Quito and the Equator Line

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We arrived back from the Galapagos and all went out together as a group to an Argentinian restaurant to eat big fat steaks.

The next day (monday) Jo, myself, Lesley and Birgit went up the cable car to overlook Quito and stand on the active volcano which covered the city with 4cm of ash in the last decade.

After lunch just the three of us (Janna, Jo and Lesley) went to the equator line monument and stood in both the southern and northern hemisphere´s at the same time, ha ha really cool. we visited a museum afterwards which perported to run along the TRUE equator line (apparently the monument was a gift from France some years ago when they didn´t have the technology to get it exactly right, and now more recently the new museum has been created and located on the REAL equator line using GPS. Here on the true line, we conducted tests to prove the pull of the polar magnetic forces. Saw water run out of a basin straight down on the line, clockwise in the southern hemisphere and anti clockwise in the northern. also we balanced an egg on a nail on the equator quite easily but couldn´t do it on either side !!! these amongst other tests were a bit of fun although i can´t say how acurate they are.

The next day (Tuesday) Jo, myself, Lesley, Ann and Maggie (some of the others from the Galapagos group) all went to the Cotopaxi national park where we climbed the active volcano who gives it´s name to the national park.

We climbed from the car park 3500m straight up some scree to a base camp refuge 4800m where we had lunch.

By the time we set off on the last leg up to the glacier, the weather had changed for the worse and we finally reached the ice in a snowstorm. We weren´t very well prepared for this, i only had some cotton trousers on and luckily just happened to bring my rain jacket. It was totally knackering but we made it. we practically all slept all the way back to Quito.

we ate this nite in ´Q´a very nice restaurant with very good food.

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Photos

North and South hemispheres
here I am at the REAL equator line with one foot each in the Northern and Southern hemispheres respectively

not the real equator line
here I am on the original site for the equator line which has now been proven to be wrong

City view of Quito
view from the top of the active volcano after using the cable car