Mindo Cloud Forest Day Tour: Hummingbirds, Waterfall & Chocolate Tasting from Quito

The morning breaks cool and light as a minivan peels away from Quito’s Shyris Tribune, the city dropping behind like a map folded into the highland sky. Two hours later the air thickens and smells of wet earth; the cloud forest steps forward, a green wall alive with fluttering wings and the metallic chitter of hummingbirds. At Mirador Guaycapi, feeders draw tiny torpedoes of color—rufous-tailed and velvet-purple hummingbirds—while squirrels scavenge underfoot. The guide’s binoculars become a small theater; every leaf quivers with possibility.