Mindo 2010

This Thursday and Friday the 7th grade at AAI went on their annual overnight science field trip to a nearby cloud forest town called Mindo. A cloud forest is like a rain forest, except that it's at a higher altitude and it gets a lot of its moisture from the clouds which actually come into contact with the land because it's so high up.

This is my third year of Mindo Tripping. It was a great, exhausting adventure. Here are some pictures and thoughts on the trip.

[Editor's note: if you're wondering why Leslie, an English teacher, is going on a science field trip, it's because she teaches mostly 7th grade, and so is an easy staff member to "replace". Also, Leslie is a glutton for punishment.]

I think this picture sets the scene really well. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

Ecuador has a lot of birds. Though this tiny country only covers about .02% of the Earth's land area, it contains about 10% of the species of birds found on the whole planet. Like I said. A LOT of birds.

Mindo has a lot of hummingbirds. I mean, really a lot. Here are a couple having lunch at our hosteria. Mr. Wilkenson made a valiant effort to tell me what types of hummingbirds these are, but what I left the conversation with was this: this is the kind of hummingbird that doesn't have a really big tail. Sorry.

Here's the group at our brief lunch/swimming respite before the return trip of our 5 1/2 hour mountain hike. I'm taking this picture from the beginning of the trail back, because I left about 30 minutes before the rest of the group. I wasn't feeling the best, and figured climbing the 30 minute trail back up to the top of the valley at top speed wouldn't help. So I left early so I could go slow. Or more precisely, so I could go MORE slowly than normal. :)

Check us out, trying our hand at fishing. Mostly we fed a lot of bread dough to the tilapia below. But when it was all said and done, we had managed to catch 13 fish (I caught none). I got to eat one for supper, and it was really good.

This is a shot of the bus just as our fearless driver, Roberto was about to ford the little creek that flowed right over the top of the road.

The other highlight (aka miracle) of the trip was the moment when the construction guys flagged us forward after about 10 minutes of waiting. But you need to know the whole story in order to appreciate this gesture.

As we turned off the main road onto the road to Mindo, a guy sitting by the road flagged us down to tell us there was road construction ahead, and it would be about 2 hours before we could get through.

Dan Stoll (the other leader) and I looked at each other with barely-controlled panic in our eyes. Picture the scene. Here we are on a bus with about 40 seventh graders. We've been on the road for 2 hours so far, and I know I have to pee pretty badly. Our road is edged by the jungle. We have stuff planned pretty tightly for the whole day. We could walk, but Dan estimates the trip would be about 2 1/2 or 3 hours. I check with the driver, Roberto, to see if we could go on another road into Mindo. He tells me there is no other road. I still don't know if that means he didn't know of another road, or if there isn't another road big enough for the huge bus, or if that was literally the only road into the town, but the result was the same either way.

We drive on as far as we can go and come upon the construction site. A huge piece of equipment is blocking half the road. The other half appears to be where the back-hoe will dig next. My heart sinks; my bladder lurches; I begin to look around- which side of the road would be more ideal for a squatting situation?

I suggest that we at least walk up to the site and confirm that there's no way for us to get through before we all grab our lunches and set out to walk to our destination. Dan picks up the mic and begins to explain to the kids that we're going to go scout out the situation, and the kids should sit tight. As he faces the back of the bus and the kids (who, by the way, did an admirable job of not whining at the announcement), ahead of us I see the workers flagging two cars on from the opposite direction. And then....we get the wave. After a heart-stopping feat of driving prowess by Roberto, we're past the construction site and back on our way. There was much rejoice and praising from the front of the bus.

Some kids are...just...I don't know what to say here. Except that I'm not sure which kid is more endearing- the one self-consciously enduring the picture, or the one in the Saturday Night Fever pose.

This is my small group. The kids are randomly assigned (and by randomly I mean, we put them in groups that will cause the least amount of drama, to the best of our ability to predict such things) and so they don't always end up with their best friends. But I was pleased with my group's ability to have fun anyway. They were a good group. Especially when they chose not to wake me up in the middle of the very short night. That may have had something to do with my parting words that night. Something about it being ok for them to whisper as long as they don't wake me up.

One of the more astute girls said, "Cause you would be really mad if we wake you up, right Miss Foster?" I smiled, thinking of how I am like my mom in this way, and replied, "It probably wouldn't be pretty. Let's not find out, ok?" They were silent the whole night. :)