Hasta Luego, Amigos

  Quito, Ecuador
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

The last couple of weeks in Quito have been spent uploading millions of pictures and creating this travelogue site while we experience withdrawal symptoms from the emptiness left behind as our travel companions have returned home.  Oh yeah, and we can´t forget the countless trips to the Voz Andes Hospital´s wound clinic, to clean out Reeshma´s infected forearm.  Here, we saluted many times to Duoderm, the world´s leading super-duper wound care product, that not only protects wounds, but allows them to heal faster.  It was a life saver!  Unfortunately, we had to make 2 subsequent visits to the hospital, as they had given us the wrong lab results, and subsequently the wrong prescription for antibiotics.  Doctora Jenny Franco (another character in our foreign film one day) was not apologetic at all for her mistake, as she sent us back to the "farmacia" for a refund of the previously purchased drugs.  (Negligence or malpractice are obviously nonexistent in Ecuador...)



The rest of the time was spent mailing off travel insurance forms, Reeshma getting body waxed by an incompetent girl in a not-so-private room, Ashif getting a bad hair cut by a mumbling lady who zipped off his side burns without his permission, eating pizza, ice cream and other western delights, drinking freshly squeezed carrot and orange juice at our favorite juice stall each morning for only fifty cents, and watching movies on Satellite TV in our hotel room.  One night we visited a nightclub called La Bodeguita, where an amazing live Cuban band was playing, and watched as the regulars danced the night away to Reggae-ton and Salsa (the Cuban band reminded us of our wedding!)  We also took in a few flicks at the fancy Multi Cine theater.  We watched  "Buenas Noches y Buenas Suerte" (Good Night and Good Luck), and Casino Royale.  Did you know they have this amazing invention that would wow the world of theaters back home.  A tray that neatly holds your popcorn, nachos, and your biggie pop, and conveniently fits into the cup holder at your seat, so that you can swing the tray directly on your lap, for your junk food binging pleasure!
 
When we weren´t at Papaya Net (a great little internet cafe where we worked on the travelogue site), we sat in the pleasant Plaza Grande, reading on the park benches, and people watching.  On Tuesday, January 16th, Ecuador swore in its new president (their 7th president in the last 10 years!).  We watched the Plaza transform by day into a protest ground for various political issues, and at the opposite side of the square, applause and encouragement for the new president.  It was as if the people of Quito were saying, "here we are, we´re behind you, now don´t screw this up!"  
news link: Tuesday, 16 January 2007, Ecuador swears in new president    

The Mitad del Mundo (Spanish for Middle of the World) is a plot of land, 45 min. north of Quito, that holds a 30-meter-tall monument which ceremoniously marks one of the points where the Equator goes through the country. Our visit to the Mitad del Mundo was almost obligatory, cuz who visits Ecuador without visiting the Equator? It is called Equatorial Monument because the quadrangular pyramid is located on the Equator Line, which is at 0º-0'-0'' latitude.

The quadrangular pyramid, with its four monoliths on its angled bases, is capped on top with a spherical metal globe that represents the Earth, This globe weighs 5 tons, and is encircled by a metal band indicating the Equator Line.   The orientation of the monolithic sphere corresponds with the true position of the Earth, that is, the minor axis of the poles is parallel to the axis of rotation. Each of the four sides of the pyramid corresponds to the geographic orientations: North, South, East and West. 

  
  
We had a blast jumping back and forth between North and South Hemispheres, and participated in some scientific experiments at the Solar Museum next door to (incidentally, the museum claims to be more precisely situated on the equator than the monument as calculated by GPS). Here we discovered that your weight is up to 3lbs less at the Equator...imagine the excitement when we found this out!! (See below for the reasoning behind this.)

In one experiment we uncovered the truth about the "flushing myth" at the equator...yes, folks...it's true, at the equator, water drains straight down as the gravitational and centrifugal forces of the north and south poles cancel each other out. On the Northern hemisphere, just a few steps off the Equator line that we were standing on, the water drained in a counter clockwise direction, and in the Southern hemisphere, on the other side of the Equator line, the water drained in a clockwise direction.  How cool is that?  We also read a pre-Inca sundial and learned about the constellations in the Southern sky at the Planetarium. Oh yeah, and Ashif managed to balance an egg on a nail here, and even got a certificate to prove it!  Needless to say, it was a very educational day!

 

DID YOU KNOW?
The earth bulges at the equator due to the earth's rotation. Since the equator is slightly further away from the center of the earth then the poles, you'd have less gravity pulling on you since you would be a little further away from earth's gravitational field.

(View this entry´s Slide Show/ Photo Album Above)