The middle of the world

Trip Start Jun 15, 2008

Trip End Aug 15, 2008

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Flag of Ecuador Cuidad del Mitad del Mundo, Ecuador
Saturday, July 5, 2008

Have been doing lots these last few days, so am somewhat behind on blog activity. We spent another 2 days in Quito, doing all the usual touristy stuff: we went up the cable car from which you get incredible view right across Quito, from 4800 meters. The view takes you breath away, partly because you are looking at it from 4800m, which leaves you pretty knackered. We decided to eat out that evening, as it turns out that price wise, going out is about the same as cooking for yourself, and passed a very entertaining evening watching traditional andean ballet in the company of a Mexican dancer and his boyfriend. Sure. Less entertaining was the pre-show speech about the history of Ecuadorian food (sounds interesting. Its not. I understood it and was still bored to death, so god knows what it was like for Imo).

That night was also the final of the South American football championships, Ecuador vs Brazil

Apparently balancing is easier at the equator

. We were a little bit scared of the crouds to go and watch, as bottles seemed to be flying liberally through the air, and we had heard that Ecuadorians were not great loosers. Fortunately then, they won!

The next day, we went to a museum in the morning, very interesting and then in the afternoon, went to the equator, which is about 30 mins outside Quito. There are in fact 2 equators, one which was calculated by some french explorer ages ago which has a monunment a surrounding "town" which is very strange and has a fakish disney sort of feel. We spent a merry time seeing how many silly touristy photos we could take at the old equator (coming soon) and wondering around trying to work out how to get our money�s worth. We then went to the "real" equator, as calculated by modern GPS measurement. There is clearly a certain amount of competition between the two! Here, we enjoyed more silly trourist activities like watching water swirl different ways either side of the line, and not swirling at all in the middle (cooler than it sounds!). Other activities included balancing eggs on nails (supposedly easier on the equator, we have the cirtificates to prove it!) and walking along the equator with your eyes closed which because of the opposing centrifugal forces is pretty tricky!

We were quite sad to leave Quito but enjoyed being serrenaded out of the building by the American group who had started their long-threatened, guitar-fueled sing song which I had to interrupt to collect my camera cable from the computer in the sing song room. The amount of forgiveness I recieved for said interruption has practically left bruises!

Anyhoo we are now in Otovalo, a market town, but thats another entry (you are all no doubt on the edge of your seats, shaking in excitment about the prospect of another blog. You should be. Harry Potter 8 couldn�t be more eagerly anticipated. I could go on. I won�t)

Lots and lots of love and BBBB

Penny xxxxx

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