Ecuador = Equator

Last Monday Evelyn- a girl from our Zumba class- took Taylor and I out to the Mitad del Mundo- aka Middle of the World aka the Equator! It was a great day with lots and lots of Spanish practice :) The funny thing about the Mitad del Mundo is that there are actually 2 museums that claim to have the Equator. The story goes that back in the day people thought they found the Equator and so they built a huge touristy city and massive monument right on the supposed equatorial line. But when GPS came along, it showed them that they were about 50 meters off.

The real equatorial line was found to run right throw someone's property. They have since made it into a small museum. At the real equator they do all sorts of different experiments to show that you are really on it! For example, when you walk down the equatorial line with your eyes closed you feel very disoriented and like you are going to fall over. This is due to the fact that on the equator there is no centrifugal forces because the southern hemisphere and northern hemisphere forces cancel each other out. Our bodies are used to the subtle pushing of these forces so when there are none we feel unbalanced! Check out the video to see me almost fall cause of it :) On the Equator you can also balance an egg on the head of a nail because of the cancelled out centrifugal forces. Another cool experiment was with a sink full of water and leaves. In the northern hemisphere, when the water goes down the drain it circles to one direction -shown by the movement of the leaves- and as you might think, in the southern hemisphere, the water circles the other way. But right on the equatorial line, there are no circles and the leaves just go straight down!

There is quite a contrast between the two museums. The fake one is very touristy with different exhibits explaining different aspects of the equator- each of which has its separate entrance fee- lame!!. There is a whole mini tourist town with many restaurants and souvenir shops. You can tell alot of money went into making the place look clean and nice for all the visitors. The real museum on the other hand is a mom and pop kinda shop. Instead of different museums talking about the different explorers, this one has many stations that explain the rich Ecuadorian history. So while at the real museum you can learn about the different indigenous people groups who live in the Ecuadorian Amazon Basin. Needless to say, I liked the real museum better and not just because it has the Equator :)

This is the fake one...

pretty colors

more pretty colors

the seed that makes vegetable ivory or Tagua 

"East" on the real line!

Taylor balancing the egg on the Equator- no big deal :)

Taylor trying to walk a straight line...it's hard!

Here's the video of me trying to walk straight... lol

how they used to make salsa

typical animals from the Amazon region

...big dead anaconda and scary bird tarantula...

this is why you don't pee in the rivers in the Amazon basin!

this is the adult version but the babies are very, very harmful

...just trust me- if you are ever in the Amazon River Basin, just don't go to pee!!

gross...