The middle of the world

The kids were excited to wake up and run downstairs for a buffet breakfast. I think they got spoiled in Israel because they now expect this on every vacation. Theo was excited to try some new foods, including papaya, which he has stated he will never eat again. Zoey discovered that watermelon actually has black seeds in it 

We met up with our tour guide, Sebastian (Zoey called him Flounder), and then we were off to the middle of the world. It took us until now to figure out that Ecuador was named Ecuador because it's on the equator. We learned the history of the equator line and how in the 1700s the French made a large monument with the wrong latitude. The French were actually a few degrees off. We first went to visit the real equator line, the one that was verified in 2000 with actual GPS and computers. 

To start, we got a tour of Ecuador, it's people, it's culture, the Amazonian people, and the different practices of all. This included a very detailed explanation and photos of how to decapitate someone and then shrink their head. I present to you an actual picture of a shrunken head. 

After a lot of questions from Zoey, we headed on to the next hut where we learned about guinea pigs and how they ate them. From here we went to another tent with buck naked images of Amazonian warriors. There was another Hut that also represented a cemetery and showed skeletons of what they did with the dead. Clearly, Sophie was more than ready to move on from this place. She spent most of the time talking to a small snail. Zoey, on the other hand had lots of questions. 

We finally made it to the actual 000 latitude line and it was now time for photo ops and science experiments. We filled some big shoes, putting one foot in the northern hemisphere and one in the south. After learning that it is a myth that toilets flush in different directions on the North and South hemisphere, we were challenged to balance an egg on a nail on the equator. We were in a group of about 25 people who each got a chance to try to balance the egg. Sophie was the first to balance an egg, followed by Theo who can't be upstaged, followed by Evan. No one else was able to do the feat. They were recognized with diplomas for being egg celant.

We tried a few more science experiments like walking and balancing on the equator line and then we were off to see where the French thought the equator was in the 1700s. After another series of photo ops on the equator line, we headed up the monument, which was nine stories tall, to see the view of Ecuador and the Andes Mountains from the top. This equator line was in a small reimagined Ecuadorian village. We tried some of their special ice cream, with flavors such as passionfruit, soursop, fig, and I don't even know what else.

From there we went to check out the Virgin Mary which was in one of the highest parts of the city. We were told that it's actually bigger than the famous one in Brazil. I don't know if the kids were more excited to see the dozens of stray dogs roaming around or do climb to 10,000 ft above sea level. Sophie decided that she would move here and save all of the stray dogs. 

Our tour guide dropped us off in the historic part of town and was on his way. We had a delicious lunch with a view and then went to sample some chocolate. I didn't realize that Ecuadorian chocolate was such a commodity before being here. We had everything from chocolate with ginger to chocolate with pepper to chocolate with mango to pure 100 percent cocoa. We learned all about how chocolate was made and where it came from.

We finished the day checking out the presidential house and plaza. On the way we stopped into a pinata store. There seem to be one on every corner, just like Dunkin donuts in Massachusetts. We were all exhausted by this time and headed back to find the Metro to get back to our hotel.