Mitad del Mundo

Greetings once again from the Middle of the World!  I hear there are some St. Pete Catholic students out there following along, hope you're all doing well and staying safe with Hurricane Isaac spinning around up there.  I hope calculus is going well.

So last Friday we went to the museum at the Equator...the real equator.  The French calculated it incorrectly in the 1800s and of course they built a ginormous monument where they thought it was and now it's
nothing but a reminder of just how wrong they were.  The picture above is the real line, as calculated with GPS.  All the things along the equator are various tests, calendars, and clocks that only work at la Mitad del Mundo.

We paid $4 for a tour with our guide to the left.  He was great.  They talked not only about the physics of the equator but also the indigenous people that inhabit the area.  Pictured here is a traditional house

that they actually came and built for the museum.  The floor is sloped in a special manner for drainage.  Up to five families would live in this house and four people would sleep in this hammock.

Among the exciting physics stuff on the equator are the vertical clocks.  Only on the equator can you get both sides to be accurate all year long.  It was 10:50 a.m. at this moment; perfect.

 I've heard about balancing eggs on the head of a nail at the equinox in the northern hemisphere, but I've never tried it.  Apparently it's easiest at the equator all year long.  We didn't have too much trouble (maybe 2-3 minutes of work).  Everyone that did it got a certificate!

 The gold spots on this compass represent some of the major constellations in the world.  In the northern hemisphere (left side of the compass) we see the big dipper and in the South they see the Southern Cross.  At the Equator both are seen.  It was kind of crazy to think we were just hopping between hemispheres.  Something like standing at the four corners states in the U.S.

So here's the mandatory "I'm in two places at once" picture.  In my opinion, The coolest thing we saw was the Coriolis Effect in action.  At the equator the centripetal forces cancel each other out so water in a drain falls straight down.  In the Southern hemisphere it swirls clockwise and in the Northern hemisphere is swirls counterclockwise.  It was amazing that we barely had to move off the line for the direction to switch.  I have a video of each here: Equator Southern Northern

Our trip this past weekend was to Rosa's parents farm (Finca) in the middle of an incredible landscape.  We learned lots about culture and local foods.  Watch out for a post later this week!

I'm also going to have a post soon with all the pictures I've promised.  There are some good ones so get excited.

Until next time!

Lindo Mindo

More Ecuador travels!  Last weekend the whole crew plus Iris, our friend from Iceland, went to Mindo.  I realize I've been throwing out a lot of cities and places so I made this map in case you'd like to follow along.  All the places I've been and I'm hoping to go are on the left, just click them and they'll be highlighted on the map.

So yes, Mindo.  We left early Saturday morning and a 2 hour ride was no problem compared to our marathon last weekend.  We stayed in another tree house-like hostel that had great food.  That's mosquito netting above my bed.  We all fell victim to at least a few bites over the course of the weekend so it was definitely merited.

 This is a shot of the girls' hostel.  We met all kinds of people here.  2 guys from England, a girl from Germany, a guy from Oregon, and a girl from Massachusetts.  Very friendly people that we hung out with Saturday night.

 I'm pretty sure every hostel in Ecuador has hammocks.  These were right outside our room.  Mindo is famous for their orchids and they were growing all over the place including on our porch.

 We rested for a couple hours, had lunch, then went to see some serious butterflies.  Mindo is known for their butterfly breeding and it was interesting to see the process.

They have a huge shelf with what must have been over a thousand cocoons push-pinned into cork.  They have dozens of varieties of butterflies and each has a unique cocoon.

 I got lots and lots of pictures of beautiful butterflies.  If you want more let me know!

 These huge guys were the easiest to pick up.  You just dabbed some banana on your finger and scooped them up, they were all over the place.  The smaller more colorful ones played hard to get.

 I was lucky to get this picture.  We probably took 20 before we had a decent one with the wings open.

 After the butterflies we drove straight up to the zip lines.  Someone saw a sign that said we were in the "Mindo Cloud Forest" and the name is fitting.  We zipped over the valley on 11 different lines and all around us we could see the peaks hiding in the clouds.  It was really very beautiful.  I didn't bring my camera on the journey but there are some high quality pictures of me upside down that I hope to have on facebook soon.  
Here's a picture down the first cable.

 Our hostel was about 100 paces from the Mindo Chocolate factory so clearly we had to take a tour.  They grow many of their ingredients and make only dark chocolate.  We learned all about the process of making chocolate and how different flavors are achieved.

 Above is their garden.  Among the things they grow are fresh ginger (they have a great ginger dark chocolate) and coffee.  They grow banana trees for shade because the leaves are huge.  I learned that banana trees grow to full maturity in one year, give one bunch of bananas, and never produce them again.

To the left is the beginning of the chocolate process.  They call it fermentation.  Basically the beans start in

 this creamy substance that has to all seep out.  The process gives off a lot of heat and the juice is collected to make delicious things like "chocolate honey" and barbeque sauce.  To the right is the entire fermentation process.  Beans start in the top box (pictured above) and after a few days they're moved to the middle and finally to the bottom.  Then the beans are moved to long, flat drying racks for a few weeks until they're dark brown when you cut them open.

 Here's the collection of the "cacao juice" draining from the top box.

 The beans are separated from their shells and the result is called "cocoa nibs."  We got to try them, they're very bitter and don't really even resemble chocolate.  The nibs are ground then mixed with water at a very high temperature to make chocolate liquor.  This liquor is pressed to separate the chocolate from its cocoa butter (which is mostly fat).

Here you can see the cocoa butter and pressed chocolate on the table.  They use a process called tempering on the marble table that sounded similar to marble table fudge folding that I saw in Michigan as a kid.

 Francisco, our fearless leader.  This guy was awesome.  He's from southern Ecuador but he lived and studied English in the states as a kid so he speaks fluently.  He knows a lot about chocolate.

 Obviously the best part of the tour was the tasting.  The little cups on the right are pure 100% bitter chocolate.  We tasted that first by itself but I could only handle a little bit.  We then mixed it with the pure sugar on the lower left.  It was so cool to mix the different flavors in my mouth and essentially make what we know as "chocolate."  We also mixed the bitter chocolate with red pepper (on the plate) and tried it with ginger (top cup).  The other two cups have the chocolate honey and the barbeque sauce which were both awesome.

 Here's my spoon with the chocolate, sugar, and red pepper.  Delicious.

 They have a little cafe in the lobby of the factory where many of us got coffee, hot chocolate, and brownies.  I went for the fresh-made ginger ale.  Easily the best ginger ale I've ever had.

We had dinner upon our return to the hostel and I learned a new card game from the English chaps called Janef.  It's an Israeli game that kind of resembles rummy mixed with go fish and "golf" (the card game).  We also played some Cuarenta.  After cards we went to a bar for an hour or so then hit the sack.

 Sunday morning we went on a waterfall excursion.  It started with a traverse across the valley in a little cart that crawls across this cable.  I loved it.

 Here are the guys just before we rolled across.

 The cart moved pretty fast.  I'd guess we were about 200 feet above the river at the center of the valley.  The view was spectacular.

Upon reaching the other side we chose to hike the long trail to one big waterfall.  The path was lined with all kinds of fun rainforest vegetation.

 Spots like this reminded me of our Philmont trek through the rockies.  Very steep drops down to the river.  We couldn't ever see it but we always heard it.

 Every once in a while we came across little water spouts running down the valley.  This one had some inviting fallen trees across it so I did a little climbing.

 After hiking for about an hour we came to this staircase over the smaller of the two waterfalls that make up Cascada Reina, or "Queen Waterfall."  After climbing the stairs we all took off our shoes to wade through the very rocky water toward the main waterfall.

 I wish I could have captured how amazing this place was.  The mist from the waterfall latched onto the moss on the rocks all around us and sparkled in the sun.  Very cool.

There was a natural pool at the bottom of the falls so of course we all jumped in.  It was freezing.

Worth it though.

Here's the whole crew on our hike to the falls.  Good times all around.

We headed back to the hostel for lunch and hit the road.  We got back to Quito, went to mass, and I crashed.  I think this has been my best week of classes, we have a very strict teacher and she is very effective.  In other news we're taking salsa classes twice a week now and we went out to a salsa club on Wednesday night that our teacher recommended.  It was a lot of fun, but I'm definitely hoping to improve over the next five weeks.  Crazy to think that our third week is already coming to a close!  We're going to the equator tomorrow during class and heading to Rosa's parents' farm this weekend, "La Finca" on the map.  Looking forward to some familiar Midwestern sights and some relaxation.  Post to follow!

You know, your typical week in Ecuador

The Boy Scout in me has had a serious lack of camping and hiking in the last six years so when I first heard about the possibility of hiking Cotopaxi, a volcano just shy of 20,000 feet, I got pretty excited about it.  Previous ChACErs have made the trek and I'm hoping to join their ranks.  The altitude is a problem for many (I even found myself struggling in Quito the first few days) so they suggest hiking around the city a bit.  Rucu Pichincha is just to the West of Quito and is a constant reminder that we're in the Andes.

Tuesday after classes we piled into our familiar yellow van with Hugo to check it out.  The ascent starts with a gondola ride from 2850m to 4050m and then the hike goes to 4700m (15,500 ft).  A far cry from Cotopaxi but a good barometer for whether or not the trip is doable.  There were definitely some issues with altitude but 5 of us climbed with Hugo as far as we could go with the sunlight.  We didn't summit but Ryan and I want to return to poke through the clouds.  I like this picture because the

 natural beauty of the peak in the clouds distracts you from the fact that my eyes are closed.  Sorry Mom, I'll try to get some better ones in the future :)  We only missed the peak by about 30 minutes.

Here's the view of Cotopaxi itself from Pichincha.  It looks like the Paramount logo.  Looking forward to climbing you.

 Tuesday was also Rosa's daughter's birthday so we took her out for a surprise sushi dinner.  Sushi in Ecuador is legit.  We had so much of it and I enjoyed every bite.  I would say it was comparable to if not better than most sushi I've had in the states.  Expensive, but delicious.

 The name of the restaurant is Noe, which is the Spanish version of Noah.  I wonder if they ate shushi on the ark...

We also listened to a Juan Gabriel song in class this morning about a bar called Noa Noa (worth a youtube view) and I watched 2012 in Spanish tonight with Mateo which ends with everyone piling onto arks awaiting a tsunami.  Very in touch with my name this week.

 Here's Diana blowing out her candle.  We didn't sing but apparently they do have a tradition of pushing the celebrant's face into their dessert.  Her boyfriend Peter did the honors.

 Ryan and I have started to get a little claustrophobic in the language school so we asked if we could explore the city during class time a bit.  We know the grammatical side of the language pretty well so most of our classes are just conversation and reading which we can do outside the building.  We're learning lots of vocab which is what we need.  We stumbled across this group of students in the park performing traditional Ecuadorian Indigenous music dance and theater.

 Wednesday afternoon we took our first salsa class!  If you saw the album on facebook we had a short demo our first week and we were all sold.  Jonathan is our instructor (on the left) and he has some serious moves.  I think we're going to take a set of 10 classes during our stay.

Wednesday being The Ascension (thanks to Dan and Laura for remembering!), we all went to church in the evening.  Very few Ecuadorians attend mass regularly and The Ascension isn't a holy day of obligation here so there wasn't much of a turnout but the church was beautiful and I love hearing mass in Spanish.

On Thursday all 7 of us went with our professors to the Centro Historico de Quito which most people refer to as "The Old City."  Ryan and I walked while the others took the bus, and I'm glad we did because we passed the Basilica on the way.  This church is huge, and it's unique because of the way it's set into the hill.

 The plaza around the outside was very tranquil and allowed for great views of the giant facade.  I especially liked the crypt entrance which you can see on the left side of this picture.  You go down a set of steps from the plaza and the crypt extends under the church to the street on the far side so you can enter from ground level as well.

 Ryan and I paid the dollar entrance fee (new to me, paying to get into a church) to see the inside.  The stained glass was beautiful.  This was my favorite, I always love images of Jesus ministering to the young.  Something about being a teacher.
My favorite part of the basilica was the adoration chapel at the back.  It was stunningly beautiful.  No pictures were allowed so I just prayed :)

 The street from the Basilica to the Centro Historico is knows as "La Calle de Siete Cruces" because there are 7 huge crosses like this one outside of 7 churches on the street.

 There are two giant plazas in the Centro Historico.  The first we came across is known as Plaza Grande or Plaza de la Independencia.  This monument is in memory of the heroes of August 10th 1809 when Ecuador gained independence from Spain.

We went inside a beautiful building where we could step out on the roof to get some good views of Quito.  On the way up I spotted this abacus.  Math is everywhere!

The second plaza is Plaza de San Francisco.  According to legend the church was constructed by the devil after he made a pact with the architect.  The deal was that the devil could have the architect's soul if the church was constructed perfectly overnight.  A small crack was found in one of the towers so he got to keep his soul.

 After all that walking around and speaking Spanish we had lunch in a beautiful mall.  Lots of the buildings are constructed in Spanish (as in Spain) architecture from their rule prior to 1809.  They're all terraced with a courtyard in the middle and a fountain or statue at the center.

I have found my favorite juice so far.  Tomate de Arbol, which literally translates to Tree Tomato, is a fruit native to Ecuador.  The flavor is fantastic, something like an orange creamsicle.

Thursday afternoon I went to the grocery store with Rosa.  Definitely not a U.S. grocery store.  As you can see the meats are all on display, not behind glass.  Many of the dairy products and eggs are sold warm.

Our trip to the grocery store was largely in preparation for the Guac-Off that happened this morning in class.  Dan is known for the quality of his guacamole as is Rosa so we had a blind taste-test today during break.  Dan won in a unanimous decision.  Both dips were fantastic.  Dan's secret ingredient and texture were what won out though.

Off to Mindo in 6 hours, watch for a post soon!