo Cloud saindo de Quito

The travel time for the round trip to Quito is about 2.5 hours each way, which is very high. I recommend visiting the impressive cloud forests as part of a 2-day tour.

First of all the tour guide did not reach out to us at all after we booked the tour to confirm the scheduled pickup time. He showed up at the hotel while we were having breakfast and said the pickup time was 7:30 instead of 8:30 on our voucher. He talked us out of going to the bigger waterfall because it would take longer time to get there and longer track to see the fall. The overall tour took less than 8 instead of 9 or more hours.

Do not book with this tour company. Their communication is very, very poor. They did not confirm the tour I was supposed to take with them today, with any prior notice, in spite of a Viator agent emailing them twice, once last night and once this morning. I am waiting for my full refund. Fortunately I was able to book with another tour operator this morning, to go to the Mindo Cloud forest, so my day was not wasted.

Andres was a fantastic guide making this experience exactly what our family wanted. We started by hiking a few minutes to see a majestic 100+ ft waterfall. Then we were able to stop at the highlight of our trip, a bird sanctuary where we saw many varieties of tangiers, hummingbirds, finches and some toucans. You can feed the hummingbirds from your hand!!! We then went to a butterfly experience where we saw 20+ varieties of butterflies and their cocoons. Finally we stopped at a chocolate making experience where we learned the full process of chocolate making. We tried nearly 20 varieties of Dark Chocolate. Each of the tours were $3-$10 extra.

Really recommend this, as you can tailor the day to your own interests. I lucked out with a guide who knows a lot about plants, butterflies, hummingbirds, and birds in general, so I learned a lot on the hike to cascada reina, which I really recommend. It’s an hour each way, so beautiful, and includes a fun teleférico ride. The chocolate factory tour is great, with samples and description and demonstrations, and the bird watching stop is peaceful, beautiful, miraculous.

<p>Omar, our guide was excellent. He explained aspects of our tour with patience and professionalism. However, my wife and I are in our upper 70s, so we decided to forego the long hiking part of the tour, and Omar rearranged our schedule accordingly. Instead of the long hike, we spent our time at a place to observe hummingbirds, a butterfly sanctuary, and an orchid exhibit. The hummingbird observatory was extraordinary, and a fantastic place to take pictures. The butterfly and orchid exhibits were nothing special the botanic garden in Quito is much better for orchids, and we have better butterfly exhibits in the U.S. My wife also went on a really interesting chocolate making tour in Mindo, and the town of Mindo is quite charming. Still, we had to pay separate entrance fees for each of the exhibits, and for people like we, who can't do the long hike, those fees should have been included as part of the package.</p>