From the end of the world in Chile we flew to Quito, whose name literally means (roughly) the middle of the world. We took a tour and learned that the ancient civilizations in this region knew that Quito was on the equator, and they made many sun dials and other tools to take advantage of the movements of the sun. It turns out that some tribes in the area also practiced the making of shrunken heads. We had to look at some real ones; they were about the size of your fist and totally gross. The guides explained that the leader of the tribe had to wear the head of the last leader for purposes of obtaining the knowledge inside the head. I could have done without that knowledge, myself.
The equator is marked with a big red line, and everyone gets to do the obligatory "I'm south of the equator, I'm north of the equator" dance. There is also a small cultural center at the equator view point where the guides show you tricks of gravity. They showed us how to balance an egg, and demonstrated that water circles the drain differently on either side of the equator. Directly on the line it doesn't circle at all. The demonstrations were pretty entertaining, plus we found out that you weight 2.2 pounds less on the equator because of the weaker pull gravity. That's a good thing because we're going to need all the help we can get to meet the luggage weight limits to the Galapagos. We fly there tomorrow, and we'll be living on a ship for 7 days until returning to mainland Ecuador.
(Museum/monument located on the equator. Costs $4, not worth it.)
The city of Quito appears polluted and a bit rough around the edges at first glance. On the other hand, there has been a lot of new construction in the last few years, evidenced by the plethora of shiny new fast food chains and malls. There is a lot of cultural influence from Peru, which I assume is due to the fact that the Incas controlled part of Ecuador for 68 years. Quito is a smaller city than Scott and I had expected. It has less that 2 million residents, but the streets are still congested like any major city. Another surprise is that Quito (9,000 feet and change) is nearly at the same elevation as Cusco (10,000 +ft). I never read much about altitude issues when reserarching Quito, but guide books make a huge issue out of altitude sickness in Cusco. We've only spent one day here, but I suspect that the average tourist probably doesn't get to know the real Quito. There is a well worn track to all the major sights, so you may have to look a little harder here than in other cities if you want to experience more authentic local culture. We definitely didn't have time to do that.
The last place we visited was the Pululahua Volcanic crater (above), which is the 4th largest in the world. It has a diameter of 6 km, and several families actually live inside the crater on farmland. The crater is all that's left. Scientists believe that an eruption similar to Mount St. Helen's volcano blew the cone away. This is a bit of a tourist trap, with people trying to hassle you into buying stuff and forcibly giving you informational recitals for tips, but the crater is interesting to view and probably worth the visit if you can avoid the vendors.
We don't know about internet availablity on the Galapagos cruise, but we will post as soon as we reach some wifi. We're really looking forward to the Galapagos, and I can't wait to show you some giant tortoises. - Anna
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