Today was our first full day in Quito. We had the day to ourselves so we, as a group, decided to go to the "Museo Intinan" and Mitad Del Mundo. Both are museums for the equator. We first went to Mitad del Mundo which stands for, middle of the earth. It had a huge tower with a globe on top and a yellow line marking the equator. The second museum, Museo Intinan, was down the road a bit and more accurately showed the equator measured by GPS. This museum taught us about the indigenous people, wildlife in the Amazon, and had some interesting experiments about the changes around the equator. When draining a sink on the equator, the water flows straight down without any spin. But, ten feet to either side of the equator and the water will flow clockwise on. the south side and counter clockwise on the north side. They also showed us that it is easier to balance an egg on a nail head on the equator due to the coriolis effect. When we were done with the museums, we got lunch at a local place and then got a taxi van back to the center. We spent the rest of the day playing cards, reading and sleeping.

My favorite part of the day was definitely going to the Museo Intinan.

Elizabeth Throm