Mitad del Mundo & Misahualli

You can access some pictures in the usual way by clicking on the green title above. but there are also some more from Misahualli and Banos at http://picasaweb.google.com/celsor35/JungleWalksAndBanos?feat=directlink which you will have to cut and paste into your tool bar and press enter to see.

Mitad del Mundo Mon 14th
We waited until after the rush hour was over and then headed North through Quito to the Mitad del Mundo, an ancient indigenous town on the equator that translates to Middle of the World. About 50 years ago some French Scientists used triangulation methods to determine that the ancient claim was true and that the town did indeed sit on the equator. They built a monument which now houses a museum that shows the costumes and some of the customs of the many indigenous tribes in Ecuador. We spent about 1.5 hours there and then went to have a snack of Humitas (a minced maize type of cake wrapped in Maize leaves and boiled) and an Empanada, a type of pastry with cheese in that is then deep fried (but you can get bread ones too). We then made our way about 150m to the North from the monument to, what is now known to be, the real equator as measured by GPS. Here there is another museum where they tell you about the indigenous cultures and do some experiments to demonstrate some of the oddities that occur at the equator.
1. About 2m south of the equator when the water goes down the plug hole it turns clockwise, about 2m North it turns anticlockwise, directly on the equator the water went straight down the plughole with no turning at all. This is all to do with the Coreolis Effect (not sure how that is spelt).
2. If you stand about 2m away from the equator and hold your thumb and forefinger together to form a ring then it is very difficult for another person to pull them apart, but if you do the same on the equator then it is very easy for another person to pull them apart. I don't really know why and it wasn't explained.
3. You can balance an egg on its end on top of a nail on the equator. I did it and so did another girl but neither my mum nor Tristan could do it.
It was a hot, hot day but both entertaining and informative. In the evening we went out to buy a couple of Budgies to take to Carmen in Misahualli.
Tues 15th
Mum and I went on the trolley (tram) to the local shopping centre where there was a DHL office to send some Guayasamin posters to Marios in New York. I left my mum in a queue whilst I went and bought a tube and some paper to wrap it in. When I returned the queue had hardly gone down at all, so by the time it was our turn we had waited for nearly an hour, only to find that the DHL system wasn't working.... another wasted time... back to the house we went and into the car for the journey to Misahualli. Tristan was in the back with two bags, the ducks and the budgies on top, it was all a little bit cramped, but at least this time we knew exactly where we were going and door to door the journey took 5 hours. We were all glad to get there, including the ducks who took to their new night time shed with gusto. The budgies were a little more subdued even though they have a large cage with lots of space to fly and loads of perches.
Wed 16th
We awoke to rain which battered down on the corrugated iron roof of the room at the back of the house we are staying in. I let the ducks out and they loved it out in the rain and the mud. Once the rain had stopped we managed to take mum on a tour of the garden, the village and the beach. We watched the monkeys in the square playing with some dogs, took photos of butterflies and flowers in the garden and generally relaxed after our busy days.
Thursday 17th
It was hot, hot , hot today. Celso, mum, Tristan and I went for a walk to the next village, Pununo, and then over the bridge and back down the other side of the river. The bridge is the 'Tina Tina', that is what Tris called it when he was little when we lived here before. It is a suspension bridge that hangs and sways, with no proper connection at ground level. It has a series of metal beams on which lie metal plates, there are several holes, some of which have been patched and some which have not. (The name 'Tina Tina' comes from the sound made when you walk across the metal plates.) The sides of the bridge have chicken wire to prevent you falling over the edge but it is missing, or not connected securely, in lots of places; it made me very nervous years ago and it was no different today. It was about a 3 hour walk with loads to see, we collected some Bread Fruit to take back home, Tristan carried the bag made from leaves and vines over his shoulder. We saw loads of beetles, butterflies, ants, termites, grasshoppers, spiders and strange plants and fruits. We stopped to pick some Cacoa (the pod that contains the seeds from which chocolate comes), the pith has a refreshing lemon taste that alleviates thirst and was very much needed. In Pununo we got a few cold drinks from the shop and then, having passed the bridge, we stopped at the huge Sabor (Kapok) tree, which is a very active ecosystem all on its own. We passed an indigenous house on stilts with banana trees all around, a host of chickens and a few pineapple bushes before we managed to find a path that would take us along to a hotel on the far side of the river from the beach at Misahualli. Mum must have taken around 100 photos, we will have to take a look later and see!
After eating some lunch, mum and I went to an internet cafe to check our emails and then we took two inner tubes that Celso's brother Filemon has stored beneath the house and went back towards Pununo to get into the river and float down to the beach. There are two rapids on the way and mum and I flew over the first on our tyre followed by Tristan and Celso on theirs. Then for some reason mum and I got stuck and Tris and Celso moved ahead of us. Mum and I started paddling and swimming to try to move out of our slow bit of water, mum lost her shoe and then, just as we hit another rapid, she leant over to try and get it as it floated behind us. The tyre tipped and in she went. She was pulled under and past me on the tyre and then up she popped on the other side still gripping on to her shoe! She was a bit shocked and had swallowed a bit of water but she managed to grab onto the tyre and we swam to shore. Poor mum, she has now had a couple of incidents in only a few days.
Friday 18th
Another frustrating day trying to get all the papers for the car done. We found out that we had to get yet another paper - some sort of road tax- and then when went to get the car checked. This included a quick check of the lights on the car and a check that the motor and chassis numbers matched the documentation. However we couldn't pass the test until we had bought some triangles, a fire extinguisher and a first aid kit, so back into Tena to buy them, and then back to finish the check. All well this time, we went into the office to get the registration document. It was all going smoothly, if a little slowly; after half an hour it seemed like we had finally got to the end of the nonsense beauracracy, but then it turned out that we couldn't get the final paper because my passport number was not in their system. Back into Tena to another police office to get my passport number onto the system but the office was empty apart from one woman who told us that there would be nobody working until 3pm. It was just after 12 and we couldn't be bothered to wait around for 3 hours so we returned to Misahualli and we shall leave this for next week.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing. It was really hot and humid, the ducks even had to stop and sit under a tree in the shade. Later we went down to have a swim on the beach only for it to start raining, the wind was really nice though.
Saturday 19th
We (Tristan, Mum, Carmen (my mother-in-law) and I ) set off at about 9am in the pouring rain to go to Banos. It used to take about 6 or 7 hours to get there but now with the paved road and several tunnels that cut off scary drives along the cliff on the edge of a river we got there in 4. Just as we arrived the rain dried up and we stopped and found a hotel. At the first one I tried we were offered a suite with sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and 2 bedrooms, and a locked driveway into which we put the car - perfect. We dumped our bags and made our way one block to visit the church. Inside are paintings which tell the story of all the miracles that the Virgin of the Sainted Waters has performed. Some were from the 15th century and the latest in 1987. The stories always start with some sort of disaster (e.g. a car going over a cliff), then the people cry out to the Virgin of the Sainted Waters, and then they are saved (without a scratch on them)! Then on to the Thermal Baths that sit under a waterfall that falls some 50ft from one of the mountains that surround the town. We sat in the hot waters and just watched the people, there were lots of indigenous families in their traditional clothes, some had never been to a swimming bath before and were so excited. It was a very relaxing hour or so. Afterwards we went to wander the streets and look in the hundreds of tiny little shops filled with Traditional handicrafts, leather bags, bals wood carvings, alpaca or llama wool jumpers and jackets, embroidered shirts, jewelery made out of seeds, wood and all sorts of natural fibres, shells, feathers, stones etc. It is just incredible how much work goes into all the products. We left mum after a couple of hours and went back to the hotel to relax. After a couple more hours we started to get a bit worried that she hadn't returned.. I wandered the streets for nearly and hour looking for her... it was getting dark.... I even asked some policemen to check with the local hospital if any tourists had been brought in, and then at about 7pm i found her, still looking in every shop she passed and having a great time! We went out to eat in an Italian restaurant and Mum and Carmen had a couple of Cubra Libres (Rum and Cokes), just medicinal - you understand! Then we watched several Wallace and Gromit films in Spanish on the telly and fell asleep.
Sunday 20th
We ate yoghurt and cereal in our room and then mum and I set off to visit a waterfall just north of the town whilst Carmen went back to the thermal baths and Tristan slept! The waterfall is part of the Pastaza rver that has cut a thin gorge only about 5m wide through the mountain. It is probably nearly 50m deep the gorge, sort of like the one we walked up from Death Valley in California with smoothed walls from the torrent of water that passes carrying grit. The water was a muddy brown from all the rian and at one point the water falls about 10m into a large pool that seethes like a saucepan of boiling hot chocolate, this was the waterfall we had come to see. Mum was brave enough to go in an very open sided (but with bars) cable car over the river to the other side and back again, but it was far too high for me. Then we walked back to the hotel through the town and passed a colourful Sunday fruit market full of locals going about their business.
We packed all our stuff into the car and started our journey back to Misahualli. This time without the rain we were able to stop and enjoy some of the sights along the way. The first was some bungee jumping from one of the bridges that we crossed, then we stopped to visit a waterfall. We walked about 1km down into the valley through jungle to a wobbly wooden swing bridge with the sign ' Danger - no more than 5 people'... it inspires such confidence!! From the bridge we could see the water fall, it wasn't really spectacular but the best part was that there were so many Ecuadorians making the walk down to see it. Before when I have been here it was only foreign tourists that I had seen enjoying all that the country has to offer, but this time there have been masses of local tourists and they are really showing an appreciation of their country.... not so much rubbish just dropped in the streets, better signage to area of interest and more effort made to keep things looking good.
Closer to Misahualli we started to see lots of hanging nests in trees that had a wasps nest at the centre. Apparently the birds always build alongside a wasps nest for protection from predators that might try to steal eggs or chicks. The birds can whistle like a builder who's eyed up a pretty girl! Then back to Misahualli, the humidity pressing around us and the horrid aranillas making a nuisance of themselves.