Journey to the center of the Earth

Jennifer and I decided to get the touristy stuff out of the way early. So we headed north to a city called La Mitad del Mundo. Taking the bus was an adventure as usual, and we ended up changing buses three times on the same route (mostly due to my own bad direction sense), but eventually we arrived at La Mitad del Mundo. For those that don't speak Spanish, the name of the city literally is "The Middle of the World," and it's famous for having the Equator run right through it. And, by the way, it's hard to miss.The huge monument was built some hundreds of years ago when some French guy wanted to celebrate the fact that he calculated the exact location of the Equatorial line. And there's a line on the ground up near the huge monument where the Equator is, so it just beckons tourists to do this:

But alas, the discovery of the equator has a sad little overtone, because this huge monument was built, as it turns out, about 240 meters from the actual equator. Intrepid in our search, we asked random folks around if they knew where the real equator is, including a very tiring conversation with a taxi driver who was convinced that the equator was at the big monument. But eventually we found out that if we walk down the street a little, we would stumble upon an ancient land...

And lo and behold, it contained the real Equator, as proven by GPS! For $3 each, we got a tour of a replica of an ancient Incan village, complete with spear-wielding tour guides and large plastic figures of men with their penises tied back to their stomachs (didn't take a picture of that... sorry to disappoint). And finally, we were treated to the physical wonders of the Real Equator, complete with water-down-drain demonstrations and a chance to "walk the line," which, due to the physical forces at the Equator, makes everyone look drunk! Naturally, we had to do this again:
And Jennifer even managed to balance an egg on its point! She was awarded an official certificate from the tour guide. So there it is, folks! We came, we saw, we touristed. Hey, guess what? My homestay mom who serves me dinner informed me yesterday that we're having guatita for dinner... stay tuned for Atahualpa's Revenge, part II.