The Equator

 We leave the Otavalo market to return to Quito, making a stop on  the equator.   The equator is an imaginary line around the center of the earth, an equal distance from the north and south poles. We’re going to visit an imaginary line?  Yes.  And I’m excited about it.      
In Ecuador, it’s not imaginary.  There is a red painted line showing exactly where the equator is.   Here Linda and I are standing on ...a red painted line.

Standing on the Equator

The only problem is there’s some dispute about exactly where that red line should be.     
A ninety foot high monument (San Antonio de Pichincha), finished in 1982, is supposed to mark the equator, but there is some argument that it’s over 750 feet south of the actual equator.  Scientifically, this is a big difference.  For me, it's close enough.

Monument to the Equator - San Antonio de Pichincha from
  http://www.turismo.gob.ec/san-antonio-de-pichincha-un-singular-destino-turistico-en-el-centro-del-planeta/

Equator Information
     
On the equator, you have twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness, year round.    The further away you get, the more drastic the seasonal differences in daily dark and light. The North Pole has twenty-four hours of sunlight on June 21 and a twenty-four hour night on  December 21. Reverse those dates to get twenty-four hours of day or night at the south pole.    
 A few hundred years ago Gustave Gaspard Coriolis observed that things that move on the earth’s surface, like air and water,  swirl right (clockwise) to the north of the equator, and in the opposite direction south of the equator.   All of this has to do with the rotation of the planet and its curve.       
 To observe the Coriolis effect, pour water directly into a drain.  If you're north of the equator, the liquid will swirl to the right; south --like New Zealand-- it will circle counter-clockwise.  The further north or south you go, the more obvious the water’s motion.  
     
So what happens to the Coriolis effect ON the equator?  If you’re in just the right spot, it will go straight down.  
The Coriolis effect also impacts weather patterns.  Just as water swirls less as it nears the equator, so does the movement of air masses.

   We measure the earth from north to south in ‘degrees latitude’.  The north pole is 90° north of the equator, the south pole is 90° south.* 
   

I am standing at 0°, watching children play.  Some things are the same everywhere. I take a bit of comfort in that...something about combining the observation of an unusual natural phenomenon with something sweet and mundane like children at play. 

Having seen the market and stood on the equator, we return to our hotel to prepare for tomorrow’s departure -- to the islands! 
     

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(Just to complete the geographical information-- longitude measures distance east or west of the ‘prime meridian’, which is 0° as it goes through Greenwich, England).