Quito: Day 2

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Day 2. March 9, 2011: Quito and Mitad del Mundo

Breakfast
We slept in until about 9 AM. Ah, vacation! The breakfast room is downstairs, outside the gate of the hotel off the central courtyard in the former wine cellar. Roll/butter/juice/café con leche and huevos (revueltas or fritos). The two women that served breakfast each morning could have used some happy pills, but it was fine and got us going.

Exploring Quito
We then walked to the Plaza Grande (aka Plaza de la Independencia). We tried to enter an old church but it was Ash Wednesday so it was closed to tourists. We then walked to the Iglesia de la Compana. Paid $3 each and went inside. The church was built in 1605, and lots of gold paint all over.

Mitad del Mundo
We then walked to La Marin metrobus station to make our way to Mitad del Mundo. We paid $.25 each and got standing room only on the bus towards the Ofelia stop. It took us about 45 minutes and there were lots of stops. We transferred to the blue "Mitad del Mundo bus", and before we left the station, two boys (probably 9-10 years old) got on and did a comic/singing act. It was in Spanish, and Anne sort of ignored it. Steve was listening and watching even though he had no earthly idea what the story was... then one of the boys walked down the aisle of the bus with his hand out. Steve says, "honey, we need to pay him". Anne said, "give him a nickel but that’s it". Steve replied with “we need to pay him for our bus tickets”. Anne then revealed that the boys were performers (panderers) and Steve got the gist of the whole shtick. We both laughed, and a short while later, a man came through and we each paid $.15 each, and spent yet another 30 minutes on the bus.

We got off at Ciudad Mitad del Mundo, and Anne knew it would be cheesy! There is a little “city” there with some shops and restaurants and then a gaudy monument and a yellow line representing the equator. The line here was designated by a French Expedition in the 18th century, and they were about 240 meters off. Not bad prior to GPS. We ate lunch (some words that Anne didn’t know, but she ordered something with maize and queso). A corn on the cob came out, only it didn't look like normal corn. Steve tried it first by twirling the “corn” in a pat of “butter” on the plate, but it did not melt and the lady looked at us weird. Then Anne said “you know, it was supposed to have cheese in it". We laughed again as we realized the "butter" was some sort of whitish cheese! The corn was actually hominy and the kernels were big and chewy. We also had some empanadas and cheesy potato and avocado soup (that rocked). We then took very touristy looking (ie, cheesy) pictures on the equator, standing in the Northern and Southern hemisphere at the same time (only we really weren't as previously noted). We did not go up into the monument as it was too much cheesiness for us (Steve finally put his foot down), but the mountains were covered in clouds and it was pretty.

Inti-Nan
We walked out of the Mitad del Mundo cheese-fest, turned left and walked up a short hill to find the Inti-Nan museum. It was outdoors, and we think the entrance fee was $3 each, and it included a guide. Her name was Nataly but she wasn't Russian. We learned how shrunken heads were made and got to see two of them! Okay- so we'll share the secret with our intrepid readers. Here it is (tada!): they take the skull out, boil the skin, and sew up the lips. All of the hair is left on the skin. Yes, it is quite gross. Then we learned abut the three protected tribes left in Ecuador that Nataly told us don’t have contact with the outside world. Although one tribe has a person that learned Spanish and is working with the government, and this tribe has taken a liking to Coca Cola of all things. The real location of the equator as determined by GPS technology goes thorough this lucky museum owner's property. Nataly and a helper demonstrated different experiments: balancing an egg on a nail, water draining in a left swirl or right swirl (depending on what hemisphere you're in) or straight down (right over the equator!). It was a very nice afternoon. We took the bus back (this time it cost us $.80 each and we don't know why).

Dinner
We bought some sangria in a box off the shelf at the grocery store. It wasn't refrigerated which Steve thought was kind of strange. We ate pizza for dinner, and then we went back to the hotel to chill. We checked out the terrace before dinner. We had to go up one more flight of tile stairs, up a flight of wooden stairs, then two additional flights of metal stairs. The terrace had a small table and four chairs, and had a great view of the city and the Panecillo. It had rained earlier, and as we headed down, Steve told Anne to be careful and asked if she wanted him to go first. She said, "no thanks, I'm okay". Steve then slipped and fell down 3 or 4 stairs and almost took Anne out. Luckily she was holding onto both of the handrails and didn’t fall, too. Somehow Steve fell at a really weird angle and bashed up his knee a little. A really nice, older woman came out of her room at the bottom to check on us. She looked frightened by the episode.

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