On Top of the World? In the Middle of the World? Where am I??

I neglected to write in my journal for a few days so I'm going to focus on just imparting the highlights of the next 3 days.

Tuesday (Oct 11) -I spent a splendiferous morning literally in the clouds! I took a ride up Quito's funicular which is apparently the 2nd highest one in the world (Where in the Waldo World is numero uno I wonder...) at 4050 meters. The view of the city was pretty much obscured at first but later on it cleared up considerably which made this photographer muy contenta, i.e. borderline orgasmic.

On a whim, I decided to go for a 30-minute horse ride at the top for $5. You know what? Scratch that. I was hardly feeling whimsical about getting on a horse again as it had been 17 years since I last parked my derriere on a horse (this being in the Tatra Mountains of the Czech Republic). My last horsey encounter did NOT go well for, even though I'd been repeatedly reassured that my Czech horse was lazy and thus slow, this had NOT been the case. It had practically galloped down the mountain side with a wicked grin and evil snort while one of my feet dangled precariously having slipped out of its stirrup. Nope. Never thought I'd mount a beast again (insert dirty joke here, Bob), but...never say never? And so...

I rode through the beautiful area and my horse ended up being mercifully slow and took its
sweet ass time, phew.

The final cool thing about Tuesday was that I met another solo female traveler named Clare from Australia. We ended up sharing a taxi down from the base of the funicular and in the space of a 10-minute taxi journey decided to join up on a tour of the jungle next week! It felt as if our meeting had been providentially pre-ordained.

On Wednesday (Oct 12), I returned to the South American Explorers Club as I had been in contact via email with the manager who reassured me that she would be there. Once there, I got a tour of the place and then joined the non-profit organization which entitled me to some free info packets on Peru (they don't have any for Quito just yet). The manager, an American gal who hails from Milwaukee, also recommended I book a tour of the Cloud Forest near Quito (which I did!)

In the afternoon, after a scrumptious pit stop at the Magic Bean Cafe for lunch, I hightailed it to the President's Palace on the Main Square of the historic district. While queuing to go on the tour, I got to chatting in nearly unintelligible Spanglish with a father/son duo by the names of Charlie, aka Carlos, and Brando, aka NOT Marlon. We stuck together like glue throughout the tour and afterwards they accompanied me to a nearby supermarket and pushed my cart around while I stocked up on bevies (diet coke, water, juice and, YES, a bottle of red vino). After dutifully taking photos of one another and exchanging email addresses, we bid adieu at my bus stop. Lovely gentlemen - the both of them! I'm still waiting for Brando to accept my friend request on Facebook though.

Thursday (Oct 13) was a magnificent day as I travelled to the MIDDLE OF THE WORLD where I met HILARY SWANK!! Okay, okay, I apologize for that obscure movie ("The Core") reference. But actually I did in fact go to a place called, Mitad Al Mundo, which translates as the Middle of the World. It is aptly named for it is where latitude and longitude romantically hook up (GPS 0 0' 0"). It was rather complicated to get there as I had to take 3 buses and the journey was nearly 2 hours long. But oh, was it ever worth the hassle! There's a charming little museum there called the Intinan Solar Museum at the end of a dirt road which looks like a bit of a dump, but looks in this case are indeed deceiving! It is a pretty damn cool place. My guide, Ivan, spoke good English and taught me a lot of nifty things about what it's like to be straddling the equator. Did you know that it is more difficult to walk a straight line on the equator without losing your balance thanks to gravity? It is also strangely true that your body becomes a tad lighter weight wise and your bodily strength is slightly diminished, all of which were demonstrated to our group by doing experiments. One final freaky tidbit I should share is that it is possible to balance an unboiled egg on the top of a wee nail on the equator. We were all given a chance to try our hand at balancing the egg and by golly miss molly I DID IT!! I received a signed diploma at the end of the tour commemorating my, cough cough, achievement. I felt strangely proud and plan to hang on to that paper to prove to all naysayers that I am an egg-balancing demon!

After the solar museum, I took another bus to the nearby exquisite, Crater Del Pululahua. It's essentially a dormant volcanic crater which is the home to a small agrarian community of 50 families. Due to the significant altitude here though (approximately 3000 meters), I only managed to walk down about 1/3 of the way to the bottom of the crater. Too much huffing and puffing and I feared blowing down all the quaint farmers' homes. There's also a lovely hotel/restaurant with a splendid view of the crater so I splurged a little on lunch there(a whopping $12 for a big bowl of potato soup, beer, and some sparkling mineral water), but it was delicious.

I'm happy to report that I'm feeling a lot less nervous about Ecuador and even Quito as the days have gone by but will remain vigilant about my camera (kept out of sight much of the time) and locking up my valuables in my room in my portable safe.

Is it possible to overdose on adventure? I am on such a high...