Mitad del Mundo

The equator, of course! Quito is a huge city, and the point Lat 0° 0' 0" sits within the city boundaries, although from our hotel we had to travel a little north to get there. We spent a good amount of time first at the Mitad del Mundo site, and then at another site nearby called Intiñan, museo de sitio. This one museum was a lot of fun, totally interactive with very lively guides telling us what to do when, and showing how the magnetic poles drive how, for example, water leaves a sink. Harold earned himself a special award by successfully placing an egg to balance on a nails head. We also learned about the three different zones of Ecuador, the mountains, the coast and the amazonas. To explore all of it, we feel we would need six months. That will have to be for the next trip.

At the end of the day on our way back to the hotel, we visited a ruin, Pucarà de Rumicucho, that was supposedly pre-Incan. Just between the different activities this day we started to learn a little about the Inca culture.