Mitad del Mundo

So my first weekend in Ecuador was not the quiet, acclimation weekend that I'd planned, since my friends were unexpectedly in town. But how great is that?

The meeting Saturday was really good, then we all went out for a traditional Amazonian meal. (More to come on that later with new foods.) There are some wonderful people working at the organization -- COICA is an international organization working for the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin (across nine countries) -- and I'm excited to hopefully work with them in the future. My friend from Cuenca needed to find an apartment, so after lunch we got that settled. Then I needed to change my hostel room, and that was easy too. So it was an evening to wander around town and see what was what. I was staying near the tourist area of town, which was full of restaurants, bars, and clubs. I didn't like it very much. But my hostel was several blocks removed from there, so all was good.

On Sunday, Juan Carlos decided that we should go Mitad del Mundo, so that I could stand on the equator. This was a fabulous trip! It had an awkward start, as graceful me wiped out in the bus transfer station. (Thanks Annamarie and Kristin, for all the good hard routines, though -- the fall was in slow motion, and I was able to move enough to take it on my side butt, so it really didn't hurt.) And before that, while waiting for Juan Carlos to arrive at our meeting place, I was treated to several reminders by men in passing cars of how much I stuck out. ;)

It took more than an hour on the bus to get there, and we had a great lunch first. And the site is great fun. Of course, I had to do the tourist thing and get my photo taken, one leg on either side of the equator, holding up the world.






Then we wandered around, looking at the commercial/exhibition buildings nearby, modeling different cities and events. We didn't really wander the shops though, as a storm rolled in.


Lots of beautiful crafts, but overpriced, for the tourists.


How funny is this? Famous visitors to the site have included Julio Iglesias and Bill Clinton.


Llamas. And the ever-present mountains.



It's been forever since I did a self-portrait, and this one turned out pretty well!

But we were hoping to go to Pululahua Crater, but there were no good public transit options. So the next time list already starts.....

The interesting thing is that I took the cultural program for the first two weeks of my school studies, and my second field trip was to Mitad del Mundo! However, we went to a part a bit up the road, to the Museo de Sitio Inti-ñan, which means "Museum of the Path of the Sun" in Quechua. Here are ethnographic materials about the indigenous cultures of Ecuador, and science experiments about the equator, whose precise location through any of these sites is disputed by each of the other sites.


Yes, guinea pigs. They are common in Andean indigenous households, as they are traditional special occasion foods, called cuy. I didn't have cuy this trip, but did two years ago when I was in the Cañar community.


Yes, this is from the Amazon house. Big spiders and snakes.


An external view of some of the buildings and monuments.



An early sundial, labeled in Quechua. Just to be safe, I stood on this equator line too!



Science experiments are fun and designed to illustrate the properties of the equator, such as water that does not spin on the equator, but spins in opposite circles on the northern and southern sides, and properties of balance due to centrifugal forces. My tour group was a group of very nice Mexican tourists, and thankfully between my work background and my school background, I didn't have much trouble at all with Patricia's lecture.




There was a really nice artisan shop here, but again, storms approaching rapidly! I did buy the purple rug, and wish I'd done more! I wasn't prepared to shop though, and didn't have the time either. Ah well.

I learned a lot this first weekend, the most important of which was how hard it was to talk to people. Next up, first week of classes.