After a long night spent awake with my old friend toilet (never ever eat salad), I went to a cafe just around the corner from my hostel for a tasty omelette and a cappuccino con leche.

My hostel manager hooked me up with his taxi driver friend Luis who looked like Luigi from super mario brothers to drive me around Quito for 3 hours for only $40. He took me up to the Pululahua volcanic crater (see photo album) and told me all about it's history. During the months of July August and September, the sun shines so brightly on the crater that it makes it appear yellow, and everyday at 2pm on the dot, cloud covers the entire crater for a few minutes then clears in a few seconds. He doesn't know why or how it happens.

Next up we went to Mitdad del Mundo or "middle of the earth", in other words, the equator. You paid $4US for a 30-40 min tour with an English speaking tour guide (the first person I have met since I got here who could speak fluent English). She took us through the history of the amazon people and the way they used to live, including a life size model of a hunter demonstrating the use of string to hold their junk up and out of the way while they were hunting. Quite a good invention I thought. She also taught us step by step how to shrink a human head, a skill everyone needs to know.

Standing with one foot in either hemisphere was something else. I made sure I casually walked over that line at least 50 times so I could say I'd been in both hemispheres 50 times in one day. The lady then showed us some tricks with the magnetic fields and that right on the equator there was very little magnetic pull. One was showing water flowing out of a sink, when it's dead on the equator the water does not swirl either clockwise or counterclockwise it just flows straight out. Take it just 1-2 metres into the southern hemisphere and the water spins clockwise and vice versa for the northern hemisphere. Also, she demonstrated how while standing directly on the equator, you are much weaker than off, and it's easier to balance an egg on a nail because the yolk inside sits square in the middle of the egg! Finally, she got us all to walk heeltoe along the equator line with our eyes closed. It's virtually impossible because we rely alot on the magnetic fields to balance ourselves if our eyes are closed. Farking awesome!

Luis then took me to the old monument which was erected before gps was invented, about 250m from the actual equator. Not bad considering. We were at 2400 odd metres so the old lungs and heart got a massive workout.

Enjoy the photos! They only took about 2 hours to upload, choiiiiice Internet here.