Mitad Del Mundo

Hello All,

Balancing the egg on the ecuator

It's been a while since the last entry and I have now mastered the entire spanish language... well nearly. Now the Spanish has been learnt, the real travelling will commence.

Indeed, today (31st March) we had quite a long day. It started with going to the bank to pay for the Galapagos trip on the 8th-15th April on the Galapagos (this is the boat we're going on http://www.ecuador-travel.net/galapagos.boats.guantanamera.h tm). The difficult part was that the agency only accepted CASH.... so we had to go to the only bank in Quito which gives large amounts of cash out. During the visit, Rhona befriended a seemingly nice US guy who told us his whole life story in 5 minutes and subsequently told us he liked to teach (only!) "little" Ecuatorian girls English and in return they must teach him something.... we left it at that and left quickly, with thousands of dollars in 10 and 20 dollar bills. We were a jackpot waiting to happen for any opportune mugger. Luck was on our side and no mugging took place.

Mitad del Mundo - 1

After the Galapagos was paid for we headed off to the Mitad Del Mundo on the local transport (1.5 hours on two sets of buses). We met up with a fellow travellor Arran (Dutch, and VERY tall.... 6'6'') from out hostal and caught the bus. Poor Arran had to stand the whole way bent double due to his height, and a little indiginous lady, who went up to just below his hips, kept looking up at him in pure awe! :-)

The Mitad Del Mundo is a monument that divides the Northern Hemisphere from the Southern. It was built during the XVII century when a French Expedition defined the precise location of the equatorial line. However, GPS has found that the line is slightly off and another line has been drawn 250 meters north where the "true" line is. Here we were given a tour where water flowed down anticlockwise in one hemisphere, clockwise in the other hemisphere and straight down in the middle of the equatorial line (see attached video clips). There were a few more amusing demostrations, including balancing an raw egg on the head of a nail on the equator line (I succeeded and got a nice certificate proving it too. Must add that to my CV!) and being off balance when walking blindfolded on the equator line, due to the magnetic forces. These are all meant to be tricks (according to the Lonely Planet), but it was a great show nonetheless!

Mitad del Mundo - 2

T.

The "true" Mitad del Mundo

Using a blow-pipe!