Mindo Ecuador Waterfall Tour Adventure

Water rushes over our hiking path in Mindo, Ecuador. I try to cross without using my hands!

All the Quiteños know Mindo. They venture to this cloud forest town for adventures in nature. 

The editors of Lonely Planet don’t mention Mindo in their guidebooks, yet.

Iona and I stay at La Casa de Cecilia. This is our ground floor room.

Once they do - once the town has a few ATMs, once there are a few places where it is possible to pay with a credit card - foreign tourists will storm it.

In order to visit, one must budget and bring cash.

Rather than made a reservation with one of the two or three sterile resorts that take them, it is best to set aside money for each day and stick to your limit. Follow your fellow tourists and join with them to collect discounts on common lodgings and activities. 

View of downtown Mindo from the back of our waterfall tour "taxi."

Iona and I take a three hour bus ride from Quito’s Ofelia bus station to Mindo.

As our driver ascends the switchbacks and the air begins to get  thinner, mists roll in over the craggy, bromeliad and vine covered mountains.

 Nature along the trail (clockwise from upper left): Morphos butterfly. A photogenic relative of the violet. A bromeliad sprouts up from a few slivers of rotten wood. 

We arrive and find an English speaking tour operator across the street from the bus station. Other tourists arrange for a waterfall tour with us. Negotiating a group rate saves us $4 each.

With Nambillo Falls as our final destination, we hike past seven smaller, equally spectacular waterfalls.

One of our Australian friends takes a solo dip in this lovely cascade.

Our entire party gets wet here. Iona and her friend are the last ones out from under the falls.

While everyone enjoys splashing in a waterfall, far tumbling water feels deeper in significance for me.

These dramatic drops evidence the relative youth of the planet. Where water has time to do its work, mountains are brought down to the size of hills. Meandering brooks through a meadow are sometimes the only evidence that water was responsible.

Don't forget to use water tablets if you fill your canteen from these springs!

Iona backs me up as I hug a mossy tree.

Waterfalls demonstrate for how water connects all life. Once most of the planet was like the cloud forest: humid, dense with vines, difficult to navigate. Then the clouds came to earth in the form of water. 

One of a number wood slat and cable bridges on the trail. 

It was water that brought humankind to land and, with its kinetic force, water made a rough landscape habitable for humankind.

We leave Mindo grateful for - and in awe of - water.

Tennessee Valley California Hiking Adventure

Tennessee Valley Cove in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 

When I’m looking for a quick escape from San Francisco, Yosemite, the Russian River, and the Napa Valley are close at hand.

But each of these options requires significant forethought. I wonder if will they be crowded with international tourists on a given weekend? Is there an incoming convention or a gigantic cruise ship in port? That could lock up available lodging and recreation.

Then, since like most San Franciscans I don’t own a car, I have to plan out the transit.

Which bus connects to which bus where?

Finally, do I have the money to truly enjoy these places?

The Tennessee Valley Trail as seen from Wolf Ridge.

My ideal solution to the getaway problem is the 76 bus. From Van Ness and Geary the 76 bus line will take me to the Marin Headlands and The Golden Gate National Recreation Area for the price of my daily commute to work.

A dramatic scene from the climb to Tennessee Point.

The United States Navy once based defensive operations for the Pacific in the Headlands. The buildings are still standing, converted into artist spaces, non-profit offices, history museums, and hostels.

The real treat for me is how much land is left untouched by development. I can hike a dozen miles of trail before seeing so much as a vehicle or a home.

Matt and I make our way to the Headlands on a sunny, blustery day with the goal of hiking the Tennessee Valley.

Matt buffeted by winds at Rodeo Beach. 

We start off at Rodeo Beach where a number of men with metal detectors are scanning the strand for treasure. Notable relics are said to wash up here.

A pair of parents with young children hikes up ahead of us to Tennessee Point. It’s an easy, physical hike… but we’re going all the way up the mountain.

Atop Fort Cronkhite, we explore the old ramparts and vacant magazines. We make our way to Wolf Ridge and the Tennessee Valley Trail. We find columbines, blue flax, monkey flower, California poppies, and white yarrow blanketing the scrubby hills.

California native plants L to R: blue flax and yellow monkey flower.

At Tennessee Valley cove, we enjoy the drama of the Pacific Ocean tides. Iron clotted cliffs bolt rust red into the sky. I’m so distracted by the landscape my boots get caught in the undertow and flood with seawater. Matt, too, is blissed out with endorphins and beauty. 

Lima Love Park Adventure

Yours Truly beside the Sun Window at the Love Park. The inscription reads, "Tu de este lado y yo del otro como dos remos," or "You are on one side and I am on the other like two oars." At this moment, my boyfriend Matt and I are on either end of the Atlantic Ocean! :<

 Lima’s residents have a penchant for public flora…and for public displays of affection.

Gardeners have encircled fountains and granite statues with native ornamentals since the founding of the city.

Lovers on benches, beside the water, against the cold stone, wiggling their toes in the grass: were more numerous than pigeons in Lima’s parks even then.

The Moon Window at the love park. The benches in the park were inspired by Gaudi's manic mosaics at Parque Guell in Barcelona.

Kissing bodies  younger than they should have been or more married than they should have been hid in the manicured roundabouts, screened from view by a moat of muscular horses and grinding carriage wheels.

Today, PDA is no less ubiquitous in Lima. And urban planners have extended the greenbelt with two well landscaped pedestrian promenades.

It is the custom when one makes a commitment to a loved one in the park to make a heart with pebbles in the sand with the couples initials scratched in the center.

Avenida Arequipa’s handholding strollers can walk all the way from Lima Centro to the beach between lanes of frantic traffic with impatiens at every footfall. Tourists more conspicuously walk a similar East/West route through the desirable neighborhood of Miraflores (literally “Look, flowers!”) to Parque Kennedy where cafés and art are in abundance.

Poet Antonio Cilloniz is credited for inspiring the construction of El Parque del Amor, (“The Love Park”) in the early 1990s when he made a public observation that cities only dedicated monuments to their warriors and not their lovers.

"El Beso" by Victor Delfin. Delfin and his wife were the models. They are depicted barefooot!

Planners involved in a coastline redevelopment project, which would be capped with the addition of the dramatic cliffside mall Larcomar six years later, seized the moment and commissioned a sculpture from Victor Delfin. Within months, “El Beso,” the enormous pink monument at the heart of The Love Park was erected with Cilloniz’s quote inset at the base.

There is a small set of risers set into the park across from "El Beso," where, every year on Valentine's Day, Lima residents have a contest to see which couple can kiss the longest!

I visit The Love Park and see a mother taking photos of her son and his new fiancée while wiping tears from her eyes. A gay couple and a straight couple sit holding hands on opposite sides of a long mosaic bench, each blissfully unaware of the other. Hang gliders take off from a neighboring cliff and float overhead like love letters in the sky.