Going to Ecuador meant that, for all purposes, I was just about walking along the equator all those six days.
La Mitad del Mundo (The Middle of the World) is, of course, the most well known monument that marks the equator. But there is a lot more to the equator in Ecuador, and this predates the French astronomers' scientific expeditions in the 18th century.
As tour guides and museum exhibits repeatedly reminded me, the more archeological activities are carried out, the more the world is finding out about the peoples who lived in this part of the Andes, and how much they had understood the world while living at the earth's equatorial bulge.
On the way to Otavalo, we stopped at yet another marker for the zero degree latitude--at Cayambe. Apparently the equatorial line at this spot has been determined to be within millimeters of accuracy. While this determination itself is a modern one, studies by anthropologists and archeologists are apparently providing new insights into how the hills nearby were sites where in the past the indigenous Andean groups held celebrations marking the equinoxes and the solstices.
In other words, the people in the past knew they were high up on the equator. The real "mediterranean" people, in contrast to those Europeans who incorrectly named the sea by their lands to be the middle of the earth.
It was a scenic spot where this marker lies. But then, which place in Ecuador that I went to wasn't scenic!
Every one of these markers for the equator comes with stories--some of which might be exaggerations, of course--of the Andean peoples' knowledge of the equator. There was one point that the guide here said that made sense. On a world map, as you trace a path along the equator, you notice that a lot of that is the rain-forests. These places, naturally, did not lend themselves into understanding the sky, which was how we developed an understanding of the earth, its round shape. If you lived amidst the jungles of the Amazon or the Congo, you had a very limited view of the sky.
The Ecuadorean northern highlands are a wonderful contrast to the forests--the open skies gave the indigenous groups, more so in the old days before electricity, one of the most expansive views of the sky ever possible on the planet. They noticed the Sun moving around, and systematically. The Sun went and came back. The figured that there was a limit to which the Sun moved--the limits that we recognize today as the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
The guide there was obviously passionate about the cultural heritage, and the urgency to preserve the sites with archeological significance. I asked her, "when you think about it, don't you get upset that the Spaniards wiped out your peoples and their histories?"
I get charged up thinking about this. It is horrendous.
"Yes. It upsets me even more that the ancient sites are being destroyed. All the mining is blowing up the historic sites" she replied.
I was beginning to feel the pain she walked around with.
"Even the churches at Quito were all built on sites that were of importance to our people. They destroyed them."
There is simply no way to compensate for the injustice, I thought to myself. Here was this beautiful young woman struggling to deal with her own identity, her cultural heritage, and has to do that with fragmented stories from the past even while fighting to protect whatever remains from being destroyed.
"I am surprised that you are able to smile even as you say all these" I told her.
"It is all in the past. There is nothing we can do."
I asked for her permission to take a photograph, and she said "sure."
"You speak very good English. Where did you pick it up"
"Mostly from talking to tourists" she said.
I wished her well, and dropped an additional dollar bill as my contribution to ensuring that the ancient sites will not be dynamited away.
It is difficult not to think about the Andean peoples. I feel one with them.
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