Last Friday we were with the whole group at Mitad del Mundo – The Center of the World, which is located a little bit north in the outskirts of Quito. There is a monument built by the Spaniards and attended by virtually all tourists. Unfortunately the inscription, that there is the latitude 0 ° 00’00.000, is not true. The good Spaniards had measured a little wrong and did not agree with the Inca, who had put their own monument of the equator much more accurately. The Monument could have been rearranged, but that has not been done for some reason. Perhaps the fact, that according to my GPS on my phone the Equator lies in the middle of a street, and no one wanted to build a new one just because of some monument. The park surrounding the monument is quite nice and very good for pictures, of which we have done plenty.

After the numerous photos the whole group had lunch in a single restaurant. Little wonder that some of us waited an hour for the soup, while others finished quick. For those who still wanted to collect some more equatorial experience, one of the volunteers of VASE then went to the so-called Intiñan Solar Museum, that according to the museum is located on the Equator. But again, that is not really true. There one can learn about the indigenous culture, and also perform some experiments, such as the well-known experiment of the swirl in the sink. Of course this is just a myth – I am sorry if I have just destroyed the world picture of the reader 😉 – as the so-called Coriolis force has an effect only on large bodies of water and weather phenomena like hurricanes. Other ‘experiments’ about about to balancing an egg on a nail head or the ability to press down the arms of a man on the equator with one hand, because of the seemingly weaker gravity, although two meters next to it is not working. A great tour with show effects, which was worth the entrance fee.

Afterwards I went on equator hunt by myself using my cell phone and I came very close, but standing on a street with a lot of traffic for 3 minutes and staring at ones cell phone is not so incredibly beneficial for well being. But I still took a screen shot with almost 0° 00’00.000.

Overall it was a very nice day and I had a good time.