Ciudad Mitad del Mundo
The Equatorial Monument is located in this small touristic city and it pays tribute to the First Geodesic Mission This Mission established the location of the equinoctial line and confirmed the shape of the Earth in 1736. The name of Ecuador was given by this imaginary line that divides the earth in north and south hemisphere, this imaginary line measures 5 km wide and runs the entire globe with a longitude of 40.075 km.
Taken from a guide book
Mitad del Mundo means “The Equator”, and Quito has become famous for it. It is pretty impressive with one dominant monument topped by a brass globe with smaller monuments leading up to it. The focal point is the dominant monument, which highlights the location of the equator fixed by the Franco-Spanish Geodesic mission. But this line did not represent the actual Equator, because French-Spanish team miscalculated it by 200 meters. Now (as I mentioned in my previous post) the Intiñan museum advertises itself to have the true equator line.
The dominant monument houses a viewing platform and a museum. We attempted to see it only to find out that it had 9 floors. Our wavering resolve was strengthened with the knowledge that there was an elevator we could use, though it only took 8 people at a time. Still we were brave enough to want to give it a shot and stayed in line, only to be defeated when we found out that the only option on the way back was to climb down all 9 floors. That was not acceptable because not only it was the end of the day, but was only our second day in Ecuador, with extreme possibility of altitude sickness hitting us. We decided to dump the idea.
As we walked back, we decided to hang around a little to take in the nature at its best. Without exaggeration, it was a spectacular 360 degrees view of mountain peaks, clouds which ranged in appearance from wispy to dense and voluminous, with mind blowing shades of colors making the nature even more intoxicating. This panorama provided a daunting backdrop for the colorful business area where one can shop, eat, relax, reflect, contemplate, or better yet meditate.
It was getting late and we were tired, we decided to head back, have dinner, and get a good night sleep and be ready for our next adventure. The following day’s plan was to go with Jose, our taxi driver, to Cotopaxi, which was a whole day trip. I couldn’t wait to see what the next part of the journey held for us. My next post will be on Cotopaxi .
