Sunday, March 19, 2006
We spent a day at the equator - there are a few tourist attractions, museums, and a monument in the town. Although we played around taking photographs along the equatorial line along the ground, it is apparently not actually on the equator (the 19th century French expedition calculated it in error - it's off by 8 seconds of latitude). We were there a few days before the vernal equinox, and at noon as the sun was almost exactly overhead, we cast shadows that were only about 1 inch long.
We also took tours of the nearby Volcan Pululahua - gorgeous, fertile, lush volcanic crater that´s one of the world's 2 inhabited craters of ACTIVE volcanoes. We also toured the archeology site of Rumichucho, a pre-Incan ruin (built around 800 AD). It's adjacent to Kita Killa - the moon temple (built around the same time) which is actually situated EXACTLY on the equator by GPS. There are indigenous festivals there twice a year to celebrate the equinoxes (we considered going the the ceremony, but decided against it because we were anxious to head south). Both sites were only discovered in the late 20th century, and Rumichucho is still under active excavation. As a result we were able to meet the Archaeologist in charge who showed us (and even let us handle) a variety of fragments of Incan and pre-Incan pottery, a few bone needles and a bone flute, and some Incan stone weapons.
We went on these tours with Calima Tours (which we would recommend by the way), and we really liked out guide - he seemed genuinely interested in his ancestors history, traditions, and current way of life. He shared with us his very plausible theory that the reason the archaeological sites were not discovered until so recently seems to be because they were purposefully buried by the local residents prior to the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors in order to protect their sacred places from destruction.
All of this was in Spanish, by the way - Kepfram & I both did fine!!
-ellie
Kepfram & Ellie, 8:49 PM
