June 5, 2009

Trying to put the past behind us, Andrew and I continued our tour of Quito. First, we went to TeleferiQo and took a sky tram to the top of Cruz Loma (4100M). The air was thin and I was feeling a bit nauseous from the altitude but wow what a sight. Blessed with good weather, we saw the whole of Quito which was flanked by mountains and volcanoes on all sides. Too bad we also saw a wannabe tourist trailing us! Super alert since yesterday, I took a picture of the nerd and also made mean eye contact with him a couple times letting him know that I saw and spotted him. With no more pocket knife, I also picked out a couple of rocks so that if anything happened, I was gonna hit and pelt him with rocks!!!

After the TeleferiQo, Drew and I went to to the equator line at La Mitad del Mundo. It was here in 1736 that Charles-Marie de la Condamine made the measurements to prove that this was indeed the equatorial line. After this, we walked 240m east to the Museo Solar Inti Nan which is actually the site of the real equator. Apparently, the French thought the Ecuadorians too stupid back then and didn’t want them to know the truth. This place was loads of fun. It’s a meandering outdoor exhibition and one of the highlights is the solar chronometer which is an instrument made in 1865 that shows precise astronomical and conventional time, as well as the month, day and season, all by using the rays of the sun.

After all this fun, we met up with some Americans and with their help we saved $6 in cab fare by taking the 2 hour bus ride back to town which only cost 20cents/each!