Advertisement
Published: November 25th 2014
Feet on the Equator, Latitude Zero
Left side of photo is Spring (Southern hemisphere), right side of photo is Autumn (Northern Hemisphere)On Friday we stood on the Equator! We didn´t think it would be as momentous an event as it turned out to be. It is just a line, after all, painted on the ground, near a rather grand monument, but it means so much more when one reaches it. This yellow painted line is merely the manifest indication of the zero;
the zero. It is pretty awesome, as in “Wow,
this is the
Equator! We are an equal distance from Pole to Pole! There are very few places in the world where one can stand on the Equator, so few people have done so. We felt extremely lucky to do so. Ecuador and Kenya are the only two countries in the world with equatorial temperate climates. Elsewhere, the Equator runs through more inhospitable terrain, very difficult and sometimes impossible to reach. Mostly, of course, this zero latitude line crosses seas and oceans. So, we had one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the South. One foot in Autumn, the other in Spring. Awesome!
We set off from our hostel in the morning, determined to get there by bus
Viv on the Equator
El Mitad del Mundo and on foot. El Mitad del Mundo (the “Middle of the World”) is about 20 kilometres North of Quito. Tour companies charge between $20 and $40 (US dollars) to drive tourists there and back. We got there for 27 centavos each way (about 17 pence in England, 22 cents in Spain)! We had to ask a few people where to get the bus and what bus to get, but managed to find the bus stop and get on the right bus to take us 13 kilometres to Ophelia, the Northern Quito bus terminal. This leg of the journey cost just 12 centavos. We then found a kind person in this huge busy bus station to tell us which bus to catch to go up to Mitad del Mundo (15 centavos). There are no signs or destination boards to indicate which bus to get, one has to just know! Travellers note: if you cannot speak Spanish you would struggle in Ecuador, unless you pay for a tourist guide or take guided tours. It isn´t tourist orientated at all. There is little tourist information in any language and none at all in English. Most people here speak either Spanish or
Quechua. However, if you can speak Spanish, you will find that people are generally extremely willing to point you in the right direction; more of that later, because we got lost in the afternoon back in Quito!
The Mitad del Mundo monument is in a very well laid-out park, where artisan shops and restaurants can be found. Prices are not inflated, despite being a big tourist attraction for Ecuadorians visiting the Capital, and it is all very tastefully designed. We could have spent a fortune. It is just as well that we cannot carry much stuff and that postage costs are prohibitive ($2 just to send a postcard from here) because the artisan products are beautiful. John bought a hand-printed, made in Ecuador t-shirt with “latitude 0” printed on it and Viv bought some hand-made wire and raffia earrings (might not last long, rather fragile).
As we left the monument in the afternoon, we stood on a roundabout in the middle of a busy roundabout, as one does in Ecuador, to flag down a bus to get us back to Ophelia. The first one that came along was an “express” direct to Quito. Great, we thought, just one
bus all the way. So we got on it, to save changing in Ophelia. The problem was that this “express” bus stopped every couple of hundred yards to pick up whoever flagged it down. A bigger problem was that it was going “to Quito”; but where in Quito? After a tedious hour on this “express” we reached the “ultima parada”, the last stop and were told to get off. “Where are we?” we asked the conductress, to which she replied “Quito”. We were in a part of the city a long way from where we wanted to be, we couldn´t find where we were on our little map, which only showed the city centre (and we were way off the centre) and there was no sun to show us east or west, and the clouds were getting thicker, rain was on the way. We didn´t have a clue where we were and it was rush hour. John didn´t want to get a taxi because he believes himself to be an expert and seasoned traveller. Viv thought she knew the way and didn´t, so we headed in the wrong direction. A friendly policeman was found who then pointed us
Little church bang on the zero
The equatorial line runs straight down the middle of the church to the altar in the right direction, more or less. With the help of two more policemen, a chemist in his shop and a businessman on his way home, we two intrepid travellers found a building we recognised and eventually we got “home”. We know Quito pretty well now, so if anyone wants a guided tour for $40, get in touch. Interestingly, neither of us were bothered about being “lost”, we just wanted to get back before the rain poured down; and we did. So ended another exhilarating and memorable day in this crazy country.
Saturday 22nd November 2014 On Saturday, yesterday, we took a tour. We wanted to go to the Cotacachi volcano district as well as the artisan´s market in Otavalo. We could have got a bus to the latter (90 km from Quito) but not to Cotacachi (120 km away). The tour wasn´t particularly cheap at $55 per head, but it wasn´t expensive either; good value for money, considering that it commenced at 7 a.m. and we got back to Quito at 6.30 p.m. and it included lunch at a typical Ecuadorian restaurant in Cotacachi town. It was actually rather nice for us, having spent all week sightseeing
on our own, to mix with other English-speaking tourists for a day (most travellers in our hotel are South American). There were sixteen of us in a large minibus; two Italians, one German girl, one Japanese lad, two Chileans, two Canadians, six Americans and us. The pick-up point was in the Mariscal Foch, a tourist district in the new town, so we had to get a taxi there from where we are in our hostel in the old town. The other fourteen were all staying in the “Foch” in hotels. We got there early at 6.30 a.m. to get a coffee at a restaurant which we were told would be open. It was, but we paid $5.24 for two very weak coffees. In the old town, even in the historic centre, we only pay 80 centavos for excellent strong coffee. We are really glad we are staying where we are. The “Foch” isn´t Quito: it could be anywhere and the prices are inflated for the tourists.
The tour was excellent. Our first stop was at a small rather insignificant place called Mira Lago, just outside of Otavalo, for coffee, biscochas and the loo. It had a view of Lago
San Pablo but little else. It was a dull and cloudy day. Otavalo market was great. It is a Saturday market, there are more locals than tourists shopping there, it is very colourful and culturally predominately Quechuan (the local Indian culture). Quechuan ladies sit everywhere busy sewing, knitting and crocheting goods to be sold. Many of them wear traditional dress, as do most of the customers; the market is the highlight of the week. They work with bright naturally-dyed wool, from sheep, llama and the alpaca. Prices go in that order, sheep, llama then alpaca. Viv bought a lovely hand-knitted jacket (sheep´s wool) as well as one of those silly Andean hats with bobbles and ear flaps, ready for Cape Horn in January!
Our next stop was Cotacachi. Below the peak of the Cotacochi volcano (over 5,000 metres), at an altitude of 3,068 metres, sits the Laguna de Cuicocha. It is an active crater lake, in which one can see gas emissions; it bubbles! Despite being a very cold day and pouring with rain, the water temperature of the lake is 16 degrees; surreal! The lake is 140 metres deep. When the Cuicocha volcano erupted many years ago, it
Fruit and Nuts
Otavalo market collapsed into its crater, which eventually flooded to form the lake. Cotacachi (also active) rises high above it. This whole area of the Andes is called “Volcano Alley”. There are dozens of volcanoes, straddling the Equator, from the border with Columbia in the North, to Peru in the South. We took a boat, in the pouring rain as one does, out on to the lake, circling two islands where guinea pigs live. Guinea pigs are a delicacy in Ecuador, but we do not intend eating any. Years ago, whenever a baby was born in the locality, the parents would paddle a canoe across the lake to one of these islands, and leave a guinea pig there as a thanksgiving to the god of the volcano. Back on dry land, we headed down to Cotacachi town for a rather good lunch in an Ecuadorian restaurant. On the way back to Quito, we stopped at a little town called Cayambe, where there is a huge sun dial. This solar clock sits on the Equator, so we stood on the line for a second time! It was a good day out.
Today, we have just chilled around the hostel, spoken to our
Baby Boom!
Lots of babies on mum's backs in the market sons and daughters-in-law on Skype, and packed our rucksacks. Tomorrow we have an early start, leaving here at 6 a.m. We are off to the Galapagos!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.137s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0807s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
