Private Mindo Cloud Forest Experience

Daniel was excellent. He was communicative, ride was comfortable and clean, and we adjusted our plans based on his feedback. His feedback was spot on, with re-ordering a few things to maximize views and weather, and taking us to an amazing hummingbird sanctuary along with the more touristy things we wanted to do as well. Highly recommended, would absolutely work with Daniel again next time we're in Quito.

Our guide and driver, Pamela and Edison, were friendly, professional, and flexible. Great experience.

Pick-Up in time, spacious car,careful driver, guide with lots of knowledge and very good English. We had a wonderful time and absolutely recommend this tour

Wonderful day trip from Quito! Christian was a fabulous guide - super well informed about everything we were seeing and an excellent driver. We had a lovely 2 hour drive to the Mindo cloud forest and stopped at an amazing hummingbird reserve where the birds flew right up to your fingers. Then a wonderful hands-on private tour of an artisan chocolate factory where we got to select, roast and grind our own cacao beans and then do a delicious tasting. Finally, a stop at a butterfly farm where we were surrounded by gorgeous butterflies in all stages of development. All in all, a great way to spend the day getting to know part of Ecuador outside of Quito!

Daniel is a very knowledgeable guide and birder. He made the journey to Mindo and back interesting and informative. Our family loved being able to get up close to the hummingbirds & butterflies. We also really enjoyed our almuerzo lunch at the restaurant Daniel took us to. We didn’t hike to the waterfall due to heavy rainfall, but we still had a great day, and recommend this day tour from Quito.

We didn't go on the mind cloud forest tour due to mud slides and road closure. Instead we chose the Octavalo tour. Our guide Pamela was very knowledgeable about the area. We felt she showed us cultural activities of the region. We enjoyed her friend that joined us and told about the indigenous dress and songs. Also the man who played musical instruments he carved. We had lunch at restaurant that served traditional Ecuadorian food. I would recommend this tour.

Wonderful day trip from Quito visiting the cloud forest and Centre of the World. Our guide Christian was very helpful and informative. He was able to tailor our trip to suit our limited time and specific interests. Brilliant Hummingbirds, chocolate factory tour and the Centre of the World. Very satisfied tourists.

Excellent tour guides personalized the trip for us. Chocolate facial made us laugh and enjoy. Long drive.

What a day we had. Christian who you will find is a warm, happy person waiting for us at our hotel. Wife had laid out a wish list of things she wanted to see, which started with a rather long drive out to Mindo. Once in Mindo our first stop was a lovely butterfly refuge gardine de mariposa that also had a feeding station for toucans, hummingbirds and various birds, we loved it. Second stop Punto Ornitologico which had many many birds and amazingly enough Christian knew every bird and was able to point out approx 23 different species of hummingbirds and other birds, you are able to feed the hummingbirds here and it is a intense feeling to have one, two or even three hummingbirds on your hand drinking the nectar they provide there. We stopped in Mindo at a ceviche spot that was recommended, the ceviche was fantastic a perfect lunch. We then load up and moved on to another birding p,ace where again we fed hummingbirds and observed all kinds of toucans and other species. After approx 45 mins there we made another stop at a bird sanctuary called Milpe by this time the rain had started but it didn’t deter Christian in the least even driving down the road he stopped cause he had spotted little wild red bananas that I have never seen before he picked one so we could taste it way different than anything you would imagine a banana does. He also stopped because he spotted different toucans along the roads in the trees. With his extensive knowledge of birds he was able to tell us exactly what we were looking at. He had planned on taking us to some waterfalls in the area but we didn’t feel that was as important as the birding. So we headed back to Quito and ran into a massive traffic jam due to multiple vans with bikes and trucks with produce slowly climbing out of the canyon, so our ride back was a bit longer then anyone expected but the whole time Christian kept the chat alive talking about birds, fish and life in Equador in general we ended up getting back close to 8pm which since he picked us up,at 830 was a much longer day than anyone had planned on but never a dull moment. If you looking to spend a day birding or even just touring around don’t hesitate to call these folks and they did not disappoint.

+4

We went to the Cloud forest with our bilingual guide, Christian. His English is excellent and he taught us some Spanish on our two hour drive to the Mindo Cloud Forest. Once we arrived, we hiked down to a very nice waterfall. We did the easy one as we had three other cool things on our itinerary. Round trip hike was just under an hour with the decent (approx 300 m with good swithmchbacks), enjoying the waterfall for 15 minutes, and the return hike up. Excellent cardio on the way back up (I'm 60 and in ok shape, not great). Following a great hike, we went Mindo Zip-lining and did the 10 lines for $20 per person. An excellent price for ten outstanding and fast ziplines. The only bad part is that the person taking the money (cash only here) did not have change for $100 bill, so we had $65 in small bills (10s and 5s), that was meant for tipping, but had to use 60 to pay for the Zip-lining. Therefore, even though we wanted to tip our guides better, we were only able to give them a total of $5 and they definitely deserved $10 each, in my opinion. Bottom line: don't bring $100 or even $50 bills, bring 5s and 10s. The next thing we did was go to Serenity restaurant in downtown Mindo. The host was amazing and the chef came out to greet us. Pricing was great and they take credit cards. I had a mixed Ceviche with shrimp, octopus, and two other fishes and it was plentiful and about 1/2 what you'd pay in the US for the same dish. We then went to the chocolate tour at QUINDES Chocolate and it was fabulous. It was about an hour and included a bilingual guide and we went thru the entire process from cutting open the cacao pod and getting the seeds to roasting them and finally the tasting. We also did a chocolate facial (no sugar added) and those were some fun photos! The last thing we did on our tour was the hummingbird sanctuary. Christian will take you to the best one. I cannot recommend this tour enough if you are coming to Quinton.