As much as we wanted to take the opportunity to travel during the kids' Christmas breaks, it was actually nice to have nothing planned after such a busy December. We didn't veg for too long though. We took the opportunity to do a hike at nearby Parque Metropolitano and to be tourists and finally visit the "real" Mitad del Mundo.
Metropolitano is a great park because it's big, it has lots of hiking trails and when we take Ellie, she can run free. She probably appreciates the park more than the rest of us combined! Brendan has taken to running the trails a couple of mornings a week and when he goes, he usually takes Ellie along. On this day in particular, we came upon a bunch of llama and she had a great time "herding" them!
Up to this point, we had only ever visited the Mitad monument at the wrong site. Apparently, when the French erected the monument here in Quito, they had their calculations wrong and they built it just shy of the real equator. There is a museum called Iti Ñan that is less than a mile down the road where you can visit the actual equator. It's a neat tour and they preform a couple of science experiments to demonstrate things like the Coriolis effect.
This is an actual hut built by the Wuarani Tribe, one of the contactable tribes of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Demo of the Coriolis Effect on the equator. The water runs straight down the drain instead of spiraling.
Shay and Bren try to balance the egg on the head of a nail.
An indigenous woman demonstrates how they spin the wool of a llama or alpaca into yarn that they then use to weave their colorful rugs and tapestries.
A friend of ours told us about a nearby crater (Puluahua) that was settled by a group of local farmers. They have a beautiful overlook where you can get a view of the community below and if you're up for adventure, you can hike or ride horseback down the trail to the bottom...we just enjoyed taking in the view this time!
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