The middle of the world

After spending many often harrowing hours on buses we decided to increase our carbon footprint and take a plane to our next destination, Quito, Ecuador.

On the plane there are the usual in-flight magazines and they have a way of presenting everything with hyper-real photos with super-saturated colours, everyone is smiling with ultra-white teeth, even the exotic animals look happy. Ecuador is billed in these magazines as one of the most bio-diverse countries on Earth so you get the impression that you are coming into some kind of tropical paradise. After the deserts and the dust of Chile and Peru it makes a nice change.

So we arrive in Quito airport in the dark and go looking for an automatic teller machine. On the way we walk past a few military or police that have machine guns. Somehow the sight of these guns makes you think about what it would be like if they opened up on you - not a good thought. The other aspect is that you can feel safer around these people, because if they are on your side then anyone out to get you probably doesn't have much hope. Then we get some money out of the ATM and to our surprise it is all US currency. Ecuador doesn't have its own dollar but it does mint some of its own coins, just not the notes.

Our accommodation was really good and the people that ran it were friendly and helpful. Quito is spoken of in two parts, the old city and the new city. We were in the new city, which is meant to be safer. However the people that ran the accommodation were advising us to get taxis at night even if it was just for two blocks.

The suburb, or district, where we stayed was called the Mariscal, otherwise known as 'gringo central'. Gringo is a latin-american term for a white person, usually referring to people from the USA. This area has narrow streets, heaps of small eating places, night clubs and discos and there are hundreds of people out on the streets. We were about four blocks from gringo central and decided to take the risk and walk.

One night we went out to an Indian restaurant that was packed with locals watching a soccer match. You could get three large bottles of beer for $US2.50, probably $AU2.80 as the current exchange rate. It was worth watching to see how excited the people get. Most people were wearing their national colour, yellow, and when a goal was scored everyone jumps around. One of the waiters got showered in beer but he seemed to enjoy it. The waiter was also selling people cigarettes, individually from his packet, which was a bit unusual by AU standards. After the game we stayed and had a curry which cost about $3 each for two curries with rice and naan, as well as pakoras for entree.

Quito is a fairly large city that is surrounded by mountains. It is a fairly high altitude, enough to cause a bit of breathlessness. However, I must be getting more used to altitude now because I don't get the headaches that I used to anymore. The other thing is that it is close to the equator (hence the name ''ecuador"). So that means it is reasonably cool, sometimes cold, because of the height, but still with monsoonal rains. The days start off fine and the clouds build up through the day. One day it rained extra hard and there was a huge deluge. It bucketed down for about half an hour. We were at an indoor market at the time and were trapped there for a while.

One day we went and visited the actual equator. I thought it would be an ultra-kitch thing to have a photo of stepping across the line. The strange thing though it seems is that there is more than one equator. Apparently in the 1800s the French came here with the best instruments they had at the time and determined that the equator was about half a kilometer from where it actually is.

A huge monument was built on the pseudo-equator with a park and shops surrounding it, a line on the ground was made with bricks. All of this still exists and people still come here and get their photos taken stepping across or standing on the line, which isn't really anything. You even have to pay to get in to participate in this farce. Apparently the natives had a much better idea of where the real equator was.

There is another spot that you can go to where the real equator is, also with a line on the ground made with bricks. This site has several gimmicky things set up on it, like sundials and water troughs. Most people know that water spirals in an anti-clockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere when running out of a trough, and the opposite in the Northern Hemisphere. At the 'real' equator this was demonstrated to us. Surprisingly the trough only had to be about two meters from the line for this phenomenon to occur. Right where the equator is, there was no spiraling at all.

I'm not sure why, but apparently it is easier to balance an egg on a nail head right on the equator than it is elsewhere. People were given the opportunity to do this and most failed. I got it on my second attempt and was awarded a certificate for doing so. Something I can be eternally proud of I suppose.

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