September 23, 2024.
Imagine the world turned on its side, spinning not like a carousel but rather like a tilted Ferris wheel revolving up and over the sun. North becomes west, and south becomes east, the equator dividing the halves. There is no global south; everyone takes a turn at the bottom. It is quite equalizing.
Also, imagine that all those science projects you’ve heard about demonstrating unique equatorial phenomena are just wrong. If, like me, you needed to pee as soon as you stepped off the bus, this will be one of the first things you will learn at the Quitsato Solar Clock Museum in Ecuador. Not only did my pee flush in the expected directions, but flyers on the colorful bathroom walls also explained the deceptive experiments.
Towards the end of our less-than-optimal stay in Quito, Ecuador, we took a day trip to this museum about 50 miles outside the city. Located in the metaphoric middle of nowhere, the museum is actually in the middle of the world. The words “quitsa” and “to”, derived from the Ecuadorian indigenous language, mean middle and world, respectively. And this isn’t just any middle of the world; it’s the real one (as the bathroom wall informed me), not the fake one where they demonstrate cheesy fake experiments in the nearby tourist city Mitad del Mundo. We had arrived at the real equator!
After our potty breaks, we visited the first of two exhibition rooms, the Andes room. Here we learned about the French Geodesic Mission to the equator. Upon leaving the Andes room and going outside, we found the Gelio Solar Simulator, which demonstrates the equinoxes, solstices, and other phenomena related to the sun.
Next came the museum’s highlight, the Quitsato sundial.
This sundial, the “largest and most accurate sundial in Ecuador,” is a 32.8-foot-tall pole wide enough for a person to stand in it. It is situated on the equator, in the middle of a 170.6-foot-wide stone mosaic circle. The circle has lines indicating the solstice, equinoxes, and hours of the day.
It was just before noon when we arrived, so we killed time by taking pictures from above until the sun was directly overhead and our shadows disappeared beneath our feet. I walked to the pole, pulled up the compass on my phone, and recorded our latitude, N00°00.000′!
As noon passed, we wandered into the beautiful adjacent agave garden, which contains more than 100 varieties of the plant.
Back at the museum, we visited the second exhibit room, the Equatorial Cosmos Room, where a staff member made a presentation. As we stood there in the middle of the world, everything above and below shifted to either side of us. It’s a little difficult to wrap your head around it, unless you are Greg. Here is what he thought…
OK. My phone’s GPS has a North-up setting. But after visiting this site, I believe that it should be “East-Up”. Why?
As I rotate around the Earth’s axis each day, screaming along at a thousand MPH toward the next sunrise, I feel that my relationship with the Sun and Moon is more informative than my link to the North Pole. Oh, as I approach the pole, my days could be longer or shorter, but time would still be measured in days. And if I lived on a tidal coast, my distance from the moon might signal some very important changes.
Now I know there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world now. But I think this is important. Please contact your congressperson and demand East Up.
Getting to the Quitsato Solar Clock
Our trip started in Quito by taking two city buses to Terminal Ofelia, one of the two bus terminals on the north side of the city. From there, we caught a Flor del Valle bus north on the Pan-American Highway towards Cayambe. The Quitsato Solar Clock website had instructions to get off at the La Bola de Guachalá, about an hour and twenty minutes outside Quito. I found the landmark on Google Maps and kept a close eye as we approached. When I saw it coming up, we indicated to the bus helper that we wanted to get off. The museum was just a short walk away.
This has 100% blown my mind. Also, it only dawned on me while reading your article that “Ecuador” means “equator”. I am like a baby, born anew.
Hey Katherine! So good to hear from you! And so happy to have blown your mind today!!!
I like this post, but for some reason I couldn’t “like”this post. 🙂
Such a cool stop, wasn’t it? And you had the perfect weather. We checked it out as well in our truck camper, but didn’t stay as long as you. Could you climb on the sundial to take photos from above? When I was there, I got the whole “east up” thing the guide tried to convince us about but now it is hard to relive and understand it all.
Hmmm… I’ll look into the “like” thing.
Yes, it was a cool stop. I think there was a place you could climb up, but I’m not sure if we did that. I don’t have any pictures. Maybe it was closed?
Yeah, when we were there it all made sense, but of course that was over a year and a half ago (I’m so behind). I tried to find info on the internet about this concept but couldn’t, which surprises me because it seemed so fundamental to their whole presentation. You’d think that they’d have a page that really explained this concept.
I’ve been having the same issue with the”like”. Other than that this is a very cool place!
Thanks, Margie! I’m not sure what is up with the “like.” The internet says it might be a browser issue. I was able to like the post.
You know, I thought I was subscribed to your blog. But it looks like I fell off somewhere. I have resubscribed.
SO fascinating! Also so glad you all had such a fantastic journey. I love seeing the van becoming a home. Hot as blazes here in Tucson. Best to you both, Meredith
Thanks Meredith! It was an amazing journey. I’ve heard about the heat. Hopefully we will be in Tucson this fall, and you can see the van in person! We’d love to get together.
As always, a very informative blog.