Straddling the Hemispheres and Haggling in Otavalo Market

Monument to Equatorial Line 

 Yesterday we managed to grab the Quito bus out to the little pueblo La Mitad del Mundo which has a monument dedicated to the Equatorial line, the site where it was first said to have been located, although in reality it’s 200 meters off.  All things considered, it’s pretty darn close for what they had to go with back in the day, which was a protractor, duct tape, and a kerosene lantern.  O.k., I made that up.  It’s got a tower to go up and view whatever you might see, but we declined.

Inti-Nan Real Equatorial Line

We then headed on to Inti-Nan, a museum actually on the Equator nearby, which houses some cool gimmicks that you can do given the magnetic activity, like the which way the water drains, clockwise in the southern hemisphere, counterclockwise in the north.  We couldn’t balance the egg on the nailhead though.  Also they have some shrunken heads(cabezas reducidas) from an indigenous group that used to do it up until 50 years ago.  We volunteered for shrunken bellies, but they weren’t as amused as we were.  Last night we hit a plaza for some nightlife called Plaza Foch, full of people celebrating Ecuadorean pride week, and suffered through some group singing songs I never wanted to hear again from the ‘80s/’90s like 4 Non-Blondes and Alanis Morissette, but a few drinks helped kill the pain.

Shrunken Heads!

Volcano Imbabura near Otavalo

Plaza in Otavalo

Today we grabbed a cab and headed out to Otavalo, a town about 2 hours from Quito that houses Ecuador’s largest outdoor market, a shoppers’ paradise, but we took it easy since we’ll have to lug that crap everywhere.  The landscape views surrounding the town were breathtaking and I took a lot of video and photos for class since we teach about it, and it was fun to mix it up with the local people, haggle for textiles and paintings, and see some crazy stuff they eat that you couldn’t pay me to.  Mike about hurled when he saw the huge larvae that people fry up and munch on.  This evening, we grabbed what I guess may be the best meal of our trip at the restaurant El Achiote near our hotel.  It rivaled last year’s Argentinean dining experience.  Tomorrow we leave at the crack to the airport to fly south to Cuenca, where we will be renting an apartment and studying for the next 5 weeks before hopefully traveling to the Galapagos islands.  Tomorrow Spain plays Italy for the European Cup final at 1:30, so we’ll go out and watch that after we settle in.  Viva Espana!    

Larvae - Que Rico!

Textiles

Our favorite word of the trip is that there is a town called Jipijapa (hippyhoppa), which is used in a Spanish language tongue-twister which I thought was just a made-up word.  It has replaced Jujuy!(who-huy) - a town in the north of Argentina that sounds like a hooray sound from last summer as the word of the trip.  It amuses us simple folk, what can I say, other than... Jipijapa!

Quito Invasion

Um, sleeping?

Que tal ‘yall?!  Look, I slept in the park last night! Mike and I got here to Quito, the capital, last night and a quick little taxi to the hotel.  We had a pile of Colombian food for dinner with their favorite liquor Aguardiente, which they drink with lime and salt - which has a minor anise flavor, really good with the lime considering I hate black licorice! The hotel is run by some very wacky and interesting German people - Klaus, Jesse, and Hubert, lots of them have escaped the rat race and deposited themselves throughout Latin America, just so you know - and run hotels.  Already there are several major bonuses for us.  One is they use the dollar, and even quarters, and use the dollar coins all over the place...  Second is that they use our outlets and electric currency.  Today we did the touristy city thing.  We visited the oldest Gothic basilica in Latin America also covered with gargoyles using natural fauna - iguanas, jaguars, turtles, and monkeys.  We visited el Ejido park where we learned they bet huge money - even their houses, on pickup volleyball.  Oh, and may have seen the guy above either dead or passed out, not sure - it was 10 a.m. ...

La Basilica de Quito

El Panecillo Monument

We saw another impressive church -  the most elaborate church I’ve seen, called la Compania de Jesus, filled with the walls and ceilings covered in gold - Everything!  We also strolled by the Palacio del Gobierno - Governmental Palace located on the Plaza Grande - main Plaza.  Apparently Prez Correa missed my text and booked a visit with the president from Belarus, so we didn't hang.

We then went up to the top of one of the mountains Comun - on el Teleferico or tram for an impressive view of the city and the surrounding countryside.  I’m still trying to catch my breath, 4100 meters up.

View of Quito from the Teleferico

The ride up the Teleferico

Quito and the surrounding landscape

Lastly we stopped in for the fastest guided tour ever about the pre-Inca history at the Museo Nacional de Cultura since we were short on time, 25 minutes, I think we got it all... We tried their empanadas today - Chilean style, not as good as Argentina, and bolon - a green plantain mash with cheese in the middle.  That was good...  And blackberry juice - Yeah Raquel! Tonite it was Chinese food at a Chifa - most common ethnic food here. Tomorrow it’s off to straddle the two hemispheres at La Mitad del Mundo and Saturday we head to Otavalo for the country's largest market. Head to toe in baby alpaca fur, hecks yeah!