We spent 3 days in Quito, Ecuador, which proved to be quite interesting. We did not take our camera around the town, since we have encountered too many travelers that have said they were robbed here , so unfortunately we do not have many pictures of the city. We did get to visit some pretty churches, one of which is supposedly covered in 7 tons of gold! Here are the pictures we got from our hostel window, and pictures of our visit to the equator.
This is the view out of our window. Every afternoon the clouds would roll in and there would be a nice little shower.
This is the basilica church that we could see out of our window. It is the only gothic church in Quito. It was built in 1926 I believe. When we went to visit it we were able to go to the very top of both towers. In the tallest tower they would even let you sit on the ledge at the very top!! We got to climb normal stairs, spiral stairs, and very steep scalfolding type stairs, and we were able to cross wooden planks. It was pretty cool!
The clouds rolling in over the mountains for the afternoon rain.
The actaul equator is located 22 km north of Quito. There are three museums located around the equator. The first one we visited was called the Museo del Sol. It was not really a musuem, but a research group that has been studying the significance of the equator for 10 years. They have found that the indigenous people almost 3,000 years ago had figured out where the exact equator was. This is a hill outside of the museum. The little dot on the very top of the hill was a site built back then indicating the exact line, which is exactly right!! They have also found that sites were built on the exact lines of the solstices and equinox lines! Smart people. They figured all of this out just by studying the stars and the sun!
This is a monument built by the French in the 1800´s I believe. This was supposed to indicate the line of equator, but ironically the French were wrong and misplaced the monument by 240 meters!
The line running through the monument.
Nick with one foot in the southern hemisphere and one foot in the nothern hemisphere. Kind of since the line is actually wrong.
A close up of the globe on top of the monument.
After visiting the monument, we went to the museum that is actually right on the line. It is called El Museo de Sitio Intiñan, and they do all the little tricks such as the swirling water and balancing an egg. This is us on the exact line.
You can see the globe from the official monument in the background, and see how far off it really is.
Nick balancing the egg on the nail. He actually received a certificate for doing this!
The museum had all sorts of interesting things from Ecuador. This little fish is the guy that will swim up your penis if you pee in the water in the jungle. He grows that big inside of you!!!
Above the native guy´s hand you can see a skin of an anaconda on the wall. That is only half of him!!! And they actually get much bigger than this one!!!!! The guide said this one was around 12 or 15 meters long, we can´t remember.
This is a real shrunken head from the tribe in the jungle. Most of the time the heads belong to enemies. The person will remove the bones, shrink the skin, sew the mouth shut (because they believe your soul will come for revenge if they didn´t do this), and then they will wear the heads around their necks to show how many people they have killed. This particular head actually belonged to a 12 year old boy that was the chief´s son. I guess the chief liked his son so much that when he died he decided to shrink his head.
This is the guide showing us the water going straight down the drain on the equator line. She then put the sink on the south side, and the water swirled clockwise. She placed the sink on the north side and the water swirled counter clockwise. It didn´t seem like she was tricking us, but she wouldn´t let anybody else try it.
Nick wearing the native hat that is made out of wool. It was very hard!
Nick is practicing with a blow gun. He was pretty good! They made him wear the head dress of feathers.
This is the view out of our window. Every afternoon the clouds would roll in and there would be a nice little shower.
This is the basilica church that we could see out of our window. It is the only gothic church in Quito. It was built in 1926 I believe. When we went to visit it we were able to go to the very top of both towers. In the tallest tower they would even let you sit on the ledge at the very top!! We got to climb normal stairs, spiral stairs, and very steep scalfolding type stairs, and we were able to cross wooden planks. It was pretty cool!
The clouds rolling in over the mountains for the afternoon rain.
The actaul equator is located 22 km north of Quito. There are three museums located around the equator. The first one we visited was called the Museo del Sol. It was not really a musuem, but a research group that has been studying the significance of the equator for 10 years. They have found that the indigenous people almost 3,000 years ago had figured out where the exact equator was. This is a hill outside of the museum. The little dot on the very top of the hill was a site built back then indicating the exact line, which is exactly right!! They have also found that sites were built on the exact lines of the solstices and equinox lines! Smart people. They figured all of this out just by studying the stars and the sun!
This is a monument built by the French in the 1800´s I believe. This was supposed to indicate the line of equator, but ironically the French were wrong and misplaced the monument by 240 meters!
The line running through the monument.
Nick with one foot in the southern hemisphere and one foot in the nothern hemisphere. Kind of since the line is actually wrong.
A close up of the globe on top of the monument.
After visiting the monument, we went to the museum that is actually right on the line. It is called El Museo de Sitio Intiñan, and they do all the little tricks such as the swirling water and balancing an egg. This is us on the exact line.
You can see the globe from the official monument in the background, and see how far off it really is.
Nick balancing the egg on the nail. He actually received a certificate for doing this!
The museum had all sorts of interesting things from Ecuador. This little fish is the guy that will swim up your penis if you pee in the water in the jungle. He grows that big inside of you!!!
Above the native guy´s hand you can see a skin of an anaconda on the wall. That is only half of him!!! And they actually get much bigger than this one!!!!! The guide said this one was around 12 or 15 meters long, we can´t remember.
This is a real shrunken head from the tribe in the jungle. Most of the time the heads belong to enemies. The person will remove the bones, shrink the skin, sew the mouth shut (because they believe your soul will come for revenge if they didn´t do this), and then they will wear the heads around their necks to show how many people they have killed. This particular head actually belonged to a 12 year old boy that was the chief´s son. I guess the chief liked his son so much that when he died he decided to shrink his head.
This is the guide showing us the water going straight down the drain on the equator line. She then put the sink on the south side, and the water swirled clockwise. She placed the sink on the north side and the water swirled counter clockwise. It didn´t seem like she was tricking us, but she wouldn´t let anybody else try it.
Nick wearing the native hat that is made out of wool. It was very hard!
Nick is practicing with a blow gun. He was pretty good! They made him wear the head dress of feathers.
1 comment:
A) French are always wrong and that cracks me up! I Love it! B)I would so loose it if I saw something like that swimming up my pee stream!!! C) Equator = Awesomeness! How are your guys doing tan wise? Any really bad sunburns? I ask because I've heard tons of people say you get really really burned at the equator.
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