La Mitad Del Mundo

Today, after orientation at the University, our group went on a trip to the equator approximately 13 miles north of Quito. Let me tell you, the equator is in the middle of nowhere. The people who live there  work doing one thing: making cinder blocks. And then, out of the dust rises this crazy monument with tons of shops and tourist-y things. Weird? Yes. But pretty cool.

This is a picture of the Volcano Pululahula. The bottom of the valley has the same elevation as the top of Quito, so that makes the top of the volcano over 11,000 feet. The last time it erupted was sometime in the 1500s, but before then, it completely destroyed the Yumba tribe (they were the natives that inhabited this area before the Incas). It was pretty "chevere" ("cool", named after Chevrolet cars...), especially with the clouds in the background.

This is a picture of the real equator. Here's the story: about 10 years ago, a bunch of French students realized that what the Ecuadorian government was calling the equator was not at all correct, and that the true equator lay a mere 100 meters away. So, they left the big monument and the fake tourist-y things there and made the real equator more educational. There, we learned things about how the globe works and what makes the two hemispheres different. And, the question that you are all asking: does water really spin the other way in the southern hemisphere? The answer is yes. Yes it does. When you drain water in the Northern hemisphere, it drains counter-clockwise and in the Southern Hemisphere it drains clockwise. On the actual equator, it drains straight down. Weird, I know. But because all the toilets are mechanically engineered, you can't see the effect when you flush a toilet. I know you are all wondering.

This is the monument that marks the fake equator. Chevere, no? It's a bad picture, but whatever.