It´s my last night here in Ecuador and hence South America. I am looking forward to new experiences, though my excitement is tinged with sadness as I prepare to farewell the continent. Despite all the things that I WON´T miss about Smerica, there are so many things that I will. In theory I could list them here, but I will leave it to my completely awesome summary list which I know you all love and adore.
Firstly however, my last few days in Ecuador. Haven´t done a lot, as I said before we´ve done a lot of relaxing and eating. My goodness, the eating. So many beautifully done vegetarian places, which I know I´m going to miss. My last supper tonight was at the Magic Bean, which does amazing food, and we are about to head off to La Chacha to fill up on their amazing dulce de leche crepes *drools*.
The single most exciting thing we´ve done is gone out to the Equator. This was thoroughly exciting for me - I got to stand in both hemispheres at once. No crappy egg-standing or water-swirling myths (yes, I hear you ask - it´s a myth. Water flushing down the toilet has nothing to do with the Coriolis Effect or hemispheres - just the angle of the toilet), just pure dual-hemispheric goodness.
We went to the monument at Mitad del Mundo (middle of the world) and took pictures, enjoying the semblance of being in two hemispheres - even though I knew it wasn´t accurate. The monument is not actually built on the equator - according to GPS it is about 240m off. Thankfully I already knew this, and knew where to go to obtain the actual location of the equator.
We went to a scientific ´museum´, essentially the home for 5 scientists working on the equator and related topics. I had a great little science lecture from an impassioned guy spouting the beauty of science and the importance of equality in his country. (Equator-Ecuador-equality). He was beautiful. He was able to give me directions to stand on the actual equator, unmarked but conveniently passing through a small disk in the bitumen of a very unconveniently busy highway. So, I finally got to stand in both hemispheres at once, though almost getting killed by traffic in the process. My only sorrow is that I didn´t get to see the stars in essentially the only place in the world that you can see both hemispheres on - virtually everywhere else is in thick rainforest which makes stargazing near impossible.
But anyway, to my summary of Ecuador:
Bottom Five:
5. Getting stared at everywhere.
4. Guayaquil - not a great city
3. Losing my camera.
2. The Brazilian Embassy in Quito
1. How unsafe Quito is at night - dodgy, dodgy characters (one who scared me enough for me to run to the hotel - mind you, I was following suit of a LOCAL who saw him and ran into a safe place)
Top Five:
5. Lack of spending money
4. Lack of stray dogs
3. Standing on the equator
2. The awesome food.
1. The Galapagos Islands. Duh.
Which brings me to my final summary of South America.....a surprisingly hard thing to do.
Bottom Ten.
10. Only visiting half before we had to leave.
9. Being pestered or treated rudely because we´re gringos
8. Long bus trips especially if the buses aren´t comfy!
7. The digestive effects the food has on you sometimes
6. Stray dogs everywhere/SMOKERS everywhere (even inside banks)
5. Not being able to drink tap water
4. Having to watch everything so carefully - my valuables, my back etc etc
3. Lack of hot water
2. Rampant poverty
1. Getting stuff stolen!
And, my top ten of SMerica...
10. Consistently going out of my comfort zone and enjoying it.
9. Seeing wonderfully different wildlife and landscapes.
8. Catching up with people we´ve met along the way
7. How cheap most things are (Europe is going to hurt!)
6. The strong sense of pride in culture - the indigenous women, the amazingly interesting and enigmatic history....list goes on.
5. Dulce de leche. Awesome.
4. Knowing that when I tip it makes a difference
3. The Bolivian salt flats tour
2. The beautiful language with the latin american twist.
1. Iguazu Falls. Stunning.
1. The Inca Trail and Machu Piccu - unbelievably breathtaking.
1. The Galapagos Islands. Just amazing.
Hasta luego, Sudamerica (yo deseo).
