Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Mitad Del Mundo
Hola todos,
I can now officially say I´ve been to the equator, though I´ve already crossed it twice. We took several buses north of Quito to La Mitad del Mundo (middle of the earth). It is actually a pretty crappy, trash filled town, but they have this giant gated complex with museums and a big round earth on a pedestal statue. I didn´t feel like paying four bucks for us to go in to see it, so we took a picture of me from the parking lot. It isn´t even at the real equator (GPS tells us it is several hundred meters further north), but you can act impressed for me. The real exciting thing about Mitad del Mundo is...Puya, of course! The hillsides are covered in Puya aequatorialis, which has two color varieties...reddish purple, and whitish green. Also in the same area is Puya sodiroana, with a branching inflorescence and deep purple flowers. The two come into flower at the same time (after the first major rains in February...now they are just dried out and full of seeds) and are all pollinated by the same hummingbirds. So they hybridize, with any number of color and branching varieties. I think I might want to come back in February (before or after I´m in Bolivia again) when they flower and try to study this phenomenon. Its a nice sized project, I know where it is, and I´d get to hang out with hummingbirds....I´ll have to talk to Ken and other people who know about such things (Ms. Koopman! Make me a list of papers to read!!) first, though. It made me excited, though. The locals had burned them as best they could, to bring the rain, but they will come bouncing back!
Mitad del Mundo has a lot of ¨motels¨. I said ¨great, now I´ll have somewhere to stay if I come do studies here¨. Edwin laughed and laughed and explained that motels are places where couples can discretely rent a room for a couple of hours, away from the prying eyes of mainstreet Quito. Good to know! I know my dear sister in law Cole found that out the hard way in Lima... We had another autentico lunch in town, and I opted for my favorite fried pork chunks (at least I know what that is). Good think I didn´t say Ï´ll have the same when Edwin ordered, or I would have been eating coagulated sheeps blood in soup with tomatoes and avocado. Woah, that takes the cake for grossest food so far. He loves it, especially since his girlfriend won´t let him have it when she is around. I don´t know if she´d approve of him getting pretty wasted off chicha (corn liquor) at noon, either, but he had to drink my share as, again, it was about the nastiest booze I´ve ever had. It tastes like the fermenting yeast water you use to bake bread. I stuck to eating corn prepared three ways...toasted, boiled and on the cob (NOTHING like sweet corn and I´ll be picking it out of my teeth for a year).
I´m feeling a bit crappy, as my stomach revolted over something last night and then my cold kicked in hard core first thing in the morning, so we loaded up on drugs at the pharmacy and I´m going to rest the rest of today and tomorrow and drink healthful tonics. Nothing too bad, don´t worry. We are going to go to THE biggest soccer match of the year tomorrow afternoon, which should be lots of fun. Friday, Edwin, his brother and I will rent a car and go to Papallacta and Chiriboga, south of town, for more Puya fun. Then begins the ten day haul through the south.
I´m glad to hear the Birge Hall key theft was resolved! I was a bit stressed about it, even from here. I hope Matt, Maggie and Berger had a lovely dinner. Someone should tell Ken about this blog...maybe he´d think it is funny. Anyhow, back to my room to read about paramos and eat vitamin C tablets.
Love,
Rachel
I can now officially say I´ve been to the equator, though I´ve already crossed it twice. We took several buses north of Quito to La Mitad del Mundo (middle of the earth). It is actually a pretty crappy, trash filled town, but they have this giant gated complex with museums and a big round earth on a pedestal statue. I didn´t feel like paying four bucks for us to go in to see it, so we took a picture of me from the parking lot. It isn´t even at the real equator (GPS tells us it is several hundred meters further north), but you can act impressed for me. The real exciting thing about Mitad del Mundo is...Puya, of course! The hillsides are covered in Puya aequatorialis, which has two color varieties...reddish purple, and whitish green. Also in the same area is Puya sodiroana, with a branching inflorescence and deep purple flowers. The two come into flower at the same time (after the first major rains in February...now they are just dried out and full of seeds) and are all pollinated by the same hummingbirds. So they hybridize, with any number of color and branching varieties. I think I might want to come back in February (before or after I´m in Bolivia again) when they flower and try to study this phenomenon. Its a nice sized project, I know where it is, and I´d get to hang out with hummingbirds....I´ll have to talk to Ken and other people who know about such things (Ms. Koopman! Make me a list of papers to read!!) first, though. It made me excited, though. The locals had burned them as best they could, to bring the rain, but they will come bouncing back!
Mitad del Mundo has a lot of ¨motels¨. I said ¨great, now I´ll have somewhere to stay if I come do studies here¨. Edwin laughed and laughed and explained that motels are places where couples can discretely rent a room for a couple of hours, away from the prying eyes of mainstreet Quito. Good to know! I know my dear sister in law Cole found that out the hard way in Lima... We had another autentico lunch in town, and I opted for my favorite fried pork chunks (at least I know what that is). Good think I didn´t say Ï´ll have the same when Edwin ordered, or I would have been eating coagulated sheeps blood in soup with tomatoes and avocado. Woah, that takes the cake for grossest food so far. He loves it, especially since his girlfriend won´t let him have it when she is around. I don´t know if she´d approve of him getting pretty wasted off chicha (corn liquor) at noon, either, but he had to drink my share as, again, it was about the nastiest booze I´ve ever had. It tastes like the fermenting yeast water you use to bake bread. I stuck to eating corn prepared three ways...toasted, boiled and on the cob (NOTHING like sweet corn and I´ll be picking it out of my teeth for a year).
I´m feeling a bit crappy, as my stomach revolted over something last night and then my cold kicked in hard core first thing in the morning, so we loaded up on drugs at the pharmacy and I´m going to rest the rest of today and tomorrow and drink healthful tonics. Nothing too bad, don´t worry. We are going to go to THE biggest soccer match of the year tomorrow afternoon, which should be lots of fun. Friday, Edwin, his brother and I will rent a car and go to Papallacta and Chiriboga, south of town, for more Puya fun. Then begins the ten day haul through the south.
I´m glad to hear the Birge Hall key theft was resolved! I was a bit stressed about it, even from here. I hope Matt, Maggie and Berger had a lovely dinner. Someone should tell Ken about this blog...maybe he´d think it is funny. Anyhow, back to my room to read about paramos and eat vitamin C tablets.
Love,
Rachel
# posted by Rachel Jabaily @ 5:59 PM 
