Mitad del Mundo

Yesterday we took the lovely bus trip out to the ecuator (about an hour north of Quito), affectionately called the Mitad del Mundo. Unfortunately, as often happens in science, people several hundred years ago were sure they were right when they located exactly where the ecuator was, and so they built a massive and mildly expensive monument and tourist site on the line. Unfortunately, some smart guy with a GPS actually decided to measure it, and discovered that the ecuator wasn't there at all... it was several hundred meters away. Tragic really, but at least the monument's good for pictures.

So where the real ecuator is, there is a museum all about the natives of the Ecuadorian sierra (brief geography lesson: ecuador is small, it has a coast, a mountain range called the sierra, and the amazon rainforest, a.k.a the orient). was interesting, and only a little disturbing as they told us in detailed steps how we might go about beheading someone and creating a shrunken head. Then they proceeded to show us dead specimens of all the scariest animals of the rainforest, enclosed in jars or glass cases. Great timing, considering we leave for the amazon tomorrow morning. Personally, the 15 meter long anaconda skin pinned to the wall was the most disturbing. I think. Hard to say.

But then they took us to the "line" and our poor (but truly wonderful) tour guide, Marcos, who goes to this place at least 3 times a week with various groups and always gives us the most dubious looks when we request things in Spanish and not English, looked on with a mixture of boredom and amusement, as we participated in the classic touristy ecuator experiments, like watching water drain (counter clockwise on the north side, clockwise on the other side), or trying to balance and egg on a nail on the ecuator (where there is significantly less gravity, and thus less equilibrium). My personal favorite is the strength test. You lose a lot of your muscle strength on the line for some bizarre reason. It was all crazy, and my class was so ridiculous that even Marcos had to laugh.

Well, as I mentioned, tomorrow we're heading for the amazon. On the way we're stopping at some hot springs. Should be quite the adventure... although apparently the amazon we're going to is actually a very fancy schmancy resort...
I´ll let you all know how it goes. Have beautiful weekends!