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Published: October 10th 2006
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The Equator - Mital Del Mundo
North or South of the Equator??? Flying into Quito City is quite an experience, its a bit like a city in the clouds. Rather than descending into the clouds and then landing, the plane ducked up out of the clouds (approach was less than 10,000 ft or 3000m) where you are met by mountains (up to 5000m ) and the city at 2800M. The landing is like in reverse. In terms of stats, Quito (2 million) is the Capital of Ecuador and is the second largest city after Guayaquil (2.2 million)
Quito Town
Arriving in Quito, I jumped in a taxi and headed for Mariscal (the "gringo ghetto").... the place I booked (this was the first and last time I bothered to actually book a place) turned out to be full, so the taxi driver suggested another place a few blocks further, hostel Bavaria. This turned out to be a big old house converted to a hostel with singles and doubles. Actually it was more like a bed and breakfast as it had a small restaurant and other facilities the stay included breakfast.
I was kind of hungry, so I headed to the restaurant for Pollo and Arroz (chicken and rice, which is
Sunday Markets and Festival
Otavalo Town famous for markets and festivals the staple in Ecuador) and this is where I met a couple from Estonia. Now Estonia is eastern block Europe and is not a wealthy country.... running into people from here is rare to say the least. The guy was called Mox (for short) he looked and sounded like a Russian gangster, with short powerful build, thick accent, clean shaven head and one front tooth missing. Their English was quite limited, but we managed a few hours of broken English and beers, interestingly they both disappeared the next evening in a rush (the owner of the b&b told me they didn’t say why they were in such a hurry, they just left rapido like). I think we have all heard that if everything at home goes to crap, then head for South America..... I mean this guy showed me bullet hole scars (entry/exit) in various parts of his anatomy... definitely a gangster on the run.
Given my still fairly limited Spanish, I thought I would go for another week of school, where I met Nick, a Swiss guy. So we hung out for a week or so checking out the night life etc (sorry, picture evidence requires top secret
Mital Del Mundo - Live Music
Saturday afternoon festival.... clearance, which none of you have so....). There was also and Aussie couple taking lessons and we got to talking about the Galapagos Islands (which is the main reason I ended up there later… which was a good move).
Mital Del Mundo
On my first weekend, I headed for the Equator Museum called Mital Del Mundo, which is about 1 hour by bus from the city centre. This place is basically a tourist site, with museums predominantly covering the flora, fauna and indigenous peoples (there are 25+ different tribes, pre Hispanic that is). You can cross the equator here (back and forth etc), but this place is not REALLY on the equation from a GPS (Global Positioning System) point of view.... this is where the much smaller and less popular Museo Solar Inti Ñor comes into play.
Museo Solar Inti Ñor is about 5 minutes walk around the corner from Del Mundo, where there are various experiments that only work when you are REALLY on the equator. For example, the pouring the water down the sink in the North Hemisphere Vs Southern Vs On the Equator (Clockwise, Anti-clockwise, Straight Down respectively). Or... the old balancing the
egg on the head of a nail trick (easy on the equator, not so easy south or north).... or.... how about your weight, on the equator you weigh a few KG less! Bien for some! I also whipped out my trusty compass which was a little confused
However the highlight for me, was not the 20 foot Anacondas (with a girth larger than a man), or the Pre Inca Tombs, but the ritual of the head hunting tribes of the Rio Napo. These fellas decapitate and shrink the heads of their victims. Yup, just like we all saw on national geographic years ago, I got to see a real one and they even explained the process (not patented of course)
Step 1. Chop off head of Victim
Step 2. Remove Skull
Step 3. .......
Seriously it was all written down step by step.... however the secret herbs and spices used in the shrinking process were not readily available. Note they even sew the mouth shut after the shrinking process to stop evil spirits escaping from the victim and coming after you (this is a really important step).
Otavalo
Okay, Otavalo is famous for its
Mount Pichincha!
Quito city, 4700M weekend markets, which are the largest in Ecuador. Lots of indigenous handy crafts, textiles, hats, art, jewelry, zapatas, la ropas.... pretty much every nick nack etc you can think of (haggling skills are important here). The markets also have live music, and dancing on stage etc to keep everyone entertained when they have had enough of wandering around shopping. This is also a great place to eat one of the delicacies of South America, "cooked on a spit" Guinea Pig! (yummy).
Near Otavalo is a large crater lake about 4km across and 800m deep (you can walk around it in about 6 hours if you are really keen) ... they also sell local moonshine here which is supposed to be 80% proof alcohol, made from sugar cane. It puts hair on your chest, but not on your scalp (damn it) I had a few anyway, just in case.
The drive back to Quito was pretty hair raising (read finger prints left in dash board), I thought the drivers in Malaysia were bad, but these Ecuadorians have raised the bar, where the opposite lane of oncoming traffic is fair game (at any time). Double yellow lines mean nothing and
blind corners and crests are prime places for over taking. I think they are just really really impatient drivers... but I survived.
Mount Pichincha
At 4700m, this active volcano (which erupted a few years back apparently) towers over the city of Quito. Its only about 10 minutes in a taxi from the city centre where you jump on a cable car which takes you to about 3500m. The rest is on foot.
There was only one trail up the mountain which made it kind of easy (since I didn’t have a map anyway) so off I went. On the way up, I met two guys from the Czech republic, they spoke some English and Spanish, so we managed. The hike and views were really impressive, with visibility up to 50km (at a guess). After a few hours of hiking, the vegetation disappeared and was replaced by sulfur stained rocks (the smell was very apparent) the terrain got steep and rocky as we approached the summit where all of a sudden the clouds closed in around us and the visibility dropped to about 5m (not good). When we finally reached the top 4700m, ( it was pretty
freezing at this point, as the wind had picked up) we were still clouded in so unfortunately could not see much inside the crater. However as we descended (about 30 minutes later) the clouds cleared! oh well....
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Andy
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Hey, brother. I'd like to make a request that I don't receive blog notices while I'm doing homework ... especially when snow flurries are forecasted in just a few days! Man, what I wouldn't give trade places with you. I have a feeling your travels are going to pull me through the winter. --Andy