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Published: April 13th 2010
Thursday I woke up bright and early and met up with Ken in the breakfast room. As I mentioned before we were the only two people staying at the Hotel Cayman and it was a bit odd walking into a room capable of accommodating maybe 30 people for breakfast, to find only two place mats set out...clearly they were waiting for us 😊
Any way, I got speaking to Ken about my plans for the day and said that I fancied going up to the museum at Mitad del Mundo - the
exact point of the equator.
There is a monument some 300 meters up the road from the museum which, from what I can gather, is where they
used to think that the equator lay. But GPS has since proved them wrong.
Ken said that he hadn't been up there yet so we agreed to go up together. Our transport options were:
1. Cab all the way
2. Cab to the bus terminal and then bus up to the museum
3. Bus to the terminal and then bus to the museum.
Since we were two, it made sense to split a cab fare to the terminal
02 - Spider!
Apparently, perfectly harmless - well, of course...it's dead!and then take a bus from there.
We went our separate ways after breakfast and agreed to meet up at 10.30 to find a cab.
As it happened there was a cab outside the hostel as soon as we left the gates. He was unmetered but we asked how much it would cost to get to the terminal and he offered a reasonable price (cheaper than we were expecting). I then checked with him that it
was actually that terminal that we needed to go to to get to Mitad del Mundo (there are 3 terminals in Quito). The cabby said that we
could go to that terminal but that it would be cheaper for us if he just dropped us a few blocks up from where we could get a bus directly to our destination without having to go to the terminal at all.
WOW! An honest taxi driver! Sure that he would offer us a decent price to go all the way by cab, I enquired as to how much that option would cost. And sure enough, the price was cheaper than we'd been led to believe at the hostel. He also said that he would
take us to a nearby volcano thrown in for the price. So for $40 he would take us there, wait for 3 hours, take us to the volcano and bring us back. It was a no-brainer really. It's nice when you have a travelling companion if for no other reason than that you can buy a bit of luxury for half the normal price! We found out the driver's name - Pedro.
I can't remember the actual time that it took, but knowing that we left at 10.30 and that we were well into the museum tour at midday, I guess that it must have taken about an hour to get there.
He took us past the monument but said that the museum was actually much more interesting and suggested that we go there first. Well, this is what I'd heard but his comment only further cemented my faith that we'd found a really good taxi driver. Really, if you're heading this way and you need a good honest cab driver (and your Spanish is OK - he doesn't speak English, really), give Pedro a call on +59385879337.
The museum at Mitad del Mundo is called Museo Solar
Inti Nan and costs $3 to get in (an English speaking guide is included in the price). We were joined by a New Zealand couple (I'm not sure that they were actually a couple in the romantic sense, but they certainly were in the numerical sense!) called Kai and Jen (yeah, we had a bi of a laugh about the fact that Kai + Jen = Ken).
Our guide was called Javier, I think, and he was really great - very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about both the museum and the history, geography and people of Ecuador. Really, we couldn't have asked for a more informed and entertaining guide.
Our first stop on the tour was at the tank of two (dead) Anacondas. Also around were a few fairly ugly looking insects and, on the wall, the skin of a 6 (or 7) meter long Boa Constrictor!
The next stop was one of the most impressive - a display showing a genuine shrunken head! Apparently a particular tribe (whose name I don't remember) would shrink the heads of either very important people in the tribe or those of their enemies - their belief being that by keeping the head (note,
not the brain, but the head), they could retain the knowledge and wisdom that that head contained.
OK, I should point out that the people are dead before the head is shrunk. Javier went through the steps of how it is actually done and then pointed us in the direction of a couple of diagrams that detail the steps in pictorial form. So, if you fancy having a go yourself, I've posted photos of the steps up on this blog entry 😊
(Actually, I wouldn't recommend trying it out yourself - apparently even the tribe in question stopped the practice in the 60's).
OK, I won't cover all of the attractions - largely because if you want to go here yourself then it'll spoil it for you.
But by far the coolest part of the museum is the experiments that you can do when you're actually standing on the line of the equator. Some just defy belief:
1. Take the drunk test - walk along the line of the equator, heel to toe, arms outstretched, thumbs up, eyes closed, chin up. I could do it
easily either side of the exact line of the equator, but try
as I might, when I tried it on the line itself, I lost my balance in about 3 steps!
2. Take the strength test - with your hands clasped together and held at head height with your arms straight, get a friend to pull down on your arms. Either side of the line of the equator, it's tough - but on the line itself, you become a weakling and they are easily able to pull your arms down.
3. Take the egg test - Balance a (raw) egg on the head of a nail. It's not easy, but it can be done (I know, because I did it and I literally have the certificate to prove it)!
4. Watch as water drains down a sink anti-clockwise when north of the line, clockwise when south of the line, but straight down when actually on the line! So impressive that I videoed it for you 😊 In case you don't catch the commentary, the first time the experiment is performed on the line of the equator, the second time to the south of the line, the third time to the north.
Really, the whole visit lasted at least
90 minutes - I kind of lost track of time - and it was just great fun. Easily the worth the $3 entry fee.
A note on climate: I was thoroughly unprepared for the heat of the day - I was expecting rain and cloud and general coldness but my fleece stayed in the car all day and I got a bit exposed (since I hadn't bought my hat) - nothing like as bad as Medellín, of course. That's the problem here, though - either it's grey and dull and raining or the sun is just burning - you can really feel the increased intensity at this latitude.
Ken and I said our goodbyes to Kai and Jen and left the park - Pedro was waiting for us and, as promised, he drove us up to the volcano. The problem was that the cloud was rolling in and I didn't actually see anything of the volcano (I don't think!) - will I
ever get to see a volcano on my trip??
But we did get a fantastic view of the valley from La Rinconada - photo dutifully attached.
There are also a few stalls selling handicrafts (you seem
to find them everywhere you go) and we were charmed into buying a few bits (me some postcards and Ken a hat).
Because of the onset of the cloud we didn't actually stay there for very long. We headed back to the cab. By this point we were seriously hungry and we asked Pedro if we could stop for some lunch. He happily obliged (particularly when we offered to buy his lunch too). He said that the restaurants at the monument (remember the place where they
used to think that they equator lay) were pretty touristy (and, as a result overpriced). Instead he took us to a place a couple of hundred meters further up the road.
So, what to eat - there was only really one choice since the woman in the museum explained that you couldn't say that you'd been to Ecuador if you hadn't tried Cuy. Cuy is guinea pig.
We waited as the owner of the restaurant spit roasted our meal - and then brought them proudly through to show us.
Honestly, it tastes pretty good - the skin has salt rubbed into it before it is cooked and the taste is very much like
09 - Wuaorani
Oooer, what a big spear you have sir! pork scratchings. The internal organs (kidney and liver) are really tender and tasty. The rest of the animal doesn't actually have much meat on it, though. That which there is tastes a bit like chicken - everything tastes like chicken doesn't it?
Well, it was tasty enough and I'm pleased that I tried it once - not sure that I'll be rushing to try it again though - I can't shake the thought that guinea pigs are cute hairy pets and not something to be put on a menu!
Well, we never finished the meal - we only ordered 2 between the three of us but one and a half probably would have sufficed. So we invited Pedro to get it bagged up and take it home for his wife - apparently Cuy is expensive for Ecuadorian pockets and they rarely get to eat it so she would be super pleased.
Pedro asked if we wanted to go to see the monument, but Jen and Kai had said that, compared to the museum, it wasn't actually all that interesting. So we gave it a miss and Pedro drove us back to the hotel...ah, no, actually he drove
us to a place a few blocks from the hotel because Ken wanted to courier a key (that he'd inadvertently stolen) back to a previous hotel that he'd stayed at. Then we had a good walk back to the hotel - which worked off some of the Cuy.
We stayed for a couple of hours at the hotel and then decided to go to a local bar called The Regal Beagle - the name apparently some reference to a pub in an American remake of Man About the House.
There we had a couple of beers and chatted to Rita (the owner) about our day. This was a place that Ken knew well and, as a result, he knew Rita too.
Well, we whittled away a couple of hours there before (of course) heading off to get something for dinner - honestly, a few hours had passed since our last meal!
We headed to Azucar Beach again and got a couple of starters - it might have been a few hours since our last meal but the Cuy was still sitting pretty heavy in my stomach.
I've decided that, much like London, Thursday night is the best night
11 - Proof! (ish)
...I guess that commercial devices aren't 100% accurate! to go out - there is a good crowd about the place and it's not too busy (Friday's and Saturdays are just nuts).
Anyway, having finished our meals, we headed up towards the Salsa bar that I'd been to with Andres and co a few nights before. But it was basically empty (again) so we gave it a miss and instead headed to a bar just across the road from the hotel for a nightcap.
And that was it - quite an adventurous Thursday, really. To make up for it, Friday was relatively uneventful. We went to get our hair cut, did a bit of shopping, hung out in the Regal Beagle, went for a (reasonably good) Thai meal and not much else, really. Well, sometimes you need days like that.
My plan was to head to a small town called Otavalo on Saturday. I'd already booked my cab (Pedro, of course) to the terminal.
But I'll tell you about that in the next post.
Hasta luego!
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