El Panecillo is a small bread-shaped hill on which stands the gigantic statue of The Virgin Mary overlooking Quito, and supposedly protecting it from the volcanoes. Besides being an enormous structure, it is probably the only place where the Madonna is depicted in a dancing pose, and where she has wings.

I wanted to get up there to see the statue from up close from the very first time I saw it from the city below, but I heard that walking up there wasn’t a good idea. The road to get up the hill passed through some rough neighbourhoods and tourists getting mugged was not unheard of. Having been pick-pocketed only a few hours earlier, I wasn’t keen on tempting fate again, and opted for a taxi to take me up there and back down again.

The journey to the top was comfortable and uneventful. At the statue, one can climb up to the balcony from where one can get great views of the expansive city of Quito.

Posing with the Madonna

A view of one part of Quito

A gallery inside the base of the statue had pictures from the time the structure was still under construction

Interesting snap clicked purely by accident

This picture might help to appreciate the size of the statue  

Once back at the hostel, I checked out of the room, picked up all my belongings and set off for Mitad del Mundo (which translates to the middle of the world). It is a well known fact that the Equator passes through Ecuador (which incidentally is what the country is named after), and the Mitad del Mundo was built with the intention of being located bang on the Equator.

The intent may have been admirable, but the calculations were disgraceful. The monument ended up being constructed an embarrassing 240 metres off the real Latitude 0° 0’ 0”. Despite that, the monument is still quite impressive and draws a lot of tourists who like to have their photos taken straddling the fake equatorial line.

Flat-bottomed ice-cream cones

The Mitad del Mundo monument

The glamorous-but-fake equator

After spending some time walking around the monument, I headed over to the nearby Museo Inti-Ñan - the site of the real equator. I would highly recommend a visit to this museum to check out some pretty cool experiments that can allegedly only be carried out on the Equator.

The humble-yet-real equator

Our guide telling us some interesting trivia about the Equator

The most interesting experiment of all was the one about the Coriolis Effect carried out using a basin of water. It was amazing to see how the water drains straight downwards without any spiralling when the basin was kept on the Equator, and drains in a clockwise or anti-clockwise manner when moved only a few metres to the south or north respectively.

I have been told that this demonstration is fake, and the Coriolis Effect cannot be observed over such short distances. But it sure didn’t seem like a fraud. Then again, maybe the person performing the experiment was an expert at fooling gullible tourists like me. In any case, I fail to see the motivation behind the alleged fraud, as we didn’t have to give any money to see it being performed. So until proven otherwise, I’m going to continue believing that it really was not a scam.

Just before leaving the museum, I was told that I could get my passport stamped with their seal. The guy there told me that they were among only a few non-governmental organizations that have permission to stamp passports. I said ok and handed over my passport for it to be stamped. But I regretted it the moment the stamp was affixed. I just hope I don’t get into trouble somewhere for having this odd stamp in my passport.

Latitude 00° 00' 00" stamp

My initial plan had been to carry on to Otavalo from Mitad del Mundo. Looking at the map, it seemed like a reasonable plan as Mitad del Mundo seemed to be just a little lesser than half the way from Quito to Otavalo. But once at Mitad del Mundo, I found out that there are no direct buses from there to Otavalo. One wishing to go to Otavalo has to go back south to Quito and then get another bus going north to Otavalo.

Since it was getting late, and since Quito is notorious for its after-dusk crimes, I thought it would be safest to spend the night in Mitad del Mundo itself. But there seemed to be only a single hostel in the area and they didn’t have any free rooms. With no other suitable alternative, I took a bus back to Quito and made a beeline to my previous hostel. The staff, whom I had bid farewell to earlier in the day were surprised to see me back. They said my bed in the dormitory was still unoccupied, so I took the same bed once again.