Middle of the world

me looking a tit

jude at the real equator line..... hahaha you silly french!

Jude trying to balance an egg on a nail head (easier to do on the equator)

The shrunken head of a tribal warrior. They last forever, which is why this one is a bit grey!

A day trip from Quito to Mitel de Mundo allows us to go to the equator line, and be in the middle of the world. We arrive in a dusty nothing town to a large gated area within which houses a very large monument and various museums talking about the scientific work that Ecuador and the French did from 18 something or other till the making of the monument. All very droll stuff, though it did allow us to stand on 2 sides of the world at the same time (and look like idiots whist doing this). Then we trotted to another museum just round the corner which the Lonely Plant says is better. Imagine my delight in finding out that the huge monument that was made with the French’s pioneering help only 20 or so years ago was actually about 300m wrong! Also during our guided tour we got to see an actual indigenous house (with live guinea pigs getting ready for the slaughter (it’s a delicacy over here which I still haven’t tried)), plus knowledge of how they lived etc. This all culminated in the piece de la resistance, an actual shrunken head with drawings of how to do it. Bizarrely, Jude and I are now contemplating boating down the Amazon to meet some of these lovely folks and maybe doing a bit of hunting with them….. we will wait and see!