The Center of the World

CHAPTER 21

As we rolled down the smooth highway towards Quito, Kacey anxiously watched the readings on our GPS.  00.104, 00.062, 00.023, 00.008, 00.002… Ok, Stop!  I stopped the truck on the shoulder of a rather nondescript 2-lane country road, and looked at the glowing display in Kacey’s hand:

Longitude: 00° 00.000’ North

Latitude:   78° 10.524’ West

It was incredible- after 10,164 miles, and 116 days on the road, we were sitting directly on the Equator!  We laughed. We hugged. We yelled for joy!  It was the comprehension that now we were over the edge of the world, and heading downhill towards Argentina.  It was the realization that we might actually be able to complete this crazy trip.  And it was the happiness knowing that we had gotten this far together, and that whatever the road may bring in the future, we could handle it.

A couple hundred yards down the road we came to a little restaurant aptly named “El Centro del Mundo” (the center of the world)- which touted itself as being built directly on the equator, but apparently had been built before the days of GPS.  The nice kid at the door showed us the balancing egg trick (if you looked close enough, you could see the small divot where the end of the egg rested) and assured us that that the toilets didn’t drain clockwise nor counter-clockwise, but rather just kind of “went down straight”.  I don’t know about the toilets, but my celebratory equator beer certainly did go down nice and straight!

Having surmounted our first hurdle for the day, we soon came to our next:  trying to fight our way through the traffic clogged streets of the nearly 30 mile long metropolis of Quito- during rush hour.  My mom Kathy was staying at a hotel in the New Town part of the city and we pulled up to the door just at sunset. It was fantastic to see her and it felt like coming home after a long trip.  Indeed it had been a long trip, and she was the first person from home we had seen in nearly 4 months.  We got settled in our room and then went out for a nice steak dinner to celebrate.

Quito is a big city, and like all big cities, especially those in Latin America, it can take a toll on you after a few days.  Having learned this lesson well earlier in the trip, we made a short list of the sights in the city that we wanted to see the most and then hit the streets like true tourists, with the ambition of keeping up our momentum before the smog and the traffic, the crowds and the garbage, the constant noise of too much humanity trying to live in too little a space- all those things that make a large city exciting and draining at the same time- caught up with us.  We strolled through the antiquated streets of the historic Old Town, we took a tour of the presidential palace, we rode the gondola up to the top of Ruca Pichincha at an elevation of 13448ft for an incredible panoramic view of the expansive city below us, and we took a day trip north to the Saturday market in Otovalo- where we all walked away with our arms full, but our pockets quite a bit lighter.

We wanted to spend Thanksgiving in a more relaxed atmosphere, so the three of us loaded into the truck, and drove south to the small village of Baños.  The town is nestled at the bottom of a deep valley, at the foot of the massive active volcano Tungurahua.  Because of this, and the reason for the town’s namesake, is that there are a bunch of thermal hot springs, turned public baths, fueled by the bubbling lava flowing up directly under the city.  The contrast with Quito was like night and day: the crisp mountain air was invigorating, the lazy plaza was calm and relaxing, and tourists and locals alike spent their days soaking in the boiling waters of Las Piscinas de la Virgin under the spray of a waterfall cascading from the heights of the volcano.

Trying to carry on some part of the Thanksgiving we were used to at home, Kacey and I woke up early that morning and held the first annual Ecuador Turkey Trot- with mom cheering us along on the sidewalk, and to the curiosity of the locals, we ran a big loop around Baños.  It might not have been a true 5k, but it sure felt like it at that elevation.

Turkey is actually a little hard to come by in the middle of Ecuador, and we opted out of the local favorite, roasted cuyi (guinea pig), so Thanksgiving dinner turned out to be grilled chicken, plantain soup, a poor substitute for Mexican nachos, hummus and pita bread, and, the only traditional item: apple pie with ice-cream for dessert.  You can never reproduce the feeling you get from actually being at home with your family and friends during the holidays, and we certainly did miss them dearly, but we were all thankful to be together, and to be on this amazing trip.

November was nearing its end, and we had made plans with mom to meet her in Cusco, Peru for Christmas- another 2500 miles, and dozens of adventures down the road.  We got mom situated in a comfortable hotel, said our goodbyes, and drove up out of the valley as we watched Volcán Tungurahua disappear in our rearview mirror.