Back to Quito and "The Middle of the World"
Trip Start
Nov 19, 2007
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Trip End
Nov 30, 2007
Quito, Ecuador
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The following day we visited Mittel del Mundo (The Middle of the World). It is about an hours bus jouney from Quito and well worth a visit! It is set out in a small complex of shops, restaurants and museums and in the middle is a large monument that marks where the equator is. The reason that this place was given the title of the middle of the world is because it is on the equator (latitude) and it is at 270 degrees longitude (0, 90 and 180 degrees are in the sea where the line meets the equator).
We had our photo taken while one of us was stood in the Northern hemisphere and the other was stood in the Southern hemisphere! Had a bit of a laugh jumping between the 2 different halves of the world and visited the ethnographical museum that is inside the monument!!!
Then we read in our guide book that the monument is in fact about 150 meters away from the equator. This only came to light with the invention of GPS because the monument had been built where it is by manually calculating the whereabouts of the equator!! So we walked to the museum that is situated where the ACTUAL equator is and had a laugh completing some of the experiments that prove that you are on the REAL equator!!!
The first was watching water go straight downa plug hole!! No spiral one way or the other and it made no sound as the water just disappeared!!
The second was the resistance test. Our guide tried to open our hands that we pressed together when we were stood just a small distance away from the equator and she could´t do it, but as soon as we stood over the equator, she could seperate our hands easilly! (Apparently you also weigh less when you´re stood on the equator!!!! Hehehe We wanted to stay there!!!)
The third test was balance. It was relativley easy to walk with your eyes closed in a straight line when walking along the equator and also Jo managed to balance an egg, length ways on the end of a nail!!!! Impressive eh? We have the photos to prove it too!!!
