Turns out the middle of the world falls in Ecuador... well, technically in the Galapagos Islands. We're both not exactly sure how they figured that the middle of the world was here. Yes, we do understand that the equator cuts through Ecuador, but not sure how it's figured to be the middle of the world.
A few people have explained that on the equator and every ninety degrees longitude around the world there's only water, EXCEPT for where the Galapagos sits on the world's grid...hence, what make more sense than to build a center of the world monument on mainland Ecuador?
On top of that, there's not one, but TWO centers of the world in Ecuador. The first monument was build in the 1700's and was figured using the navagational tools of the time. The second was built in the age of GPS. Impressively, the two are only 240 meters apart.
The monuments lay just north of Quito so Brandon and I decided to kill some time and check it out. (There's an entire backstory as to why we're back in Quito. Let's just leave at poor prior planning and Guayaquil sucks...BUT we DID FINALLY book a Galapagos trip.) We checked out the first monument which was a great place to take some fun pictures and pay way too much to visit a small museum.
The second, more recent monument was actually really fun! We had a tour of some old indegenious building and burrial sites (more like of what's left of them). We learned a bit about how they lived and what their belief systems were. Did you know that an egg captures all the elements of the earth? Yolk - Fire, White - Water, Membrane - Wind, Shell - Earth...interesting, huh?
Speaking of eggs...did you know that you can balance an egg on a nail at the equatorial line? Well, I will say it takes a bit of skill, so maybe not everyone can do it, but we did :) We also witnessed the coriolis effect by watching water spin counter-clockwise south of the equator and clockwise in the north. Cheap thrills, but we felt like it was money well spent.
A few people have explained that on the equator and every ninety degrees longitude around the world there's only water, EXCEPT for where the Galapagos sits on the world's grid...hence, what make more sense than to build a center of the world monument on mainland Ecuador?
On top of that, there's not one, but TWO centers of the world in Ecuador. The first monument was build in the 1700's and was figured using the navagational tools of the time. The second was built in the age of GPS. Impressively, the two are only 240 meters apart.
The monuments lay just north of Quito so Brandon and I decided to kill some time and check it out. (There's an entire backstory as to why we're back in Quito. Let's just leave at poor prior planning and Guayaquil sucks...BUT we DID FINALLY book a Galapagos trip.) We checked out the first monument which was a great place to take some fun pictures and pay way too much to visit a small museum.
The second, more recent monument was actually really fun! We had a tour of some old indegenious building and burrial sites (more like of what's left of them). We learned a bit about how they lived and what their belief systems were. Did you know that an egg captures all the elements of the earth? Yolk - Fire, White - Water, Membrane - Wind, Shell - Earth...interesting, huh?
Speaking of eggs...did you know that you can balance an egg on a nail at the equatorial line? Well, I will say it takes a bit of skill, so maybe not everyone can do it, but we did :) We also witnessed the coriolis effect by watching water spin counter-clockwise south of the equator and clockwise in the north. Cheap thrills, but we felt like it was money well spent.
No comments:
Post a Comment