the middle of the world! (+ magical quito)

we flew from buenos aires to quito, and went straight from the airport to the equator and enjoyed being in two hemispheres at once!

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apparently there is a lot of dispute about the actual exact location of the equator, and there are two places on the outskirts of the city of quito that claim to be “the middle of the world.” we went to the one that most agree is the most accurate according to gps, and then stopped by the other spot just to be safe :)

both places were very touristy and pretty gimmicky, but it was still pretty dang cool to straddle the equator! we learned that the earth actually is not perfectly round because it bulges out a bit at the equator, and about cyclones and hurricanes rotating in different directions based on the pull of the equator. and we got to see a demonstration of water draining clockwise and counterclockwise on opposite sides of that red line – which turned out to be a total hoax – haha!

from our very first hours in ecuador, we started to fall in love with this beautiful country, and it’s on the top of our list of places from our trip to return to one day. the rainforrest + mountains + coastline + islands combo is pretty incredible. and the people are so so kind.

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^^ our taxi driver took us to this beautiful lookout point! we got on pretty well together with our limited spanish – sometimes we could fill in each other’s gaps in vocabulary. it was fun to practice speaking another language. ^^
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^^ at the “fake” equator. kind of a bummer that they built this huge monument and whole almost-amusement-park-type area…and then gps said it was the wrong spot! ^^

we spent an evening and sunday morning in the city of quito before we headed into the amazon rainforest. we absolutely adore quito! really awesome town.

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^^ isn’t this party bus we saw driving down the road the best thing ever?? ^^
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^^ there were lots of street musicians out as the nighttime sky started to approach and the city started to light up. we had a magical stroll through the charming streets to find some dinner. ^^
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^^ i love that angel statue high on the mountain overlooking quito. and that glowing cathedral! gorgeous. ^^
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^^ we had the yummiest traditional ecaudorian dinner on this lively street. we got some ice cream and listened to a band made up of guitars and pipe flutes play. ^^
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^^ we walked to church from our hostel in the morning (it was about a seven minute walk!) and really, really enjoyed meeting with our fellow church members there. we were so touched by examples of faithfulness, and even though we couldn’t understand too much of the talks and lessons, we understood with our hearts, truly. ^^

we heart ecuador. it was a really great last country stop on our wild trip.

Comments

  1. Yay! I have been waiting for your post about Ecuador!!! I am so glad you love it!

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  2. I like the fun bus. It reminds me of the one in The Partridge Family TV show.:)

    By the way, has the chapel got graffiti on it?

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  3. We have to say that you sucked the very most out of wherever you went. What a country!

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  4. When I read about the water draining clockwise and counterclockwise, I immediately thought how cool that was! Talk about being gullible...

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