 Opera house, Quito Photo by Lionel Jackson |
 Equator Photo by Lionel Jackson |
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Opera house, Quito Photo by Lionel Jackson |
Equator Photo by Lionel Jackson |
We had a day to spend in Quito. We hired a taxi for 4 hours (about $50) and did a tour of the old part of Quito that goes back to the 1530’s when the Spanish conquered this part of the Inca empire (indigenous civilizations go back thousands of years before that in Quito). This area of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the new equator park about 20 minutes north of old Quito. I say new because there is an elaborate equator monument established by the Ecuadorian Government many years ago. I had a GPS with me when I visited it several years ago and found that the equator line at the monument park is actually about 100 m south of the actual equator. Indigenous people have located the true equator using GPS technology and they have built a new park that also highlights indigenous cultures in Ecuador. At this new equator park, I finally was able to see something that I had always wondered about—does water flow down the drain at the equator without a vortex? Our guide, a young Indigenous woman, had a sink that she filled and placed it on the equator line. She pulled the plug and the water drained straight down. She then repeated the experiment about 2 m north and south of the equator. The water spun counter-clockwise north of the line and clockwise south of it as theory would predict. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen it, I would not have believed it! I am sure this could not have been done before GPS surveying. If anyone can show that we were somehow deceived, I would like to hear about it! Our tour of the composite (several regional cultures) native village included a chance to use a blowgun (I have a natural talent—I hit the target dead on) and a course on making a shrunken human head. A real one was on display. The last known one was made only a few decades ago.
We went to a craft market near Windsor Hotel in the PM and bought some the Andean craft items. The best variety of craft items in Ecuador are for sale at the Saturday market in Otavalo about an hour or two north of Quito by road. I have been there and I recommend it highly. We didn't have the time to go on this trip there so we had to settle for the one three blocks from the Windsor.
We retired early as we had an early flight the next day. Our adventure was about to begin.