Mitad del Mundo, Pichincha, Ecuador
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month. Only 20 days until Jody's birthday that means it's only 24 days before Christmas day. And it doesn't feel like Christmas here despite the old decoration or christmas tree here and there.
Today we are off to "Mitad del Mundo" or "The Middle of the World".
Inspired by our trip to Otavalo and just how easy it was, we decided to head there on the public buses again.
We got off the metro bus right at the very end of the line, then another 15 cents each we were on the bus bound for the monument.
The ticket was $7.50 each which is a pricy entrance fee for here but there was lots to see inside.
0'0'0'
First you walk up the line from the east and arrive at the monument which was built in 1989 to replace a much older and more decrepit one. The Ecuadorian government decided this place was worthy of a much better one so the old one was carted away and put up somewhere else. On the equator we hope!
The whole area is very nicely done and the path to the monument is lined with the busts of the thirteen men who formed the committee which calculated where the centre of the world lay on the ground. No mean feat we would have thought.
Apart from fabulous views from the top, the monument holds lots of interactive experiments you can do with magnets, water going down pans the opposite way (that one is a myth!) and all sorts of other things. It was actually very good and it kept us entertained for almost 2 hours. See it's not just for kids!
We watched a film in the planetarium but it was all in Spanish so Bryan had a snooze and Jody played bubble on her phone because we couldn't get out once we were inside and the film started!
finally the answer
And there was an exhibition of beautiful photos of Ecuador including the volcano but even a simple calendar was $20 so we were not inclined to buy. They just really made you want to visit or step right inside the photographs. Then there was the usual array of souvenir shops and cafes, a few alpacas for the kids but not really much more.
One of the things we found interesting was a sun dial that being right on the equator looked a bit different from the ones we are used to. The marker has to be right above the dial not to one side.
We had read that you could get your passport stamped here so luckily we had remembered our passports and sought out the lady with the stamp. We found her lurking at the bottom of the monument and she obliged us with a thump!
The references to this place being 0'0'0' degrees latitude didn't quite tie up with the GPS on our phones though, so once we left the monument site, we took a walk for 10 minutes further up the road to find GPS 0'0'0'.
0'0'0'
We managed to find it and apart from it being next to a very busy main road, there wasn't anything there to show it. Bit of a damp squib really.
Still we had had a good day here and the bonus was that it was only 1 hour out of the city so it wasn't another marathon bus ride back home.
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