From outside our hotel, there is a completely unobstructed view of La Virgen del Panecillo.
Our ideal vision of us in Quito involved sipping wine on a balcony and watching the sunset. Instead there was non-stop rain, chilly air and a miserable crippling cold with moments of downright delirium and fever. This didn’t stop us from exploring the city. After we checked into the hotel, we took in the view from the hotel roof and had lunch at a small restaurant with an apparently senile matron who managed to serve me the almuerzos but didn’t give Ryan a single item that he had actually ordered. Then we taxied to a roundabout where we could catch a bus that would take up directly to the middle of the earth. Sort of. Actually, it took us to Mital del Mundo, a park where most tourists believe the equator lies. There is a huge monument at Mital del Mundo marking the measurements of Charles-Marie de la Codamine taken during his 1736-1744 expedition. He thought he’d discovered the spot of the equator through triangulation. But GPS technology has recently proven that he was 240 meters off from latitude “00.00.00.” At this spot, Inti-Nan, a lesser known but way niftier exhibit sprung up. That’s where we went.
There, a personable guide who spoke decent English showed Ryan and I around and explained the science and history behind the location. Apparently, this particular part of the Equator was inhabited by aborigines who designated it a holy site because the way the shadows fall differently along the equator line. They also buried their dead in jars because they believed it would serve as a sort of womb to the afterlife. Once the patriarch passed away, his wife would be buried alive with him. So would a lot of guinea pigs. If he was really important, his children would be buried alive with him too.
Shamans in certain Ecuadorian aboriginal cultures to heal people, used to shake a guinea pig to death in the face of the patient. He would then cut it apart and look inside the guinea pig for dark spots which would then determine which part of the patient was the source of the ailment. This is a San Pedro Cactus, the source of a psychoactive substance that is used during rituals.
Our guide showed us different mechanisms (ancient and modern) that are used to tell time based on the sun including a 19th century solar chronometer, a sundial and a double-sided ancient sundial; one side used for half of the year, the other side used for the other because of the unique way the shadows fall on the equator.
The Quitus did not measure time like we do. Instead, they divided the time of the day into three parts: Chisi, Tutu Manta, Pajta. And of course, there was the actual equator line:
(Ryan and I standing on opposite hemispheres.)
Apparently on the equator line, it is very difficult to walk in a straight line with your eyes closed without falling over.
We gave it our best shot anyway:
Also:
And that thing about the water flushing differently dependent on which hemisphere you are on? Apparently true! It’s called the Coriolis effect. Watch the leaves. This is on the Northern Hemisphere:
The leaves spin clockwise. This is about six feet away on the Southern Hemisphere:
Counterclockwise.
Anybody’s mind blown yet? No?
This is on the equator:
Straight down!
Also, it’s apparently much easier to balance an egg on a pin at the equator:
Our guide showed us some of the more bizarre wildlife found in Ecuador. Don’t pee in a lagoon or lake in the rainforest in Ecuador. This fish, when younger and smaller may crawl up your urinary tract and then grow to this size and have to be removed by surgery.
This is how large the earthworms can get here:
This is a better image of a shrunken head than the one I captured in Cuenca:
And these are step by step pictorial instructions on how you might make a shrunken head.
Then we got a little touristy:
And were allowed to play with blow-darts.
And…miss.
Ryan was a much better shot than I. He hit his target first try. I missed and nearly killed this guinea hen:
Our guide told me, “The monkeys are laughing at you.”
I bought some winter ware from an indigenous artisan because I was very cold and also the gloves and hat I bought were hand knit out of alpaca and have alpacas on them and I thought that was cool.
We left a tip with our guide for the awesome experience and walked back to Mital del Mundo, the fake equator. From there we caught a bus and walked to Marisal Sucre.
This can be one of the most dangerous parts of town after dark so we didn’t want to be out too long. Apparently in this part of town, men don’t even look for a wall, thing out they just piss on the sidewalk. But it’s a hotspot for tourists because it’s where all the cool dining establishments and the travel booking agencies are. You can tell you are in tourist land when you see signs that read “Traditional Ecuadorian Food.” If you really want traditional Ecuadorian food, just go to any restaurant in Old Town Ecuador and order the lunch or dinner. Marisal Sucre is filled with hip restaurants and bars with exceptionally extravagant décor of all varieties. Most of the restaurants could be placed in any city in America and be considered swank and you’d pay top dollar to hit them up. Here, they are affordable. After our disastrous lunch, we were craving something non-traditional and chose a Mongolian BBQ restaurant with one dollar cocktails.
There were plenty of tables when we arrived, but as our meal progressed it became increasingly full to the point that pretty soon we were joined by a couple from Holland and Germany, and later a lone traveler from France. The five of us mostly conversed about our different routes of travel and sites we had seen along the way. I would have enjoyed it more, but my cold was beginning to escalate to a fever and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last without falling over. Finally we parted ways with the French woman who was staying down the street and shared a cab back to Old Town with the European couple.
This is the night that my health took a dive for the worse.
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