written by Uli Probst
What is the middle of the world?
In 1864, Jules Verne wrote his science fiction novel “A journey to the Centre of the Earth”, where he described a trip down into the earth. JRR Tolkien described middle earth in his novel “The Lord of the Rings”. But it is none of the above. If you want to experience Tolkien’s world, read our blog postings about New Zealand. If you want to go to the center of our earth, sorry, you are on your own. It is supposed to be darn hot down there.
“Mitad del Mundo” is a monument, which was built to commemorate the first geodesic mission of the French Academy of Sciences in 1736. They were looking for the equator and claimed to have found it - an interesting place to visit. Taking an organized tour would be too easy so we took public transportation to get to the place, which is located 26 km north of Quito.
This post is quite late - it has been 6 weeks since we were in Ecuador, but I just have to write about our trip to the middle of the world so that I do not forget. And this was an important day trip in my life.
What is the middle of the world?
In 1864, Jules Verne wrote his science fiction novel “A journey to the Centre of the Earth”, where he described a trip down into the earth. JRR Tolkien described middle earth in his novel “The Lord of the Rings”. But it is none of the above. If you want to experience Tolkien’s world, read our blog postings about New Zealand. If you want to go to the center of our earth, sorry, you are on your own. It is supposed to be darn hot down there.
“Mitad del Mundo” is a monument, which was built to commemorate the first geodesic mission of the French Academy of Sciences in 1736. They were looking for the equator and claimed to have found it - an interesting place to visit. Taking an organized tour would be too easy so we took public transportation to get to the place, which is located 26 km north of Quito.
We found the right bus terminal and squeezed into a full bus. Michelle was talking to a nice older gentleman, who offered her his seat, while I was watching out for bad guys. The lady in our first hotel told us, she never takes a public bus, because there is so much pickpocketing. So I acted like a detective and categorized all the passengers in the bus.
Thief, Robber, Deceiver, Kidnapper, Good Guy.
Good thing, there were also some good guys on the bus, who showed us the way to the next bus at the station, where we had to switch buses.
The second bus ride was not so crowded and very interesting. A man entered the bus, playing loud religious music on his CD player. Afterwards, he was talking a lot of Spanish, which I did not understand. I guess he was selling CDs. After he left, two Argentinian guys jumped in and played nice rock music with the guitar and the keyboard.
The bus driver had his little son with him, who was crawling on his legs and around him. No problem, because there was no sign saying “Don’t disturb the bus driver”. I also liked the little monkey in the hammock up front.
Excellent entertainment, much better than riding the metro in Munich.
While I was waiting for the Brezl seller to jump into the bus, we almost forgot to get off the bus. But many passengers helped us Gringo tourists to exit the bus at the right stop. Our buses were obviously full of good guys. The thieves, robbers, deceivers and kidnappers must have been in a different bus on that day.
The stop was next to the new impressive UNASUR building (Union of South American Nations). I was also impressed by the blue horse in front of the building.
We entered the official equator area, which has nice monuments, museums and restaurants.
We did our tourist duties. Taking pictures on the equator monuments and lines, sending post cards with a stamp 0,0,0 on it. And we had a tourist lunch.
When I saw the pole marking the equator, I immediately had a great business idea. Pole Dance Events at the equator! This could be a starting point for a World Pole Dance Tour at special places like the North and South Pole, on Mount Everest or on top of the Tokio Skytree, which is currently the highest tower in the world. While I think it is a million dollar idea, Michelle thinks it is just stupid - sexist and discriminating for women. Who says, the Pole Dance Event is only for women?
What is your opinion on this?
After the official part we were looking for the real equator. 200 Meter northeast of the monument is a place called “Intiñan Solar Museum “. They claim to have the real equator, measured with a GPS device in the 70s. It was a hard walk over there, because the Mitad del Mundo guys do not want people to find the Intiñan museum and built a wall around the monument to make it more difficult.
After a walk through the parking lot and the road, we found the entrance to the museum and went on a tour. First we had to look at "interesting" Indian stuff and totem poles from different countries. In my opinion the totem poles could be good for Pole Dancing, but that is a different discussion.
Finally, we were there. Yeah, the real equator, calculated with GPS.
We did some experiments to find out, if this is the real equator. Balancing on the equator or placing an egg on top of a nail. I even went to 000 equator toilet to check out, whether stuff leaves the toilet bowl turning clockwise or counterclockwise.
Our scientific experiments proved that this cannot be the real equator. We walked out of the museum and there it was. The one and only real equator!!! Unfortunately, it is in the middle of a busy main road. So we could not do any additional experiments, otherwise we would have been run over by a truck. But Google Earth supported our theory.
The equator seems to move, as the GPS technology improves.
Our task was fulfilled. We found the real equator. So we went back on our 1 ½ hour trip to Quito. Michelle had a 25 minute long talk with a lady in Spanish. I was so impressed with her Spanish conversation skills.
I, myself was holding on to the pole in the bus and thinking about how to integrate bus rides into the World Pole Dance Tour.
Thief, Robber, Deceiver, Kidnapper, Good Guy.
Good thing, there were also some good guys on the bus, who showed us the way to the next bus at the station, where we had to switch buses.
The second bus ride was not so crowded and very interesting. A man entered the bus, playing loud religious music on his CD player. Afterwards, he was talking a lot of Spanish, which I did not understand. I guess he was selling CDs. After he left, two Argentinian guys jumped in and played nice rock music with the guitar and the keyboard.
The bus driver had his little son with him, who was crawling on his legs and around him. No problem, because there was no sign saying “Don’t disturb the bus driver”. I also liked the little monkey in the hammock up front.
Excellent entertainment, much better than riding the metro in Munich.
While I was waiting for the Brezl seller to jump into the bus, we almost forgot to get off the bus. But many passengers helped us Gringo tourists to exit the bus at the right stop. Our buses were obviously full of good guys. The thieves, robbers, deceivers and kidnappers must have been in a different bus on that day.
The stop was next to the new impressive UNASUR building (Union of South American Nations). I was also impressed by the blue horse in front of the building.
We entered the official equator area, which has nice monuments, museums and restaurants.
We did our tourist duties. Taking pictures on the equator monuments and lines, sending post cards with a stamp 0,0,0 on it. And we had a tourist lunch.
When I saw the pole marking the equator, I immediately had a great business idea. Pole Dance Events at the equator! This could be a starting point for a World Pole Dance Tour at special places like the North and South Pole, on Mount Everest or on top of the Tokio Skytree, which is currently the highest tower in the world. While I think it is a million dollar idea, Michelle thinks it is just stupid - sexist and discriminating for women. Who says, the Pole Dance Event is only for women?
What is your opinion on this?
After the official part we were looking for the real equator. 200 Meter northeast of the monument is a place called “Intiñan Solar Museum “. They claim to have the real equator, measured with a GPS device in the 70s. It was a hard walk over there, because the Mitad del Mundo guys do not want people to find the Intiñan museum and built a wall around the monument to make it more difficult.
After a walk through the parking lot and the road, we found the entrance to the museum and went on a tour. First we had to look at "interesting" Indian stuff and totem poles from different countries. In my opinion the totem poles could be good for Pole Dancing, but that is a different discussion.
Finally, we were there. Yeah, the real equator, calculated with GPS.
We did some experiments to find out, if this is the real equator. Balancing on the equator or placing an egg on top of a nail. I even went to 000 equator toilet to check out, whether stuff leaves the toilet bowl turning clockwise or counterclockwise.
Our scientific experiments proved that this cannot be the real equator. We walked out of the museum and there it was. The one and only real equator!!! Unfortunately, it is in the middle of a busy main road. So we could not do any additional experiments, otherwise we would have been run over by a truck. But Google Earth supported our theory.
The equator seems to move, as the GPS technology improves.
Our task was fulfilled. We found the real equator. So we went back on our 1 ½ hour trip to Quito. Michelle had a 25 minute long talk with a lady in Spanish. I was so impressed with her Spanish conversation skills.
I, myself was holding on to the pole in the bus and thinking about how to integrate bus rides into the World Pole Dance Tour.
Feel free to write a novel if you live more days like this. Good description of the bus, very funny! Spanish metro is in between Ecuador buses and Munich u-Bahn.
ReplyDelete