Ecuador: That time I went to the fake Equator

BY ONEIKA RAYMOND

I go to the (fake) Equator.

While Quito isn’t particularly rich in touristy sights, one of the things guidebooks and other travellers highlight is an excursion to the Mitad del Mundo monument. For those whose español is rusty, I’ll save you the hassle and translate– Mitad del Mundo literally means “middle of the world” and is the supposed site where the equator line passes through the country.  Why supposed? Wellll, modern GPS systems determined that the monument, constructed in the early ’80s, is incorrect in its placement– the equator actually lies about 240m north of the florescent yellow line that was once thought to be the real deal (I’m pretty sure jobs were lost over this). Oops.

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But this fake Equator, as well as the grandiose structure that celebrates it, still make for stellar eye-candy. So on our last afternoon in Quito Liebling and I found ourselves in the street attempting to hail a taxi to one of the country’s most recognizable sights. Note: the Mitad del Mundo is annoying to get to if you are staying in the centre of the city like we were.  It is also expensive if you, like us, are lazy and unwilling to take public transportation to get there (we bougie like that).  I managed to get a seriously attitudinal taxista (a story for another blog post) to take us there and back for $25 USD, which is under the going rate of $30 USD, but still a tad too costly for my taste (given that the complex is found 20-odd kilometres from Quito, the fare was not unreasonable– I was just feeling cheap). However, with 2015 being my personal year of yolo, I shrugged off my inherent frugality and prepared to be wowed by the coming events. IMG_3243

Still…I’ma keep it at 100. I was not wowed. The Mitad del Mundo site is beautiful visually, but pretty boring otherwise; the well-manicured grounds house the trapezoidal monument and tell-tale yellow line, as well as a planetarium and ethnography museum (we didn’t enter any of them but both feel as though they were uninspired and likely tacked on to the complex to justify the price of admission). It is possible to take an elevator to the top of the monument’s tower to get views on Quito, but when we were there most folks seemed to0 caught up in trying to capture a “Look, Ma! I have a foot on either side of the Equator!” shot to care about aerial vistas of the capital. Including us, obviously.

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Should you go? The question really is how important seeing the (fake) Equator is to you, and how much you value your time (transport from the city centre takes at least half an hour one-way in a taxi, an hour and a half in a bus). We were underwhelmed by the whole thing (20 minutes after arriving we were already looking to leave) but your resultant adventure at the fake Equator is perfect fodder for water cooler conversation… or a post on a travel blog. *huge wink*

 

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