Put Ecuador on your bucket list

Tomorrow we leave for the Galapagos Islands where a whole new adventure awaits, but the last couple of days have been incredible. My trip up the Cotopaxi Volcano ended a little prematurely as the altitude busted me at about 4600m, however the rest of the team pushed onto to the Cotopaxi refuge at 4800m before heading back down. We then began the 3 1/2 hour drive to our next destination - Minto and the cloud forest. Our intention was to find the famous 'Andean cock-of-the-rock'. This odd looking bird, with a bobble-like red head, is quite a find. Getting a glimpse of the bird in its natural habitat is very tricky - requiring a very special tree. It involved a 5.30am start with our guide to a lek tree in the rainforest where we were able to watch these weird birds for an hour or so. From there we made our way to a special viewing point with an amazing number of hummingbirds.  Mindo is actually the foremost bird spotting areas in South America. There are about 60 species of hummingbirds in the area and today we would have spotted over 45. As well we saw an Agoutis - a kind of massive rat related to the guinea pig, A Tayra - a huge weasel - related to the Honey Badger, and to cap off an amazing day whilst walking along a gravel road we happened upon a pair of large Choco Toucans. Not being much of a bird nerd, today was incredibly spectacular. Walking through near 100% humidity tropical rainforest, surrounded by incredible scenery it is impossible to describe this part of Ecuador