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The Middle of the World
Stacey wants me to put the handstand one up here but I had a skirt on and it´s a bit crazy. Ecuador, where the Northern and Southern hemisphere´s meet at the Earth´s centre, the Equator.
Quito, the Capital, is actually made up of two words "Qui" meaning "centre" and "To" meaning "land" - therefore Centre of the Land or World. How cool is that?
Obviously we went to visit the Equator if for no other reason than to check the theories about water in the loo flushing in different directions on the opposite sides of the world.
We jumped on the metro bus for the 1.5 hour journey to La Mitad Del Mundo, (the Middle of the World). A big monument marks the spot and and orange line marks the Equator. We took all our silly pics with body parts in both hemispheres but we knew this wasn´t the real Equator (cos we are ultra studious travellers and had done some research).
Since GPS they have discovered the "real" Equator lies about 240m away so we headed to the outdoor museum there where the real fun began. Here we learned about local indigenous Equadorian tribes (those ones that shrunk heads way back when), saw the skin of a 6 metre Anaconda (which I couldn´t fit in one photo
but apprently it´s a baby cos in Brazil they´re 15m) and found out the origin of the "thumbs up" sign (it comes from the indigenous people here who would stand with their arms out and thumbs up pointing to the sun to receive the good energy). We still use the "thunbs up" today when something good has happened.
Then we tested the theories of gravity or whatever...
With a couple of different exercises, our guide showed us how when we stood in the Southern Hemisphere we were able to resist her pulling on our upstretched arms or tightened thumb and forefingers but when we moved (barely a metre) to stand directly on the Equator (a bright red line this time) and repeated the exercises we had no muscle control or resistance whatsoever.
We also had the chance to balance a raw egg on the head of a nail, a small nail. Unfortunately neither Stacey or I could manage this but we stood in amazement as everyone else in the group was able to place the egg on the nail and walk away.
Finally the plughole issue! I get the question so often on tour from my
pax and I always say it´s a load of rubbish that the water doesn´t flow differently. First tub was directly over the Equator - in the middle of the world the water runs straight down the drain (no turning). We moved the sink 1 metre to the Southern Hemisphere where we watched the water swirl clockwise. Over to the North and it drained anti-clockwise.
People will tell you it´s a myth and that it´s all to do with the shape and size of the basin etc but we used the same tub each time - we literally picked it up and took it to the 3 different spots so I´ll let you make your own theories. As for what I think, well I think the whole thing was really cool and heaps of fun and at least I have a much more interesting answer for my passengers now...
One thing that is true for sure is that you weigh about 1kg less in the Northern Hemisphere so I stood on that side of the line most of the time...
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