More Quito and Mitad del Mundo

I mentioned before that Quito is a big city -- in terms of sprawl. It´s long but thin because it´s flanked by mountains. You can easily spot houses perched up on the mountains. Small towns, really. And they´re completely illegal. The city´s administration mandates that people do not develop on the mountains due to risk of landslides from inclement weather. As it´s free to develop there (enforcement is lax/nonexistant), those who can´t afford to buy or rent on a legitimate plot of land just set up shop in the mountains with fingers crossed.

That said, the developed city has its own dangers. It´s not advisable to walk around the area where I´m staying after dark (cabs are the way to go) and you have to be more on-guard as a pedestrian in general. As opposed to the U.S., where the pedestrian has right-of-way, in Quito (and probably in every second and third world country, for that matter), the pedestrian warrants no respect whatsoever from drivers. I´ve had to stay on my toes.
Luckily, every morning I´m afforded an exercise in alertness. Two doors down from my homestay, the neighbors invested in an economical choice in home security. That´s right, a raging German Shepard. They keep him on the roof where he greets me (and only me, not the locals) with total hatred every time I pass, dangling his front half as far off the roof as possible for maximum effect. I haven´t caught a picture of him yet, but this is the closest I could get. I´m working on it.

For class yesterday I visited the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) with my professor. It´s about 1.5 hours outside of Quito in a small town called...Mitad del Mundo. As confirmed by GPS systems, the latitude 0°00'00" passes through the town. There is a large state-sponsored monument celebrating its location as it was originally calculated by the French in the 1970´s. Unfortunately for the French, it was a miscalculation. About 300 yards north, there is a small museum that is located on what has been confirmed by GPS as the correct "middle of the world", and it was first pinpointed by ingineous folk some thousand years ago using simple tools to gauge the sun and its geometry. Long story short, they worshipped the sun, figured out there were two equinoxes, stood a stick on its head and pinpointed the location where its shadow would absolutely and completely disappear for a few moments during each equinox. At these times, they were the closest they could possibly be to the sun, their source of energy, spirit, "the force", mojo, etc. etc.

The museum is tourist sensation. Standing on the equator, I balanced an egg on the head of a nail, which is supposed to be easier to do because of centrifugal forces from the north and south poles. They gave me a certificate. I questioned my manhood as my young female tour guide easily forced apart my arms grasped together akimbo while standing on the equator, after not being able to just a little bit to the north. And my watch confirmed the accuracy of the solar clock that the ingidenous folk had constructed however long ago (it was 11:01).

The museum also featured some more throwbacks to inginenous days unrelated to geometry. My favorite demonstration was fond of the "Tzantza" ritual, which is of course Quichua for "decapitating you and shrinking your head." The first two pictures speak for themselves; the third is a real shrunken head, whose hair continued to grow long after its initial shrinking.





They tell me the tribes that developed this process don´t really do it to people anymore. But, they do practice on monkeys, to preserve the ritual. Classes were not available to learn how to do it.

I have kept up with other classes, though. I´m less awful at salsa and this is the first I´ve spoken (typed) English all day. Saturday is my last day in Quito. Following, I´ll head further south to Quilotoa and Baños, to return the following weekend to Quito for a mountain excursion to hopefully climb what is disputably the world´s highest active volcano, Cotopaxi (but not "active" like I´m going to see any lava. In fact, I´ll just be cold.).