center of the world

after checking-in at hostal centro del mundo, i traveled to the real center of the world. i´ve spent the first couple days with 3 fun irish folks i met in the hostel, and today we all decided to go out to mitad del mundo. mitad del mundo is about an hour north of quito and sits directly on the equator. or the supposed equator, i should say, because the line drawn at mitad del mundo is actually about 7 seconds of a degree off. i´m still not clear whether they just didn´t have the technology in 1736 for a precise calculation, or if they just needed a large, flat space to build a monument. the real equator is 200 meters away in a ravine. sadly, i did not go there.

the monument on the (almost) equator

view from the top

a view down the center. the S and N mark the northern and southern hemispheres.

sitting in both hemispheres (of course)

straddling the equator

after going up in the monument, we saw a playground and thought, "when do you get a chance to go down a slide at the center of the world?" so we did. the rest of the day was filled with these types of activities (e.g. "hey look, i´m eating rice at the center of the world", etc.).

well, it´s been a long day at the center of everything, so now it´s back to the fake centro del mundu for "rum and coke" night. i know, it´s terribly western, but should be great fun.