My new housemate Jake and his friend Johnny were on their way to Middle Earth on Friday, aka la Mitad del Mundo, and I sheepishly confessed that, even though I have been in Ecuador for almost 4 months now, I still had not visited the monument to the equator. So, away we went...two buses and an hour and a half later, we found ourselves at the monument, but before entering, we wandered along the road about 20 meters away to find the REAL equator line.
Johnny is quite happy to be entering the Museo Inti ñan which roughly means "Path of the sun."
At the top of the wall, please note the giant anaconda skin, not to be confused with the huge boa/python skin (not sure which the lower one was).
Shrunken heads!!! A sloth to the left and a 12-year-old boy to the right. The concept of shrinking heads originates from the idea that this process captures the spirit and powers of the person to be further utilized by the shrinker of the head. The Shuar people believed that the sloth was an ancient warrior who climbed into a tree and stayed so long that he turned into this unique animal. The boy's head was made miniature by his father who loved him so much he wanted to preserve his essence and spirit by shrinking his head. To my family members, I'm getting cremated so please don't touch the head. :)
How to shrink a human head: grab hair, slice around neck, separate flesh from skull and remove flesh, take out eyeballs and cartilage, place in boiling water with unknown herbs and remove head to discover it's at 1/3 its original size...
remove excessive flesh on the inside, sew the eye and mouth holes shut to keep the spirit from escaping, place hot stones and sand in the cavity to sear the skin and shrink the head further and shape it, leave the head to dry, decorate the head (gotta have a pretty tzantza). Voila! A human head the size of your fist.
Funky-lookin' turkey thingy roaming about.
A 140-year-old chicheria...a hut in which an alcoholic drink made from corn (chicha in Tena is made from yucca by chewing it up and spitting it out) is produced.
Future dinners...guinea pigs are called cuy (kwee) because of the sound they make: "cuy cuy!" I just saw cuy on a menu: $22 for an entire piggie.
Our guide picked up a bug from this cactus and smooshed it in her hand...it looked like blood, but apparently it was/is used by indigenous people for cosmetics and war paint.
The buggies were black covered in white powder.
A grave, not sure if it was real or not, but our guide told us that it belonged to a chief who was buried more than 20 meters deep with 15 other people in the grave with him as well as his possessions...apparently wives and children would jump into the grave to be buried alive with their dead patriarch.
Three's company on the REAL equator as calculated by the French with a pretty useful tool...GPS
One foot in each hemisphere...the traditional tourist position on the equator. :)
No, it's not a sundial...it's a compass!
Jake and I standing officially in Middle Earth. Where are the Hobbits?
So the Coriolis effect causes some pretty nifty things to occur at the equator...such as balancing an egg on a nail's head. Feel free to read through the explanation below if you're feeling particularly sciency (yup, it's a word...I'm a linguist, I know these things).
Johnny took a stab at it with no luck. Jake tried, tried again, tried again sweating a bit, and then finally emerged victorious against the dumb egg. :)
Ok, so this looks a bit strange, but in either hemisphere if you hold your thumb and forefinger to make a circle and have someone try to open it, the other person can't break the circle you've made if you resist. but, on the equator, you can't keep the circle closed.
You also can't walk in a straight line with your eyes closed and arms outstretched along the equator line.So, on the equator, the water flows straight down the drain. There's no whirlpool. In the northern hemisphere, the water swirls counterclockwise as it drains. In the southern, clockwise. (I have video of the southern hemisphere drainage experiment, but these vids take way too long to load and I've used up all my patience this weekend ;) ). Apparently, you can't witness this with toilets because the flow of water is fixed to drain a certain way.
An indigenous woman selling crafts.
A loom used to make traditional Ecuadorian crafts. women weren't allowed to use it because they thought it would affect their fertility.
Oh, tourists.
The clouds were rolling in quickly over the mountains.
After visiting the REAL equator, we stopped by the monument to la Mitad del Mundo. The path was lined with important historical figures.
I think he's upset because of the bird doo doo on his face. Just a theory that is mine and mine alone. AHEM!!! ;)
Oh yeah, pushups on the fake equator. I was going for a non-traditional pose.
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