Estamos Aquí!!! (We are here)

After about a 6-hour layover at the Atlanta airport, we finally left Atlanta at about 6:25 pm enroute to Quito. The flight was fairly uneventful, and we arrived at the Quito airport at about 11:00 pm Central time. As promised, the hotel we were staying at had a person waiting for us at the airport exit to take us to the hotel. We were expecting the typical hotel shuttle type bus, and were a little surprised when a taxi pulled up to pick us up. We were driven about 15 minutes and ended up on a fairly isolated, dimly lit street with very few visible buildings. The driver stopped on the street in front of a tall  brick fence with a large, solid wooden gate on it. He got out of the taxi, rang a bell on the gate, and someone came and opened a door on the gate so that we could enter the “compound.”  This was actually our hotel for the next 2 nights.

The next morning we were provided a good breakfast, which consisted of fruit, eggs and toast, and some pretty amazing pineapple juice. Marlena, who fixed our breakfast was also running the front office and cleaning the rooms!! She also was the one who helped us figure out how to get around, and she did all that with limited English. Let me tell you, that Google translate is pretty amazing. We would take turns speaking what we wanted said to the other, and then the other person would read what was translated on the phone.

 At breakfast we met a couple, Kevin and Sarah from Ottawa Canada, who were going hiking in the Amazon Rain Forest the next day. We were talking about what we were planning on doing and we were all going to the “Middle of the World,” so we decided to take a taxi together. The same taxi driver that picked both of us up at the airport the night before was the same one that showed up today. So he said he would take us there for $30. And when we got to the Middle of the World he called someone to translate something to us and he said that he would take us three places and back to our hotel for $80. So that was a deal and we took him up on it. The first place we went was Pululahua. It is a collapsed volcano and is a Geobotanical Reserve. It is the first National Park in Ecuador and in South America to protect this unique place.

The second place we went was Museo de Sitio Intiñan where we learned about Ecuador and its history, saw a real shrunken head and learned about the Equator. We saw where water went straight down the drain directly on the equator, went counter clockwise just a few feet north of the equator, and then clockwise just a few feet south of the line. That was interesting. We also got the token standing on the equator picture.

So what is really interesting is that there are two places that say they are “Mitad del Mundo.” The place that claimed where the equator was first was in 1736, and they used the equipment that was available at that time. But later, with the use of gps, it was discovered that the equator was not actually in that place. But actually was about 787 feet away. But nonetheless, there is still a museum, restaurants and a line where you can stand that shows where the original equator was thought to be.

We were getting a bit hungry and through google translate again, we asked Manuel, our driver, where his favorite restaurant is, and could we all go eat there. So he took us to La Joya Restaurante and ate a good dinner.

When we arrived back to our hotel, we changed to another room that reminded me of a tiny house, just without the kitchen.

Anthony did a little exploring around the compound and looked closer at the brick fence that surrounds the property and noticed this, — there are shards of glass embedded in the cement on the top of the wall so that the glass is poking up. I guess if you tried to scale th wall, there would be a surprise when you got to the top. We don’t know if they are wanting to keep us in, or if there is something they are trying to keep out.

Also, there is an interesting dish that they serve here. We didn’t try it today, but people were cooking it on the side of the road and selling it. I will have pics later.