Day 22: The Middle of the Earth!

Decided to head to the equator today. I am leaving for the organic farm tonight, so I won´t see Matt and Jenny until we get back to Santa Cruz in August, so we decided to make a day of it at Mitad del Mundo. I asked my professor and she gave me directions to take the bus. The monument is only a short distance, but by bus takes over an hour, but only costs 40 cents each way!

Taking the bus always scares me, because I´m never really positive that I know what I´m doing. Luckily with friends along it is a bit less frightening because you know you won´t be abandoned!

So we have no idea what to expect. We know that the monument was built in 1936, but moved in 1979 to it´s current location, which apparently isn´t EXACTLY the equator, but when you are that close, who´s counting...

Inside the monument is a musuem of ethnography and like many museums in South America it is so sketchy that the only thing to do is mess around and laugh, so we did...

I made a friend with one of the locals and his pet llama...

I tried on some of the local attire...

Then we made it to the top of 9 floors of museum stuff and here was the view. You can see people walking the line and obviously the big N and S, which wasn´t so noticable from the ground.

We made our way back down and explored the little "town". You know that place South of the Border? The tacky little tourist trap? I am not sure if it is even there anymore, but when I was a kid and we would drive south to Florida and I remember this super cheesy, tacky, tourist trap. Ok, you have an image the $3 Disney World... that is Mitad del Mundo. They have a ton of tacky tourist shops and food places and a planetarium. Yes, you heard right, a planetarium. It was $1 extra on top of the $2 to get into the "park" so we splurged for a ticket. She warned us it was in Spanish, but we figured what the hell...

Here´s some llamas standing in front of the planetarium.

What happens when you are in neither hemisphere?

Or both at the same time?

Is it easier for God to see you when you are on the Equator? You know, no tilting to deal with?

I am leaving tonight - ugh an overnight bus ride - to head to the little beach town of Canoa, then to Rio Muchacho, the organic farm. I have no idea if I´ll have internet access, but my guess is probably not, so I´ll take lots of photos and fill you in when I get back to Quito!