Ecuador: Quito: The Equatorial Egg Master

We can’t tell you how good it feels to wake up in a big soft bed and have a nice hot shower after a trip to the Amazon! After breakfast we decided to head over to the Mitad del Mundo monument of the official equatorial line. As most of you know we are “thrifty” travelers and if there’s a local bus going in the direction “we aint takin no taxi!”. It is fairly easy to get to, just look for the bus marked “Mitad del Mundo and if you’re white then people pretty much know where you’re going. The total cost is around $1 for two people so try not to complain if you have to stand or sit on the floor!

We arrived at the monument, got our passes and started shooting photos like all the other tourists. Take one of me standing over the line, kissing over the line, and pointing at the 0’0’0’ sign, you know the usual stuff. It didn’t take long before Ruby was drawn into a restaurant by the smell of amazing food. We sat at a table and noticed a young girl and her grandmother looking for a seat. Being the kind people we are (and good looking I might add) we decided to offer the two extra seats at our table of 4 to them. We had a very yummy lunch complete with a pitcher of sangria. We made some new friends Juliana and her grandmother Olga who live in Cordoba, Argentina. Ruby loved their Argentinean Spanish accents and had fun trying to practice her own. After lunch they invited us to visit and stay with them in Argentina . . . we warned them not to offer because you never know we might take them up on the offer!

A lot of people don’t know this but the official GPS certified equatorial line is actually a short walk (about 200 meters) up the road at a small museum called the Museo Inti-Nan. It cost around $6 p.p. and included a tour explaining a bit about the location, the different tribes in Ecuador/Peru, how to make a shrunken head, and of course the physical effects of being at the equator. They did lots of experiments but our favorite had to be “the egg on a nail” that we originally saw on Andrew Zimmern’s TV show Bizarre Food. The theory is that there is more of a downward force of gravity at this location that allows you to balance something round on a very small surface, like say an egg on a nail. This is definitely NOT easy . . . we thought that it would be from the TV show. We both gave it a try without any luck and we had to leave before anyone in our group could do it.

Of course, Tony is extremely competitive and he couldn’t even focus for the rest of the tour—all he could talk about was going back and trying one more time! He was determined to be the egg master of the equator. After the tour ended he went back with the determined look of a boxer going back into the ring! He even had an old man cheering him on saying “you can do it” and “be the egg”! After a few tries Tony did balance an egg on a nail, and we have the photos and the Egg Master paperwork to prove it!! Just look at the looks of awe on the faces of the people in the background

We had a beautiful ride home along a ridgeline, admiring the volcano Cotopaxi looming over the entire city of Quito. It was so beautiful . . . next time we come to Ecuador, we’re definitely going there. We were so distracted by the view that we missed our stop and ended up in Old Town. No big deal, it was during sunset so we enjoy the beautiful walk though the colonial buildings while doing some people watching. Once it got dark we headed back to our hotel, and after a quick shower we headed out to a Cuban restaurant recommended by our Brazilian friends last week. It was ok, originally we had wanted to check out another place—a tapas restaurant from our gastronomy magazine but it was closed. It has been an amazing trip but unfortunately we have to get up painfully early tomorrow to catch a flight back home. . .