Middle of the Earth

Trip Start Apr 02, 2008
1
43
46
Trip End Jul 31, 2008

Flag of Ecuador  ,
Friday, July 18, 2008

Just half an hour or so outside Quito is Mital del Mundo, which means Middle of the Earth in Spanish. Here is the equator line. When you arrive it appears that the equator is marked by a big monument, however, this is a lie. This monument marks the equator as identified by Charles Marie de La Condamine in the early 1700s. In fact, the real equator lies a 200 m away, and is celebrated by the Museum Inta Nan (the indeginous word for the equator). At this museum you can do all these crazy experiments.

For example, did you know that at the equator line:
= you weigh less. You weight about 3.4 percent less at the equator than at either the North or the South Poles
= it is easier to balance an egg on the head of a nail (which Dave actually managed to do)
= it is harder to walk a straight line if you put your arms out horizontally to balance
= water drains out of a plug hole completely straight
= if you put your thumb and finger together in a circle, it is much easier for someone to prise them apart on the equator line.

After visiting the equator, we also got to see a shrunken head (find out the size of your shrunken head by looking at your fist), and then visited a crater called Pululahua Crater.
Slideshow Print this entry