Afternoon of Day 2

                After we ate lunch, we visited the Museum of the Equator. The museum was an outdoor museum that lies right on the equator.  The first thing that caught our sight was the alpacas. After the alpacas, we were assigned a tour guide who showed us most if not all of the exhibits at the museum. One exhibition that stood out was the draining of the small tub of water into a pail under the tub. When the tour guide drained the water right on the “equator line,” there wasn’t any swirling motion that usually occurs when you drain a significant amount of water. When the tour guide moved the tub above the “equator line” and poured the water in from the pail, the swirling motion was clockwise. The opposite happened when the tour guide moved the tub below the “equator line” and poured water in. This is the result of the Coriolis Effect, which is the reason behind why people in the northern hemisphere observe that hurricanes rotate clockwise and people in the southern hemisphere observe typhoons, which are basically hurricanes, rotate counterclockwise.

        After having our minds blown at the Museum of the Equator we went back to the city of Quito. When we arrived we did a little exploration of one of the City’s many squares. Here we found an old Franciscan Church which was built in the 16^th century. Along with this we saw the first University built in all of Ecuador, commissioned by the Jesuits. In addition, we saw the presidential mansion, which was first inhabited by Simon Bolivar. Following 5-10 minutes of quite intensive exploration we found the main square in which hundreds of Ecuadorians were gathered, eagerly watching the Ecuador vs. Paraguay Soccer game which was the World Cup qualifying game. Gladly, the Ecuadorians crushed their opponents, four to one and there were no ensuing riots.