Architecture and the middle of the world

Having made our way to Quito Ecuador we found ourselves with 3 days to amuse ourselves before the Galapagos.  Given our impatience to be on the islands we carefully ensured that we had activities for each day, the first of them being the old town center. 

Quito unlike most of the cities we have traveled has the tourist district in the New town, so we traveled on one of the better public transport systems to the old town and spend the day wandering around the various churches and monasteries of Quito, with a trip to the top of the nearby hill for panoramic views of the city.  For us the highlight was “La Basillica” a beautiful gothic church complete with gargoyles, delicate arches and enormous stained glass windows. We also visited the san Franciscan monastery which was still in use and was more evidence that the San Franciscans endeavored to use more gold and glitz than any other order.

The following day we traveled a longer distance to the “Mitad del Mundo” or the middle of the world, while no Jules Verne trip was to be seen, there was a large monument indicating where the French had calculated the equator to be over two hundred years ago.  At the site we found a number of buildings split between the northern and southern hemispheres, the south consisted of buildings with educational displays of insects, how the equator and the diameter of the earth was calculated and scale models of a number of cities both in Ecuador and the rest of the world. The northern buildings were all tourist shops, with souvenirs, touts, and food.  So naturally once we explored the south we moved on!  Just next door was the Inti nan museum which is located on the true (according to US military GPS) equator and they had more interesting exhibits on the cultures of the tribes of Ecuador.  Exhibits included a shrunken head, various snakes and animals, and traditional buildings.  In addition they demonstrated the properties of the equator – such as water swirling in opposite directions 3m apart and the inability to hold muscles strong standing on the equator - with just a little trickery.