Here I am back near Quito.
The past two days I have been in the mountain areas north of Quito. The markets and Lake and today we visited a Crater Lake about 30 minutes from where I stayed last night.
A very interesting place – because its a national reserve – they have developed some walks to ancient sites around the Lake. The Lake is of importance to the local people.
One place was a sun dial – but the sun was hiding behind clouds so I could not see it working. my guide started to explain about the angle of 23.5 deg – more about this later.
down into a little town that is famous for leather goods. firstly we checked out the church – it was getting ready for a funeral so we did not stay long. Around the corner to a small museum in a beautifuul restored building. it had been used by the local council as their hq and since they moved it has become a museum of local culture.
Very interesting and I loved the building as well. After we had looked around the ground floor – the caretaker invited us to go upstairs. (Now the building had an open courtyard with balconies running around the top floor over looking the courtyard. the floor was a beautiful polished wood and the rooms were out of this world. The big one across the whole front of the building had been the council meeting room with paintings of all past mayors and government officials. The walls were painted in shades of blue.
We did not realise that we had been there for two hours – so quickly into some leather makers to look for a new jacket. the third place had what i wanted and five minutes of sorting out price and we were on our way again – this time back to Otavolo for lunch. We went into a very local place and I had boiled fish with onions – avocado – and roasted corn. Oh and a zero beer – and all for US$3.50.
After that back over the mountain to where I am now – with one stop first.
Being in the country called Ecuador – you have to visit the Equator line. This was called Cayambe – and is the spot closest to the highest point that the equator line runs thru and the only place in the world where there is snow on the line.
The local guide gave us a complete run down of the history of the place and the giant sundial. If we had been there at 12.00 noon on 23 September – we would not have seen a shadow because the sun was directly overhead. For this reason – they call the place The middle of the world. check out www.quisato.org this organisation have studied many sites around and have discovered how exact the ancient sundials were. Even the north south line of stones was exactly on the 00 latitude. It will be interesting to see the GPS reading on the photos I took. Very interesting and the 23.5 angle was explained again.
Where we started in Quito a few days ago – we checked out the four oldest churches and my Guide pointed out that they all had the symbol of the Sun both inside and out. Well it turns out that these churchs were build on the line of 23.5 deg. By the by – the early Church (RC) wanted to get the local people on-board – so this is why they included the sun into everything and I believe today – they still do – talk about a Bob each way.
The hotel I am staying at is great – I will try and include some photos taken on the tablet’
Tomorrow – into the valley of the volcanoes – with Cotopaxi still smoking – we will be on the other side of the valley. If it does blow its top – I should get a good view.
Till then chau