Monday, February 19, 2007

Equator, Ecuador



In 1736 Charles-Marie de la Condamine and his French expedition determined the location of the equatorial line at 23 kilometres north of Quito. Here at the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the world) is a giant monument dedicated to him, located in a tourist complex.

According to modern GPS measurements the location is 150 metres away where the Museo Intinan is located. Here a guide conducts a number of experiments to prove this is the point where all forces equal out. It's amazing to see - on the equator water drains straight down the plug hole instead of spinning clockwise or anti-clockwise. A few metres to the left and right the water spins in each direction.
(Photo - Me on the Equatorial line)

1 comment:

tobias dezulian said...

hey maria, it's tobias. we met briefly at the papaya internet cafe. i'm impressed by your pictures. what camera are you using? and which lenses? please let me know at any rate.

you've obviously got an excellent eye for choosing perspective and composition. hope i'll learn more of this, too.
you seem nice and i got the feeling it might be fun meeting you for a beer (or fruit juice) -- even though you leave a day later. if you're interested, go ahead and mail to me at tobias.dezulian@gmail.com //

best,
tobias

ps: also got a blog at http://struio.blogspot.com/
but it's german. my first pictures are at http://picasaweb.google.com/tobias.dezulian/WeekOne
// albeit with my little lumix camera -- i'm not ready for showing the canon 350D SLR in public before i've finished with the galapagos islands.