Road trip to....?

Yesterday Liz, Lisa and I took a little trip. I thought the plan was to go to the “real” equator in Mitad del Mundo (its supposedly past the two equators I’ve already been to in Mitad del Mundo) because I had e-mailed someone from the Quitsato project* and he gave me directions. But before I tell you where we ended up going, let me tell you how we got there. The plan was for me and Lisa (my new roommate) to pick up Liz in a taxi and then go to the bus station. Lisa and I successfully got a taxi and found Liz.
Then we told the driver we wanted to go to “estación Ofelia” (Ofelia station). He apparently did not here the “estación” part because he took us to the Ofelia neighborhood and tried to drop us off. We were like “hey dude, we want to go to the bus station.” At that point he thought he realized something and exclaimed “OOHHH” which was weird because that’s not and Ecuadorian thing to do, but ok maybe he has seen lots of English movies. I don’t know. Anyways he said “damos una vuelta” which is Ecua-Spanish for anything from taking a walk to taking a commercial break. But he meant it in the context of he’s going to drive around for 15 minutes and run up the meter until we say “hey, where the heck are you taking us.” After the little “vuelta” was finished he said “estamos aquí” (we’re here) and well we weren’t “aquí” We were actually anywhere but “aquí”. We were on some corner in the middle of a neighborhood where all of the inhabitants were just chatting on the street. We told him again that wanted to go to the bus station. His explained that this was the bus station (which is not true because I’ve been to Ofelia many times, it’s one of the biggest things in Quito). Once again I explained that I wanted to go to “Terrestre Ofelia” (bus station). And I get the “OOHHH” response again and then he tells me the bus station is closed on Saturday (also not true). Lisa and I were like “sure thing buddy” and we got out of the taxi. Since we didn’t exactly know where we were we asked all the locals who told us that we were at the bus station. Apparently we were at the only bus stop in Ofelia so according to them that is the bus station. Silly us, how did we not know that! They also kept telling us that the bus station is closed on Saturday, I’m not sure how a corner on a street can be closed but I’ll just take their word. Clearly we were not talking about the same place. But luckily we found a taxi driver who knew what we were talking about and finally took us there.
That was just getting to the bus station in Quito. We still hadn’t gotten to the real equator yet. Our directions to this place were kind of vague. The guy I e-mailed said to take a specific bus company that was going in the direction of Cayambe and get of a km 47. We talked to the bus driver and at first he didn’t know what we were talking about, but he said he would tell us when to get off. (another lie). As we were driving I noticed that we passed km 47 so we ran off the bus only to be left in the middle of no where. Seven months ago this would have freaked me out. But now that I’m skilled in Ecuadorian transportation (or at least experienced) I knew that if we really wanted to go back to Quito all we had to do was flag down a bus (and there were tons of them) and pay the $1 fair to Quito. I think Ecuador has this whole traveling by bus thing down pretty good. Back to the story, we were in the middle of nowhere walking down the road (like any good road trip movie) and we were trying to flag down taxis, but they were all full. Finally we found one. We tried to tell him where we wanted to go but apparently my pronunciation isn’t good enough and so he was really confused. After I showed him the directions I had written down, he promptly turns his car around and we’re off in the other direction.
Eventually we got to where our directions said. It was not at all where I thought it was, but it was pretty cool. We ended up at the Solar Clock in Cayambe. This is supposedly on the real equatorial line. Our guide said we could google earth it but I have yet to do that. He also explained the Quitsato project to us and told us that they want to educate the world on how the earth spins and stuff. They basically want to change the traditional orientation of N to E because that’s actually how the
W E N S earth spins and all that jazz. Plus
S W they hate the stuff that’s in Mitad del
Munda and they think it’s wrong to misinform tourists that it’s impossible to balance on the equator and that they are actually at the equator when the monument is like 200m away from the actual equator.

All said and done, it was quite an adventure and hopefully now I’ve fulfilled my dream of being in two hemispheres at once.



*Quitsato is a project that promotes education about the “real” equator and wants to get rid of the hokey museum that makes you think you can only balance an egg on the equator

Isla de la Plata

Colleen and I went to Puerto Lopez this week. We left on Sunday and took an overnight bus. After a really bumpy bus ride we arrived in Puerto Lopez at five in the morning. After napping for a while Colleen and I ventured out to fine food. Because it was a Monday and not high tourist season, everything was closed. Eventually we found a taximoto to take us to a restaurant and he had to convince the owners to put out a table for us.
Later on that afternoon we went to Las Friales beach which was absolutely beautiful and empty. Since Las Frailes is part of a national park so there are no stands or bars or anything where people can see things, it’s just beach goers and not many at that since its 10km away from Puerto Lopez. The beach is only open until four o’clock so we weren’t able to stay there long.
For dinner we ate at this amazing Italian restaurant called Bellitaliana, it was the best Italian food I have ever had. The restaurant is owned by an Italian woman and each night that we were there she was there. I’m not sure if she cooked or anything but she told us about the special dishes for each night. I only tried one dish- spaghetti Italiana (spaghetti with olive oil, basil, tomato and mushrooms) simple, but it was amazing.
Tuesday morning we took a boat ride to Isla de la Plata also known as the poor man’s Galapagos. It usually has all the same animals as the Galapagos but it wasn’t the right season to see sea lions or whales. But we got to take a short hike around the island and see blue footed boobies and magnificent frigates. Then afterwards we went snorkeling around the island. It was my first time snorkeling, I’m not really a fan of the actual snorkel and mask, because they make me feel claustrophobic but I like being able to see the coral and the fish. I saw some really cool bright blue fish and swam through
a whole bunch of schools of fish.
The tour of Isla de la Plata took the entire day and afterwards we had dinner and went to a little shack on beach to have drinks. Apparently this is how all the guides get their business because as we were about to leave they hounded us and tried to get us to go paragliding or snorkeling or whatever but we made tons of “friends” that night.
Wednesday morning we slept in and then went to Agua Blanca for the afternoon. Agua Blanca is a different park run by a community; it has a sulfur pool and ruins. We took a hike around the area but didn’t get a chance to see the ruins because they were closed or something. I was slightly disappointed about that but its not like they are world famous or anything so I don’t think I missed much. Since Agua Blanca didn’t take that long we went back to the beach and I hung out in a hammock all afternoon while Colleen went swimming. That evening we met up with Matt and Lizzy who had just arrived from hiking the Kilatoa trail. We went for Italian again for dinner then Colleen and I played cuarenta with some of the guides that live in Puerto Lopez in one of the shacks on the beach. It was nothing special but still a good time.
Thursday was our last day in Puerto Lopez and we went back to the beach and then took the evening bus back to Quito.