Shrunken heads, the misplaced equator, hummingbirds, zip-lines, landslides and more.

Last updated on April 30, 2022

Ecuador is the only country that is named after it’s location on the map. It’s name literally translates as “Republic of the Equator”. A funny thing happened however when a Franco-Spanish expedition attempted to map the equator in 1736. It turns out that they got it wrong. The place that they determined was the equator (and which prompted the Ecuadorian government to place a huge memorial complex) is actually 250 yards away from the actual equator. The mistake wasn’t realized until about 10 years ago when the Global Positioning System (GPS) was invented. The French astronomers were able to determine that the Earth is an oblate spheroid rather than a true sphere because there is a slight bulge to the Earth at the equator due to to the centrifugal force exerted by the rotation about the it’s axis. Fun fact…because of this, technically speaking, Mount Everest is not the highest point on earth – just the highest when measured from sea level. The honor actually goes to the lesser known Chimborazo in Ecuador. It’s altitude is far lower than Everest’s at 20,548 feet, but if you stand on its peak you are actually closer to space because Chimborazo is just 1 degree south of the equator, where Earth’s bulge is most prominent. Mount Chimborazo’s peak is the furthest point from the Earth’s center…over 6,800 feet farther than Mount Everest’s summit because the bulge accounts for a 1.3 mile difference from the center of the earth.

Ivan picked us up for a great day of exploring that started off with a trip to the actual equator at Intiñan Museum. This is a really interactive place that is great for kids and adults, You immediately get paired up with a tour guide that shows you around all of the exhibits. It is a little kitschy, but it was enjoyable and each exhibit was just the right amount of time to keep the kids interested. We learned how native tribes used to kill their enemies in battle and then would shrink their heads. First you chop off their head, then you pull the skull out of the head, and boil the skin and hair until it shrinks to a small fist size. You can place this on a necklace or on top of a pike to show off your kill. YIKES! Apparently this does not happen any longer to humans, but they do still do it to animals to preserve the culture and process. Fun fact: Your shrunken head is about the size of your fist.

We also learned about the candiru fish which is attracted to urine for some reason (which I vaguely recall from parasitology class in vet school). If you are swimming in the Amazon waters, the fish swims up your urethra into the bladder and grows there until it really causes problems and you need surgery to remove it. So…. the native men who wore next to nothing placed a rope around their waists to hold up their penis to protect the urethral opening from this fish. Sy and Griffin were aghast. Post visit internet research on this fish offers questionable validity to these claims.

When the male leader of the tribe died, his body was prepared in a tomb with his pots, food, belongings and his ALIVE wife, who was drugged with ayahuasca and basically buried alive to suffocate underground to be with her husband for eternity. WOW!

We did an experiment to prove the Coriolis effect from the rotation of the earth. We drained a bucket of water in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and in the North it drained clockwise while in the South it drained counter-clockwise.

We tried our hands at balancing an egg on a nail head which theoretically should be easier on the equator as the yolk falls straight down more quickly. We all got the egg balanced and got special certificates of accomplishment.

The nation of Ecuador would really like you to go to their official memorial to the equator (in the wrong spot) so we travelled the 250 yards to the Ciudad Mitad del Mundo. It is a tract of land owned by the government which contains the Monument to the Equator, a 98-ft tall monument that was constructed between 1979 and 1982 to replace an older, smaller monument built by the government of Ecuador in 1936. It highlights the approximate location of the equator and commemorates the eighteenth century Franco-Spanish Geodesic Mission which fixed its location. It is made of iron and concrete and covered with cut and polished stone.

There is a small playground next to this that the kids enjoyed for a while. Surrounding the monument are few touristy shops and many cool sculptures of hummingbirds. We walked to the top of the monument to see the view and took our time coming down as each floor has a display of the 4 natural regions of Ecuador. We learned about native clothing, religious beliefs, the Galapagos islands, and discoveries of remote pyramids that have not yet been completely explored. It was very interesting.

We stopped for lunch at Ivan’s favorite empanada joint, Empanadas Chilenas. They kids ate several large ones each. Chicken, beef and cheese were the options. Marin fed crust to the dog that came around…surprise.

We explored the Basílica del Voto Nacional near Old Town Quito. It is a Roman Catholic church located in the historic center of Quito and the largest neo-Gothic basilica in the Americas. The basilica was first proposed in 1883, as a perpetual reminder of the consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart. In 1895, the state established a tax on salt to provide funding for the building. The basilica was blessed by Pope John Paul II in 1985, and it was consecrated and inaugurated in 1988, more than 100 years after initial construction began. The basilica remains technically unfinished and local legend says that when the it is completed, the end of the world will come.

We walked up hundreds of steps to the top of both towers. The last part was about 75 steps up a narrow spiral staircase. Some of the floors on the way up had gifts shops, bathrooms and cafes. The view from the top was really lovely. You can see 360 degrees of Quito and the mountains. In addition to the typical gargoyles, there are gargoyles in the form of animals that can be found throughout Ecuador.

That evening, Trey, Sy and Griffin went out with Ivan to see Quito on foot. Quito, formally known as San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city of Ecuador and its most populous city with more than 3.1 million people in its metropolitan area. It is located on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountain range. At an elevation of 9,350 feet above sea level, it is the second-highest capital city in the world behind only La Paz. Bolivia. Quito’s historic center is among the largest and best-preserved in the Americas. The layout of Quito is typical of Spanish colonial architecture in the Americas. Spain actually wrote the Laws of the Indies in the 16th century which included provisions for the layout of new colonial settlements in the Americas and elsewhere. This set forth in detail on every facet of creating a community, including town planning. For instance it stated “To achieve the desired effect of inspiring awe among the indigenous peoples as well as creating a legible and militarily manageable landscape, new architecture was placed within planned townscapes and missions. New churches and missions were placed for maximum effect in terms of their imposition and domination of the surrounding buildings or countryside. In order for that to be achievable, they had to be strategically located at the center of a town square or at a higher point in the landscape. This is exactly the case in Quito with a large central square surrounded by several smaller squares with churches scattered throughout the area. There is even a street called Calle de las Siete Cruces where you can find seven large crosses while traveling just a short, straight portion of the old city.

Some of the highlights of the old city include 16th and 17th century churches like the Basilica of San Francisco, Iglesia de El Sagrario, and La Compañía, and grand squares like Plaza San Francisco and Plaza Grande with it’s monument to the First Cry of Independence that signaled the beginning of end of Spanish rule. There is also a huge statue called the Virgin of El Panecillo, also known as the Virgin of Quito, which is located on top of a nearby hill in the heart of the city and serves as a backdrop to the historic center of Quito. The statue was inaugurated in 1975 and at a total height of 135 feet it is the highest statue in Ecuador and one of the highest in South America—taller than Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It also ranks as the tallest aluminum statue in the world and the largest winged statue of the Virgin Mary.

We started the next day very early with a trip to Mindo and took the Mayhews advice and slapped on a lot of bug spray (they did this day of the tour before we arrived). On the way to Mindo we first stopped at the Alambi Reserve, a hummingbird garden located in the cloud forest where you can observe more than 30 species of hummingbirds and different tropical birds like toucans and parrots that feed on fruits that are put out in the garden. This place was really worth the trip! We could have watched all day. Marin got super cute hummingbird earrings and the boys got t-shirts. For avid bird watchers (Becky!), they have a few rooms they rent out that seemed rustic, but clean.

The next stop was the highly anticipated zip lining! Marin, Sy and Trey went as I don’t like heights and Griffin bailed at the last minute. This is probably a good thing as Sy was too light to make it across several of the lines and the guides had to bring him onto the platform by going out on the wire to get him, hand over hand. We went to Mindo Canopy Adventure, where you can choose between 1, 3 or 10 cable runs. We, of course, chose to do all 10. It was well worth it and only cost $20 a person. Most of the cables were done in the traditional, sit-down harness style, but you could opt to do an upside-down mariposa (butterfly) or a superman pose with a guide for a few of them. Trey did the Superman once and it was enough. Marin did the superman and mariposa whenever she could, of course. When they arrived back at home base after 10 zip lines over and through the canopy, Marin elected to do the extra extreme swing where you swing like Tarzan connected to a 40 meter long wire off a platform into a canyon. Marin and Trey were going to do it together, but, darn it, there was a maximum weight limit that he exceeded. Marin liked getting one over on them because the minimum age was 14 years old (she is 12 but our guide said she looked 14 here since she is tall). I watched 2 women do the Tarzan swing while we were waiting for our crew to get back. It seemed relatively safe. These two women will enter our story again a little later. Marin harnessed up, grabbed the ropes and off she went. She said she was scared at the first drop, but after that it was really fun.

We had a bite to eat for lunch at a cute local place that had excellent quesadillas and frozen strawberry and pineapple drinks. We then went on to a chocolate tour at El Quetzal, an awesome chocolate company in Mindo where we took a guided walk through their small farm, learned all about cocoa and the step-by-step process of making chocolate, and tasted all of their unique cacao fruit products. You can suck on the white cacoa seeds and eat the sweet, white fruit off of the seed. If you bite the seed it’s pretty bitter and dark purple inside. After the seeds are removed, they are fermented so the fruit comes off, then dried for several weeks, and then roasted and turned into cacoa nibs and paste which is then turned into liquid chocolate. The guide was from Portugal and was very knowledgable and adamant that white chocolate is NOT chocolate and milk chocolate is terrible as it’s mostly sugar and milk. The kids smirked a little because they only like milk chocolate BECAUSE it’s mostly sugar! Marin wasn’t smirking when she tasted the super pure dark chocolate (see photo below).. We got a bag of the coffee infused chocolate, a version that had a granular texture due to the sugar not being completely mixed in the process, and a bottle of chocolate honey syrup. We all left a little too full of chocolate and bought a giant loaf of homemade sourdough bread because who can pass that up?

Good thing we bought that bread…about 15 minutes into the 2 1/2 hour drive home, we got stuck in a traffic jam on the one paved road that goes from Mindo to Quito. The line of cars went for miles and everyone was getting out of their cars to see what was going on. There were venders walking down the road hawking their wares. Our driver and Ivan got out and walked up to see what was going on while Trey and the kids joined all of the people on the side of the road and did some exploring. There was a huge landslide and a car was caught in it so the road was closed for an undetermined amount of time. Apparently, this happens on an occasional basis and no one was all that surprised. We debated what to do as there is another road that goes around another way, but it would be at least double the time and there was no guarantee that the secondary road would be fully open as it also is prone to landslides. We were on a short clock as our flight to leave the country was early the next morning. The driver and Ivan decided to try to get through the town ahead, past the police roadblock to the hummingbird place where there is another road that goes through the mountains and up to Quito. Ivan uses that road 1-2 times per month and said it “should be fine.” There were multiple cars turning around as the rumor was the road was closed until mañana. Ivan ran down the road and waved the driver on when the way was clear and we slowly worked our way to the front of the line near the road block. Ivan went to speak with the police and asked them if we could get through as we were staying in a lodge by the hummingbird place (small stretch of the truth). They finally gave permission and we went through. Ivan’s guide friend asked us if we could take his 2 clients back to Quito so we paused to pick them up. It was the 2 women from zip-lining that I met and watched jump off the cliff! We had a nice chat on the way back. Small world, they were both pediatricians!

It took about 3 1/2 hours on the pass road to make it back to Quito. It was scary in the dark, winding our way along a bumpy, wet, dirt road. If you looked out the left window you saw green plants, trees, a narrow verge before a drop off. Who knows how far it went because it was too dark to see. There was a loud rushing river just out of site down below. If you looked out the right side, you saw the side of the mountain, with water running down it in streams and onto the road. Nothing about either view inspired confidence.This road made the road to Hana in Hawaii look like route 95!

For the first 45 minutes, we were the only car on the road. We saw one house with a light on inside and then started passing more cars coming down from Quito. I am glad to say we were on the right side of the road hugging the mountain instead of passing cars on the drop off side! There were a few tights squeezes past short lines of trucks, cars, vans and once a tree had to be removed from the road where it had just fallen. We distracted ourselves with chatting about our travels so far and ate the loaf of bread. The boys finally fell asleep just a little too close to our hotel which led to an epic Griffin meltdown in the lobby of the hotel. When is he over tired somehow he becomes paralyzed and his legs don’t work so he tries to swim his way on the ground. It is quite a site! The concierge even asked if we needed them to fetch “un medico” for him. Thanks, but we just needed a bed.

Later that night, we heard the very sobering news that the person caught in the landslide had died and they were waiting for the medical examiner to arrive before reopening the road. That was a real perspective check. We had passed the exact area of the landslide just a few hours prior on our way into Mindo. Mother Nature, fate, dumb luck. Whatever it was, we were so glad to be back in Quito in one piece!

We headed to the airport for our flight to San Andres, Colombia too early the next morning.

To give you a better understanding of Ecuador here are two unbelievable facts concerning this awesome country.

1. Voting in Ecuador is compulsory. Yep. You have no choice in not having a choice. This is thanks to a law passed all the way back in 1936. It’s compulsory for anyone between the ages of 18 and 65, non-compulsory for citizens aged 16–18, illiterate people, and those older than 65. Citizens who fail to vote are fined around $50. To facilitate universal voting, elections are always held on Sundays and seen as community events where everyone must contribute to the work of voting days. AMAZING.
2. In 2008 Ecuador became the first country in the world to enshrine a set of codified Rights of Nature. Their new constitution (they update it about every 10-15 years and have had 20 in their existence) recognizes the inalienable rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish, gives people the authority to petition on the behalf of nature, and requires the government to remedy violations of these rights. Its constitution is one of the first in the world to recognize the right to food. Ecuador guarantees its people, communities, pueblos and nationalities self-sufficiency in healthy culturally appropriate food. Ecuador does not see drug consumption as a crime, but as a health concern. Same-sex marriage is legal. Ecuadorians have a fundamental right to sexual orientation and, for the first time, gender identity. Until 2008, no constitution in the world recognized gender identity.

Ecuador is an amazing place to visit. The people are so kind. There is a simplicity to their way of life that we really appreciated. It was easy to get around and there is a good infrastructure for cheap, safe traveling. There is so much to see between Quito and its surrounding towns, the Galapagos (future post), the Andes mountains and the Amazon rain forest. The natural sites are truly stunning.