Just Keep Heading West: Make Up Your Mind - North or South? ... The Equator

The Equator is a big deal.

Big enough to name your country after it

One of the activites that is popular in Ecuador is to visit the Equator. The line runs right through the city. And they named their country after the landmark, using a variation of the French spelling.

They call this place "The Middle of the World" or the "Center of the World". This is kind of significant for us because we started our journey at "The End of the World" - in Tierra del Fuego at the very southern tip of South America.

That was almost eight weeks ago. We have made steady progress and have now officially passed over into the Northern Hemisphere. Another few days and we will have traversed the entire South American continent.

To establish the line of the Equator was a big deal back when it was unknown (think about it - it's more of a concept than a place). The French, in a big show of commitment, sent a team of scientists here about 200 years ago. Why here? Why, in what has become modern day ... Ecuador?

Well, most of the Equator lays in the ocean. Since (we were told) you can't get reliable measurements for triangulation (a necessary element to compute locaton) in the ocean, you need high ground. There is certainly a lot of that in the Andes Mountains around here.

The French made tremendous strides in marking the line, and it has stood the test of time. It is also remarkably close to the place that the indigenous natives had established about 2000 years ago.

We enjoyed our time at the Equator "park" and took the obligatory picture with the line in the middle. In this case, Fiona was on the right, in the Northern Hemisphere, and of course, there's Kevin in the Southern Hemisphere.

And of course, the actual line is a source of some controversy. Around twenty years ago, a new group of scientists showed up with GPS to confirm the precise location and guess what? They found it about two hundred yards away. Talk about nitpicking! The French didn't use GPS and the ancient indigenous folks, well, they just used the stars ...

And the huge monument at the top of this blog post is where the Equator was traditionally marked. When the Johnny-come-lately GPS guys showed up, the reaction was ... "Hell, we ain't moving that big freakin' monument!" So it stays where it was.

And on a hill top not far away is the ancient pile of stones that the unsophisticated but highly accurate ancestors used to mark the spot. So there are three "official" markings of the Equator. Life is full of choices!

Quito is a special place

There is a spectacular Basilica in Quito on top of a hill that towers above the city. It is magnificent. It was a recommended visit point from a close friend of ours who has spent a lot of time here.

He said, go and visit and climb to the top if you're brave enough. So I accepted the challenge and well, let's just say my fear of heights kicked in and ... I had to pass on the last fifty feet on a rickety metal ladder wet from the rain ...

Like I said, we gotta keep movin'

So tonight we find ourselves in Bogota, Colombia. We arrived with enough time to take a visit to a important spot, the amazing Salt Cathedral. It's a very large cathedral carved into the middle of a salt mine, inside a large hill.

This salt mine has been around for quite some time, and was put into commercial use around the year 1800. The entire hill contains a high degree of salt, which they dig out in big tunnels.

The miners, in an effort to appeal for safety and protection in the tough environment, carved out a religious site and we got to take a tour. It was really elaborate and we walked around inside for a couple hours.

It was filled with statues and religious icons and is highly valued by the local Colombians.

Another Point of View

This is where I put in some miscellaneous pictures that may or may not be related to the stories above.

This picture above was near the Equator and is in the crater of a volcano. You can see by the farming that they don't expect it to erupt any time soon.