6th November – Morning City tour
After a pleasant breakfast we’re met by Marco. The traffic
is light for Quito as we head towards the equatorial line in the minibus. There
are two centres for the equatorial. One was set up in the late 19th
century by a French science expedition and the other more recently using GPS
which needless to say is more accurate. I quip “you can’t trust the French”. We
elect to go for the newer one.
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| Chris straddling the equator |
Just prior to the tour I find a solar cooker and take lots
of photos as it gives me an idea for the one I’m building back home. We manage
to lose Gill just before we start the tour and decide that the site is small
enough that she’ll catch up at some point. We are given an intro into the
history of Ecuador and how the native tribes and especially the Incas built
totem like structures and how similar they are to other cultures such as the
Polynesians on Easter Island and Hawaii. Then we get to the bit I wanted to
see. How does water go down the plughole? The setup is a sink with bucket
underneath and some leaves floating in the water. The sink is placed on the
equatorial line, water poured in and leaves floating on top, the plug is pulled
and the water gushes straight down into the bucket. The sink is then moved to
north of the line and the process repeated, this time the water goes clockwise
and when south of the line it goes anticlockwise. This due to the Coriolis
effect and its relationship to the spin of the earth. There has been some doubt
this water experiment with some claiming that its a con. Well, if it is, it
certainly was entertaining. There was also some talk about the spin causing
storms to spin in different directions depending which hemisphere you’re in and
that there are no major storms around the equator. I’ll take this at face value
for now. Still we got a certificate (one for the smallest room methinks) to say
that we had straddled the two hemispheres. On the way out we went into a small
shop on site. There Gill and Tamsin bought some scarves and I bought a felt hat
as my old California hat is slowly falling apart.
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| The Galapagos tortoise gargoyles |
Going back into town we took some back streets to avoid
congestion in one of the tunnels. This brought outside a church. The Basilica
of the National Vow is a Roman Catholic church located in the historic centre
of Quito, Ecuador. It is the largest neo-Gothic basilica in the Americas. The
outside has gargoyles that are representations of local animals. So instead of
a monster spouting rain we have Jaguars, Armadillos, Condors, etc. Which is
rather fun and not something I would have credited the Catholic Church with. We
walked around the outside and Marco gave us a running commentary on when it was
built when Pope John Paul II came to visit. From here we started walking down
hill into the centre of Quito passing doorways with glimpses into the inner
courtyards, shops and workshops.
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| At the Presidential Palace |
We stopped at a hotel and Marco showed us the
two courtyards inside that now have glass roofs and some carved Balsa statues
of parrots and toucans. On leaving through the hotel shop we were invited to
try some local chocolate (an Ecuadorian export) which was excellent. Moving closer
to the centre we went into part of the Presidential Palace complete with guards
out front, not quite Buck House!
We went into a Central Cultural Centre for
Quito which is converted Church an had a displayed commemorating “Day of the
Dead” or “Dia de Muertos” to give it its correct title and is celebrated mainly
in Mexico and other cultures around the world which includes Ecuador on Oct 31
st.
Marco continued to explain and answered questions as we moved onto the next church,
La Compania” or Jesuit Church. As we walked in we were blown away by the
opulence and gold leaf of the walls and ceilings. The church is only used for
Sunday morning services and the rest of the time as a museum. The renovation is
being funded by UNESCO and Quito council. You can tell where the work has been
completed. My initial reactions were awe and then disgust at the apparent
wealth and then back to awe as almost every detail is adorned with gold leaf.
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| The gardens at the San Francisco complex |
We then strolled to the Church and Monastery of St. Francis, commonly known as
el San Francisco, is a 16th-century Roman Catholic complex. We walked into the
gardens which were a surprise. There were some parrots there that appeared to
be tame, but I suspect they’d had their flight feathers removed and, rather
cruelly I thought, some budgerigars in cages with them. Marco took us upstairs
into room where the monks would assemble and looked down into the main part of
the church. Although nowhere near as opulent as the Jesuit church was still
adorned in quite a bit of gold. This also is being renovated.
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