Ecuador Day 2–Middle of the World

Today was an action packed day.  We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel around 7:00 am.  Lots of fresh fruit! 

We met our guide, Gonzalo, shortly after 9:00 am.  Our driver was Wilbur.  We then began our 6 hour tour which didn’t end until 6:00 pm.  We started off touring the Virgin del Panecillo which is atop the Panceillo mountain.  She is 134 feet tall.  Her right hand is 16 feet tall. The statue follows the Book of Revelation, hence the serpent (devil on a chain). 

We then went to the market.  There was produce, flowers, jewelry, Medicinal herbs, etc. We were told the herb stores are run by witches. We met Rosa and she was delightful. Yes, we bought bracelets to ward of evil…I find evil is always a good thing to avoid. 

After the market, we walked around downtown, particularly Independence Square. We also went into a ‘simple church’.  I found it to be quite ornate.  Our guide said there is another church with much more gold and Baroque style. Unfortunately we were not able to tour that church.  

We had a BBQ at a local brewery owned by family of our guide. I believe the only similarity to KC BBQ’s is that we were dining outside.  They had arranged a tasting menu for us.  1st course was a a cool salad of corn nuts and salsa.  2nd course was shrimp ceviche with avacado, plantain chips, popcorn and “pixie dust” as Rob called it.  It was a ground spice mixture we could add to taste.  It also had a spiced milk type sauce we could add to the ceviche.  3rd course was baked pork, plantains, hominy and avacado.  It was all quite delicious. 

We then made it to the ‘middle of the world’; the equatorial line where latitude is 00.00’.00”.  This occurs at Museo del Sol.  Daniella was our tour guide and she was lovely.  She provided much information and is very proud of her country. We had many photo ops..on the equatorial line, 1 foot in each of the northern and southern hemisphere’s at the same time, etc. We did several experiments specific to this location and latitude:

• Attempting to walk heel to toe in straight line with eyes closed and arms raised to our sides.

• Because we are 1 kilogram lighter on the equatorial line gravity and the weight difference impacts our balance Of course I tried this and my balance was horrible initially.  Should this have been a field sobriety test I definitely would have warranted further testing!  

• We tried to balance an egg on a nailhead.  Daniella did it without issue.  5 out of the 6 of us in our group struggled greatly and we’re unable to balance our egg. Denise was the egg balance master and received a cool certificate documenting her accomplishment.  Yay Denise!!

• We also did an experiment with how water drains on the equatorial line and in both hemispheres.  It’s quite different in all 3 areas.  On the equatorial line, the water drains straight down…no ‘circling the drain’.  In the Southern hemisphere the water drains clockwise and it drains counter clockwise in the Northern hemisphere. We have videos of this too.  

After this we went to Middle City Park to see the monument to the equatorial line that was built in 1979.   Fun fact, it’s 4 seconds off the center of the line so the true zero point is at Museo del Sol (this was verified in 1985 by US Military and satellite GPS).

After the above awesomeness, we traveled back to the hotel for dinner, packing and a quick sleep.  Our dinner was lovely but took about 2.5 hours. Tomorrow our day begins at 5:00 am as we travel to the Galápagos Islands. 

Fast Facts:

• Main economic sources in Ecuador are farming and petroleum (primarily from the Amazon). 

• Witches in Quito are unionized.

• You can drink goats milk directly from a goats teat near the market.  Despite the alleged health benefits, we passed on this.  

• Ecuador is the largest exporter of bananas, chocolate, oil, flowers and shrimp.

• Because petroleum is low cost, many Ecuadorians have vehicles.  This creates awful traffic (which we experienced).  To combat this, the government has placed traffic restrictions during rush hour that corresponds with the last two digits of your license plate. For example, if your license plate ends in the digits 1 & 2, you are restricted from driving during rush hour from 6-9 am and 4-8 pm on Mondays. 

• Ecuador adopted the dollar in 1999.  This created a financial crisis with 100% inflation per our guide.  The economy is said to have recovered at this time. 

• During the March 21 and Sept 23 equinox days, the sun is dead center above the equatorial line in Quito and you cannot see your shadow. 

• Because of the location, Quito always has 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night and the temperature rarely changes. There are two seasons: dry and wet.

Step count:  14,132