Quito, Ecuador

Friday, Dec. 18th 2009

I have now entered the Southern Hemasphire and I am the egg champion of the world, I even have a certificate to prove it.! What I mean is, I can balance an egg on top of a nail, which can only be done at zero gravity, on the equator. This morning, an Australian couple, Laura and Dan, and I took a 40 minute bus from Quito to the Mitado Del Mundo- 'The Center of the Earth' aka, the equator, Latitud 00,00,00. We walked around this huge monument that turns out to be about 200 meters off the actual center line of the equator. We walked around the various shops filled with touristy crafts of jelewery, clothes, and whatever else. I was able to stamp my passport with the 'Center of the Earth' logo! We then walked down the road to the museum where the actualy equator line is where we were givin a tour of various huts and the people that live throughout Ecuador. At the end of the tour, they show you a few fun tricks that can be done on the line. For example, directly on top of the center line, water rushes directly straight down the drain. They had a portable sink that they plugged with water and put a bucket underneath to catch the water. When they moved the sink South of the line, the water ran clockwise, and North of the line CounterClockwise. (I believe those are correct) Then you can also balance an uncooked egg ontop of a nail. The tour guide demonstrated and then Laura and I got up there to try it. We both were able to stand the egg on top with in seconds, even faster than the tour guide. He was impressed. After that we were to go get our certificates, which Dan was upset he didn´t get one.

We headed back into Quito, to meet up at the hostel with the other people. 2 more Australians had joined us at our hostel who have traveled before with Colm and Garnet. So now there is a group of 9 of us. We decided to cook a meal in the hostel instead of going out. We could have cooked anything, but we had chicken. I have been eating chicken for a week straight, i could have done with something other than chicken!

Saturday Dec. 19th. 2009.
After breakfast, a group of us went to visit the church in town called the Basilica del voto nacional. We were told you can climb up to the top of the bell tower, so we were off to do that. They don´t have any safety restrictions here in South America, so we climbed up staircases on the outside of the church to get to the top of the tower. Then you can walked across a small wooden plank at the top of the roof to get from one bell tower to the other. From here, you are able to get even higher up into the bell tower. Tiny spiral staircases led up higher and higher to the next level. Finally at the top, the floor was covered only in metal beams and wire screan over the top. I climbed out one of the windows and stood and sat on the edge of the bell tower with my legs dangling over the edge, looking straight down to the next level below me. From this spot, you get a great few of the whole city of Quito. Which for being the capital, is a huge city. Although, as far a large cities go, this one had a small village feel to it, with the huge city effect. You look out over the valley of old style houses built up into the mountains.

After lunch, most of the people got on a bus to head to Baños which is about 3.5 hours South. I decided to stay with Colm and TAz (irish guys) and a few new other people we met. We found the only Irish bar in town, and since it was so much fun. We stayed there playing pool, darts, listening to all the irish, xmas, and any variety of music we asked for. We planed to leave for Baños in the morning to meet up with everyone else, including another Irish couple that are friends with Colm and TAz. This is the group of people that I will be spending Christmas with.