Middle Earth (Part 2)

  Lima, Peru
Saturday, February 17, 2007

Well, the equator anyway - en-route to Cusco and the land of the Inca, a couple of detours, one in Quito, capital of Ecuador and one in Lima, Peru.

Having not really been in what one would call a big industrial city since I left Hong Kong (apologies to Sydney, but you're not that big really) back at the beginning of December, there was an element of culture shock get over as I flew back into Quito from the Galapagos. Although I'd stopped there on my way to the islands, I'd landed at 11pm and left and 7 the next morning, so didn't get too much of a chance to look around. This time, I did get a chance to have a slightly better wander. Quito is one of the world's highest cities, and I believe, the world's highest capital city at around 2,800 metres and is situated in an Andean valley. Unfortunately, these two factors combine to give it a permanent haze of pollution which is a shame as it's a pleasant enough city. However, Quito's really famous landmark is about 30 miles north of the city - the equator.

Think I'll stay south of for a bit longer.......

 

So here are some interesting facts about the equator and what you can do when you're on the line itself:

Water really does pour straight down a hole - north of the line it goes down in an anti-clockwise spiral, south in a clockwise spiral
You can stand an egg on its end (try doing that at home!)

Go on -try this at home!

You weigh about 1kg less than at home,
At two points in the year (the two equinox's), at noon, you cast absolutely no shadow (admittedly didn't see this)

I have no understanding of the science of any of this, but it was pretty good nonetheless.  However, the rib-tickling thing about the Equatorial monument is thanks to our French chums. As part of their desire to foster goodwill, etc, they built a massive edifice over the line itself - unfortunately, they got it wrong..... About 250 metres wrong to be precise. It seems the locals tried to tell them that they were building in the wrong place, but the French carried on regardless.

Merde!

Oh well, at least it gave the Ecuadorians a laugh and they built their own museum in the right place!

Next stop was a little exhibition about some of the local cultures of the Ecuadorian indigenous people. Amongst the various things to see was an exhibition of head-shrinking and just to make the day complete - here's one we prepared earlier.......

Yup - that;'s a real shrunken head!

My final hours in Quito reminded me how obsessive the South Americans are when it comes to football - a text message reminded me that Arsenal were playing Bolton in the FA Cup, so as I had a couple of hours to kill before my flight, I found a sports bar which had the game on one of its screens. For those of you who don't know, can't remember or don't care, it was a humdinger of a game, with Arsenal winning 3-1 in extra time with 2 missed penalties. By the end of the game, no-one was actually working in the bar - they'd all moved to the seats to watch the game with me and were living with my pain and anguish - at the final whistle, they refused to allow me to pay for my drinks, by way of celebration of the win - I think there are now 20-odd Ecuadorians who are new Arsenal fans!

And then a quick hop down to Lima, which has proven a real surprise and a nice one at that. It's reputation as a dangerous, dirty and uninspiring city seems a bit unfair from what I've seen - the historic centre is full of some classic Spanish colonial architecture,

Lima's balconies

whilst the cliff-top suburb of Miraflores has to be one of the swishest places to live in South America. To be honest, I got a little bored on the City Tour, I went on ,as once you've seen one Spanish style church, the rest kind of follow a similar pattern. I'm not a huge fan of trawling round religious places, but the crypt at the San Francisco Monastery was surprisingly and amusingly ghoulish.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

The second day was passed going out to the ancient ruins of Pachacamac, 30 miles north of Lima and it was here that I returned to a theme I found in India, namely corruption and UNESCO incompetence. To cut a long story short, the Peruvian government pleads poverty that it can't look after the site properly. Yet numerous archaeological digs have been refused permission to excavate, even though they would be sponsored and would benefit the site (which incidentally, is not in great nick or well looked after). What the government are hoping for is for the UN to step in, declare the site a World Heritage site and grant large amounts of funds for its upkeep. And this is where the corruption comes in - if the money was provided by a private corporation, they'd want control of the money and a decent system of knowing where the money goes. UNESCO basically hand the cash over to the local government for them to spend the money as they see fit - and guess what - most of the money finds its way into the pockets of local officials. This is what happens in India, especially at a sight like the Red Fort in Agra. And the reason I know all of this - on my tour was a charming German couple (never thought you'd hear me say that!) and she's an EU diplomat responsible for liaising with UNESCO and her frustration was obvious to see.

From here, it's off to Cusco, another altitude city and the chance to see the famous citadel of Machu Pichu - tune in next week for another exciting instalment.

Rob