Mitad del Mundo - The MIddle of the World

We had breakfast then went took a couple of buses to the Matel del Mundo - the middle of the world!!! Equator-tastic .
The first equator place was just the official statue, but isnt actually the equator so we walked around there for a while, took a series of funtastic photos in which we spelt out various things, a few three leter words then went for the big ´Equator´that was a tough one . the Q was probably the most tricky.
Then we weighed ourselves because apparently you weigh less at the equator due to less gravity. I hope thats true because i only weighed 47kg. yikes.
We took a bus to the crater of a volcano (Pulup..something...read Katrinas blog for accuracy) and then a tourguide told us all about how its one of the only active volcanoes that are inhabited, 100people live there. The last eruption was 1994. The only evacuation plan is that they pray, p because it takes an hour to get up the crater walking. Hmm what other facts are there.... theres a hotel that has a suana and spa. Because its on the equator they can grow summer fruits all year round.the only thing they cant grow is rice because it needs lots of water, and theres no fresh water there. the water system is from condensation from the warm winds meeting the cold at the top of th crater then they pipe it to the people.
then we went to the actual equator , and had a tour of the little place and learnt all about andean traditions. There was an authentic andean house from 1875, and the woman arnt aloud to sleep in hammocks, they have to sleep on the floor with the children and snakes...this is so the man can jump up quickly to protect them if a wild animal or crazy person comes into their home. The woman arnt aloud to weave because it can damage the womans fertility organs. Um what else... the men´s favourite wife is made to drink a cactus juice when he dies, she passes out and is thrown in his tomb. Im going to make an effort not to be anyones favourite.
Then we were shown all sorts of interesting equator demonstrations... there was a sundial , that tells natural time, so the days are only 23hours and some amount of minutes. Next up was an egg balancing act... apparently its easier to balance an egg on a nail at the equator, something to do with the corriolis effect not being there , so the yoke sinks . im not exactly sure but it was fun to watch. Kartina and Nicky got certificates for balancing the egg. There was also the whole spinning water thingy. I knew it actually happens but the lonely planet was all like ooo no its a myth´. They were wrong. The corriolis effect makes the water that is filtered out a funnel spin in a clockwise direction, and the leaves thrown in spun with the water...the north the spin anticlockwise.... and ...drumroll!!!! ....on the equator they sink straight to the bottom!!! Horay!!!!

After all the equator excitement we decided to bus home. It was midafternoon so the bus was super busy... we went around the same block a couple of times before heading back to Quito. It took about an hour and there were super cute children sleeping and when it was really full there was a lady holding onto the breakwindow lever. i thought that was risky. I swung in the isle for a while, before getting a portion of a seat offered to me by a sweet old couple... the man was shading the lady from the sun with a gersey. Cute.

We only had to take the one bus back and walked home past all the empty sunday shops.
We had our tour meeting and greeting, the tour officially starts tomorow but they are just doing what we did today so we are going to find new things.
I had pizza and pepsi for dinner. yum
Now im on the internet.

Ill write again tomorrow. Day after tomorrow we head to the amazon jungle so im not sure how frequent my blogs will be.