La Mitad del Mundo and the Egg Tricks

Today we headed out to La Mitad del Mundo-- the middle of the earth! We actually were able to take a cab there.. it is only 40 minutes outside of Quito proper. We started out by going to the monument and checking out the equatorial line. The area is a bit like the seattle center with some open spots and other small museums and exhibits. We checked out the insectarium and were thoroughly grossed out by the GIANT beatles.

Anyway, we then headed over to the museum that had all the cool exhibits and tours. It was awesome. We started out by seeing some of the indigenous buidings (the musem actually brought some of the tribal members to the area to build a hut, since many of the tribes still exisit in the amazon). We also saw the process by which the tribal people used to "shrink skulls." It was pretty gross actually, the basically decapitated a person, took out all the bones and sewed the skin of the face together really tightly to make a mask of some sort.

We then moved on to seeing some of the properties of the equator (enter my nerdy science self!). First we filled a sink with water and watched it go down the drain clockwise in the southern hemisphere, counter clockwise in the northern and straight down the drain on the line. It was pretty cool (maybe a hoax but I don´t know how they could have staged it!).

Next we got to actually test our own dexterity and patience (not always my strongest suit) and balance an egg on the equator on top of a nail. The idea is that at the equator gravity pulls the yolk exactly down and so the egg doesn´t roll to one side or the other. After a couple minutes of attempts both Julie and I nailed it  (pun intended!). it was also very cool, don{t worry I photo documented.

We also go to try some cool tricks using our natural forces. It was much easier to force eachother´s arms down on the equator and much harder to walk in a straigh line on the equator. I guess both of these reasons were due to the gravitational pull being exactly perpindicular to our location. Man, I am so glad I don´t have to take physics or the MCAT again. The equator is the type of physics I can get on board with :)

p.s. another rabies vaccine coming soon.