I am in Mindo to study the cloud forests around me. Each cloud forest is a unique habitat, a home to scores of plant and animal species that are found only in Mindo. Over eons, these forests formed when the Pacific Ocean's warm vapors wafted against the cooling Andes peaks, creating the ideal environment for orchids, bromeliads, and ferns. These mountains are home to Guadua Augustoflora, the South American bamboo that, with greater efficiency than most plants, sucks carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converts it into material used to build local houses.

Without a doubt, most people from North America and Europe visit Mindo because they read that it is one of the world's top sites of biodiversity for bird species. The central role that ecotourism plays in Mindo can be observed in the pueblo's central plaza. In the plaza, you can see the stone statue of a hummingbird. Sitting on one of the benches, you can look around and see the famed cloud forests of Mindo in the mountains around you.

The Courthouse Security Officer was showing a group of ninth-graders around. Court was in recess and only the clerk and a young man in custody wearing handcuffs were in the courtroom.

First there’s the fact of two million birds. Yes, two million. An equally astounding number is that the lake where they hang out is over one million years old. Then there are those names: Wilson’s phalaropes and red necked phalaropes, Warbling Vireos and Sage Thrashers. Implausibly, they’re the colorful appellations of just a few of the birds that inhabit Mono Lake.