Mindo, Ecuador

Mindo (also known as the Mindo Valley) is a mountainous watershed in the western slopes of the Andes, where two of the most biologically diverse ecoregions in the world meet: the Chocoan lowlands and the Tropical Andes. In this transitional area — which covers an area of 268 square kilometers (103 sq mi) and ranges from 960–3,440 metres (3,150–11,290 ft) above sea level — three rivers (Mindo, Saloya and Cinto) and hundreds of streams irrigate the landscape, which is a patchwork of cloud forests, secondary forests, agricultural land, and human settlements.

Mindo
Rural area
Cloud forest and grassland near Mindo
Mindo
Coordinates: 0°03′04.29″S 78°46′41.89″W
CountryEcuador
ProvincePichincha
CantonsSan Miguel de Los Bancos
Government
 • TypeParoquial Junta
 • PresidentMiguel Patiño
Time zoneUTC-5 (ECT)
Postal Code
EC170751

Politically, Mindo is a collection of rural parishes (Gualea, Nanegal, Nanegalito, Pacto) that make up the Noroccidental Administrative Zone of Quito Canton, within Pichincha Province in the northern sierra region of Ecuador.

Tourism

The Mindo Valley is among the most heavily visited tourist locations in Ecuador. Mindo was recently named the Ruta de Cacao by The Ecuadorian Ministerio de Turismo [1][2]. Nearly 200,000 tourists visit the area annually to enjoy activities such as rafting, tubing, trekking, mountain biking, canyoning, horseback riding, birdwatching, Chocolate Making and herping. Besides its well-developed tourism infrastructure, it offers several private reserves and lodges known for their montane forests, waterfalls and unique cloud forest biodiversity. Much of the land is privately protected, and an additional 86 square kilometers (33 sq mi) falls within the Mindo-Nambillo Ecological Reserve (Spanish: Bosque Protector Mindo Nambillo).

  • Landscape in Mindo
  • Tubing in Mindo
  • Zip lining
  • A bamboo and palm thatch house in Mindo
  • Waterfall in the Mindo-Nambillo
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gollark: There is still not, as far as I know, an approach to detect what an object is other than just training neural networks on the task.
gollark: It's simple to say, for example, "the program should detect if something is a bird", but incredibly hard to actually explain how to detect birds.
gollark: Yes. A lot of the time something can be simple to *vaguely describe* but really hard to describe precisely enough for you to actually program it.
gollark: ... because it is a complicated thing.

References
  1. https://saltaconmigo.com/blog/2013/11/ruta-del-cacao-chocolate-ecuador-mejor-chocolate-mundo/
  2. https://saltaconmigo.com/blog/2013/11/ruta-del-cacao-chocolate-ecuador-mejor-chocolate-mundo/
  • Mindo travel guide from Wikivoyage


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