Dia dos en Ecuador

We have had quite day here in Ecuador. Just back from an excursion out to the Middle of the World monument. Myriam and her son Matteo drove us out to this place. It was quite a drive through neighborhoods of all sorts. Graffiti is a huge problem as it so often is in large cities but many times here it appears to be more art than graffiti. We toured around the grounds of the monument past artisan stalls, museums and finally to the huge towering monument itself with a huge globe of the earth atop it. What with our reactions to the altitude so far, we didn't attempt the climb to the top. It turns out that this huge place dedicated to all things equator is not actually "on" the equator at all. In the day when a group of French scientists came here to decide where the equator line was located, they had pretty crude, though quite accurate instruments, for the time. Turns out they were off by a few hundred yards.

No problem, the ingenious Ecuadorians built another site on what was thought a few years later, to be the actual site of the equator. Wrong again! Myriam next drove us over to that "real equator" site a few hundred yards away. Here you could pay $3 for the privilege of attempting to stand an egg on end, which is apparently only possible at the equator. We declined and headed back to the car for the drive back into Quito for lunch. So if neither site we visited was actually "AT" the equator, where is it? Well, to get there you had to pay $25 for a guide to take you on an uphill hike to the actual spot. We declined.

It wasn't all just a big rip off, though it was decidedly touristic. The monument park was filled with just as many locals as foreigners. We purchased a beautiful hammock from one of the artisans who Myriam happened to know and so we wound up getting a "much better deal" than what the salesperson was asking for in the beginning. We also bought two lovely birds made of clay and painted beautifully. Also, at the same shop we bought a wall hanging of a local scene sewn into a colorful design. You have to go. The Mitad del Mundo is worth an afternoon or morning visit.

Back in Quito we went to a local "hole-in-the-wall" and had a lunch of Cebiche, fresh seafood (in this case shrimp and conch) "cooked" in lime juice. So actually it never touched a hot pan but rather was cooked through the action of the acid in the juice. It was fabulous! With it we were given little baskets filled with popcorn, plantain chips and tostadas, a kind of partially popped corn that had a sort of Corn Pops cereal taste. Another surprise was the empanadas verdes made of plantain and filled with cheese. Fantastico!

Myriam next drove us to a rehearsal hall and took us backstage in one of Quito's concert halls. Her husband, Eugenio was running a rehearsal with his choir and a guest German choir on tour here. They moved into the concert hall after a while and sang to a sparse audience. They are eventually going to sing the pieces they rehearsed in a combined concert sometime after we leave for the Galapagos.

That evening we were hosted at Eugenio and Myriam's home for dinner and to meet other directors and presenters at the symposium. Unfortunately, the others were unable to get to Ecuador in time so dinner turned out to be just us and the family. We were driven to Eugenio and Myriam's beautiful home for dinner. We were ushered in with the words, mi casa es su casa, handed a glass of a terrific pilsner style Ecuadorian beer and sat down to talk while dinner was finishing.

Dinner consisted of cheese, corn on the cob, a large fava looking bean, which was followed by a bowl of roasted pork chunks, white hominy called mote, which was combined by each person with a tomato and red onion relish, and avocado slices. Delicious, simple and wonderful. The dinner was followed by a postre of a corn cake topped with a couple of raisins and baked in a locally grown leaf. Coffee accompanied the dessert. More conversation in their comfortably furnished living room before they drove us across town to our hotel. Es un buen dia! Buenos noches!