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Museo Inti-Nan

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Shady Ady
Shady Ady
First Reviewer
5 out of 5
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Museo Inti-Nan

  • August 8, 2007
  • Rated 5 of 5 by Shady Ady from Hinckley, United Kingdom
Museo Inti-Nan

Upon visiting the overcrowded tourist attraction of Mitad del Mundo, a celebration marking the equator, I certainly felt cheated after paying the $2 entrance fee and finding it to be a lie, a good 250 metres off the exact spot. Nowadays it's more of a monument to Charles-Marie de la Condamine and his 1736-1744 Geodesic Mission. It's amazing how close he managed to get with such limited technology. Thanks to GPS technology though a new attraction has arrived, Museo Inti-Nan, claiming to be located directly on the equator.

After paying the very reasonable $3 entry fee you are given the choice of guided tours in both Spanish and English, where you get to experience a number of equatorial related experiments all of which fascinatingly work. Such experiments include the well documented water down the plug hole, strength tests, balancing an egg on the end of a nail and trying to walk down the equator with eyes closed, looking like a drunkard in the process. It really surprised the differences witnessed in carrying out these experiments on the equator and just one metre either side. It is an eerily strange spectacle.

This isn't all you get for your entrance fee. Alongside these experiments is a wealth of other attractions including a 19th century solar chronometer (quite fascinating if this tickles your fancy!) and a tour through a small selection of Ecuadorian history and heritage where traditional burial sights, houses, and the joyous process of shrinking heads can be viewed. The latter is till carried out in some jungle tribes, but today, thanks to Ecuadorian law it is the head of the poor defenceless sloth and not that of a human which is used. The best part for me though was actually having the chance of shooting a blow pipe, something I failed to participate in while on an earlier trip to the jungle. My once proud lungs and feeble strength failed combined to ruin any chance I had in shooting the arrow tipped dart into a cactus pad 12ft away.

I can not recommend this museum highly enough, especially over its more illustrious neighbour Mitad del Mundo. Visiting from Quito couldn't be easier. If travelling from the main gringo haunt of the La Mariscal district, walk up Avenida Colon to the intersection with Avenida Americas and catch a blue bus going north to the end of the line ($0.25), just past Casa Blanca football stadium on your left hand side, home of LDU de Quito. Here green buses to Mitad del Mundo ($0.15) leave every 10 minutes. The journey takes 40 minutes in total. Getting back you can catch any of the passing Otavalo buses returning to Quito ($0.50).

Once at Mitad del Mundo walk to your right for two minutes to reach Museo Inti-Nan. For more information you can view their website at www.museointinan.com.ec, email them on museo_intinan@yahoo.es or phone on either +593-2-2395122 or +593-09-730-9508.

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