The middle of the world (nearly)

In our last days in Ecuador we found ourselves in Quito (the capital) again, with a few days left before our flight to Chile. As a result, we tried a few of the day trips that were available. One of them was a trip to the "Mitad del Mundo" (the middle of the world - i.e. the Equator).

This was reported to be a bit of a tourist trap, but as it was only 20km from Quito, we went along.

After a long hot, crowded bus ride that lasted over 1 hour (including being dropped off at a round-about on a main round for a 2nd bus), we eventually made it. We paid our $2 each (which seemed a bit steep to our budget traveller´s purse) and entered. We actually found ourselves in a large complex, containing a large monolith designated where the equator was, and lots of shops and boutiques selling t-shirts, stuffed llamas, etc.

It was a bit touristy our course, but we satisfied our inner tourist by taking lots of pictures of us standing at the Equator, next to the large monolith and the big yellow line.

The unfortunate thing was that we discovered, upon entering one of the many small museams, that we we NOT actually at the equator at all. The French scientist who had calculated the position had got it wrong - the real "middle of the world" was 250 metres down the road. We were gutted!!