On the Equator - or are we?

Nervously watched the England game this morning in a bar in a square which we expected to be busy with England fans but consisted of the three of us and 10 USA fans! A relief to see England through but not so happy about the next opponents or the fact that we will miss the end of the match as we will be on an internal flight in Colombia on Sunday.

After the match it was off to the Mitad del Mundo - the Equator - 22km and a 40p in total for 3 bus rides and an hour and a half total journey time. Quite an impressive monument and an orange line which meant you could put one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern.

The funny thing is though that there is much debate over whether the real equator is at the big monument or 300m away at another far less commercial site just down the road!

Tina is pictured at the smaller site which we were first wary of but after a couple of experiments, were convinced that No. 2 site is the real one (and confirmed by GPS). A great little place where you get the chance to stand on their 'equator' and pour water down a plughole - it goes straight down without any whirlpool effect. One metre to the left in the Northern Hemisphere, the whirlpool goes clockwise and in the Southern it goes anti-clockwise (or was it the other way round?!). Either way, this seemed like the real equator and the fact that the big site did not have these experiments would appear to confirm this!

Another experiment was to try to stand an egg up on it's end on the head of a nail. No easy task but guess which smart arse managed to do it and win a certificate! Or maybe it is the photographer that deserves the prize for capturing Tina's 2 seconds of fame....

Couple of other things - you are supposed to weigh 0.2% less on the equator and also have less resistence to pressure - don't ask me how or why though - something to do with the equalisation of centrifugal force and some other force. (Grade U - Physics O Level 1976).

Yesterday (Tuesday) was spent in Otavalo - 2 hours from Quito. Site of a very large craft market (whoopee - a craft market - how unique!). More interesting was the fruit and veg market and the view of one of the many volcanoes overlooking the town. We also went on a tour out of the town - to see local craftsmen at work and to visit a lake in the crater of a long extinct volcano. The old guy making the mats from reeds lived in pretty squalid conditions - check out his clothes!


The tour was actually a great way to see more of the local countryside and the local people. We dropped in to the tour guide's house - a beautiful place with many animals, fruit trees and exotic plants. Also housed a small museum of local artifacts - including a real shrunken head presented to her by an Amazonian tribe.

Haven't seen a great deal of the historical centre of Quito as we may do this on our stopover from Colombia before flying back to the UK.

Lemon chicken for tea!!

Tomorrow (Thursday) we are off to Bogota,the capital of Colombia and hopefully seeing Katie and Matthew - assuming all goes well from London via Madrid - i.e no ash or any other natural phenomenon!