A standard weekend. . .

. . .NOT.

I´ll start off painting the picture for ya´ll on Saturday. So two posts ago, I wrote about visiting the Teleferico with my buddies Eamon and Greg. Well, we decided to go up it again but not stop where we did. . .we thought it might be a good idea to climb the whole 16,000 ft mountain called Mt. Pichincha (or some number very close to that height). However, we didn´t really think this out too much. . .for instance, my friend Kaitlyn was wearing sort of workout capris, ankle socks and tennis shoes. Others were wearing tees with jackets without hats or gloves. My friend Greg was the only dude who brought along food, which were an 8 pack of cookies (probably not the best energy type food you want on a hike). Anyways. . .

On the way to Mordor. . .

It was more or less right before we hit this point where I realize we are NOT prepared for what we are about to do. I myself was more or less good to go, wearin multiple layers and with my earflap hat. . .however, I had no gloves and thus reached a point where I couldn´t feel my hands. It was pretty strange to go higher and higher and actually see MORE biodiversity, such as budding flowers and beautiful moss. It had to be because of the increased moisture due to the fact that we were in THE CLOUDS for the last hour of the hike, as you can see us headin into it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPVNHMjedfk

And here we are crossing a rock ledge, peering into the abyss below. Yea that´s Phil up above on the trail, and you can hardly see him because of how cloudy it was. Thank GOD it didn´t rain, or else we would have had to either 1. go back or 2. power forward rocky style.

Anyways, we finally reach the top of this mountain. . .but we couldn´t really tell because we literally couldn´t see 20 ft around us. The top of the mountain, as Greg prefectly described it, felt like being on an asteroid. It was completely rocky, cloudy with zero visibility, with an incredible chill and wind blowing around like it was REALLY ticked off that we were there. Needless to say, I won´t be climbing Cotopaxi more than likely due to the fact that it´s basically 2 Pichinchas stacked on each other haha. Coming back down the mountain was much easier, but also led to a nagging headache due to the change in altitude which didn´t go away for a while.

But that was made much easier, when I got home and ate multiple servings of rice, chicken, vegetables, soup, natural juice, fried plantains. . .I was a happy camper. I left the house to go with Phil and Kaitlyn to see a bull fight thereafter. . however, we got to the plaza and the cops had closed the whole thing down for some reason I didn´t really understand. Since we were out already, we didn´t just want to call it quits so we went to get coffee and ice cream at a shop near the Mariscal. I ordered a hot chocolate and a crepe, and when it finally came I was like this: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness

 

So I destroyed the whole crepe, drank my hot chocolate, and it was good. The 6th day.

However, I didn´t rest on Sunday. We decided to go to the Mitad del Mundo (or the middle of the world for those who for whatever reason can´t figure that out) to check out the museum, take extremely touristy photos, etc. Just getting there was a production. . .we took one bus to this massive station, got into another bus to another massive station, and then took a third bus which finally got us there. You think there might be a single bus to get you from the main city to what I would think would be a main attraction. . .but nah this is Ecuador, where buses do whatever the hell they want.

Anyways we get to the main site, which is more or less this HUGE plaza full of small restaurants, shops, and a huge tower where the main line is supposed to be.

Being a tourist

Here´s a picture to give you an idea of the huge tower which has all the directions on it. . .and here´s the sign that tells you exactly where you are. . .

Except this sign is a big fat LIAR.

So they built this massive monument and planted all these shops because back in the day, they thought this was the actual ecuator. But thanks to the marvel of Garmin and GSP units, this is actually NOT TRUE AT ALL. The actual ecuator is at another site maybe a football field away, at a much smaller venue that featured a museum of different activities you could do on the actual ecuator line.

With real G.P.S.! That´s more like it

 

So on the Ecuator, there are a few neat things you can do, such as balance an egg on a nail (due to opposing polarity forces acting upon each other). Water also flows straight down, not counter clockwise as in the Nothern Hemisphere or clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Finally, the force of gravity is apparently stronger on the ecuator. . .so walking the line with your eyes closed and thumbs out is extremely hard to do aka don´t ever get pulled over for a sobriety test on the ecuator. All in all, it was a fun experience. . .something you like to do once to say ¨Yea I´ve been to the ecuator before¨ because that comes up a lot in conversation. Also, this next picture has nothing to do with the ecuator or anything, but I love it because it shows you the typical height of an Ecuadorian in comparison to Garrett, a 5´11 American born in Montana:

This probably explains why we were asked to play semi-pro bball

And that my friends, was my ¨standard weekend.¨ Ok I was lying when I said that, but hopefully you enjoyed a lil of what you read and saw. Coming up, a day in the life!