Stuck in the Middle With You (Cheesy, yes, but “Welcome To the Jungle” needed a companion.)

On Saturday, Megan, Christina, Bruce and I went to “Mitad del Mundo,” the equator site with a monument, exhibits and of course, a big red line along the ground. It’s clearly a tourist site to the highest degree but we had a really great time taking pictures in all the classic poses (a la holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa) and generally being silly turistas. Then we hit a little museum that explains that the French explorers and their fancy shmancy instruments were 300m off so the equatorial line on the ground is actually wrong. In fact, seven years or so ago a structure was discovered exactly on the REAL equator. It was built in pre-Incan times. Pre-Incans: 1 French explorers: 0 Better luck next time. There’s a geometric design motif found on a lot of Incan, Egyptian, Native American, etc. artifacts that depicts the same movements of the sun at solstices, equinoxes and such. Actually, I think it’s in some Rusted Root album art.

In addition, the Incan sun temples in what is now Quito followed the same pattern. When the conquistadores barged in and built Catholic churches literally on top of the temples, they used the sun patterns they learned as tools to convert the Indians. During the solstices and equinoxes, the light hits the churches at a certain angle and highlights different paintings and statues (the crucifix in one, the Sacred Heart in another, etc.). They appear to glow and because of that, the Spaniards convinced a lot of the Indians to convert. How deceptive is that?! We’re going to check it out at the next equinox this month. Anywho, sorry for the history lesson. It was a really interesting presentation until the guy started going off on how the world is a violent corrupt place because we don’t know our roots. He’s right but I just wanted to know where the right line was. Eeep!

We went up to the Pululahua crater which is supposed to be a great view because since the volcano became inactive, a village sprang up in the middle of the crater. We’ll have to take their word for it because the clouds in the crater were some of the thickest I’ve ever seen. Bruce and I wanted to be daring and try to hike down a little but it was pretty steep and neither of us cared to “drop in” on the village so we didn’t get too far. Oh well, playing in clouds was fun.

Back in Quito, I found what is probably the only Dunk’s (Dunky’s, Dunkin’ Donuts – there has been great disagreement over the proper nickname.) in the country, tried a cappuccino (not even a Dunkaccino!) and decided that unfortunately, Dunk’s does not a successful world traveler make. Played a round of boisterous bowling and incidentally, if Quito can present a proper 10-pin lane, I think Boston certainly has the capacity to do the same! Watched a bit of the Peru vs. Argentina futbol game with Fabián to get in the mindset for tomorrow’s big Ecuador vs. Uruguay game. Since Olympic speed walking was such a disappointment here, I’m really pumped for a futbol win. It’s may not be Eagles hockey but it’s pretty darn cool!