Mitad al Mundo

On Saturday I moved out of my family and into a hostel with the idea that I might meet some more people. The hostel, BlueHouseHostel, is quite quiet but I think everywhere is at the moment. The owner is really nice, it´s clean and comfortable. I met an English girl and guy, Lisa and Nick, in the afternoon. We cooked together and made huge amounts of spagetti bolognase and fresh fruit salad. Good meal but sooo much food! A couple of Aussi guys came round who Nick had previously travelled with. We all went out for drinks etc and Í didn´t make it to bed until at least 4.30am..!

Next day I was up at 9 to get off to the Mitad al Mundo. Gradually found a group of us who wanted to go; Nadene, Aussie, Jane, English, Chelsea, American and me. We had a fun day there posing for pictures over the ecuator line etc but the whole things is massively touristy and reasonably pricey. We went to the monument that marks the ecuator as measured by the French I think about 70 years back. It´s unfortunately 250m off the actual ecuator but apparently it was a good effort for the time despite the Incas managing to get it spot on years before! Anyway, after we had some lunch whilst watching traditional dancing put on and singing. Then headed to a museum down the road which marks the actualy ecuator and where they do experiments to show you the differences of being North and south. Some of them are very convincing, like one where they get you to test your strength and you are weaker on the ecuator, but I find it hard to believe still. There must be some illusions going on. Here is some piccys of the day:

The Official Ecuator but not the real one.

The real ecuator with Chelsea, Nenda, Me and Jane.

Experiments on the ecuator line. The empty the sink on the ecuator and the water goes straight down, then the do it on the north and it goes one way round and in the south the other way round. I wasn´t convinced by this experiment although I can´t see how it´s done but surely such a little volume of water wouldn´t be affected within such a short movement.

Me attempting to walk along the ecuator line with my eyes shut and arms out and thumbs up to recieve the sun energy!

Me attempting to shoot "poison" darts like the indigenous do and missing despite wearing the "special" hat!