Tulipe and the Equator

A chance question to Jorge while walking in the cloud forest as to whether the native people of Ecuador had established trails like the Inca trail led to a visit the following morning to a 1 year old interpretative centre in the village of Tulipe which contains major religious sites of the Yumbo people who acted as go betweens between highland and coastal peoples in pre-Inca era. It seems they were keen astronomers and the structures here were not the base of sunken houses but were actually reflecting pools used as mirrors to look at the moon and stars.

The site is run totally by local people as a village enterprise and is very well done - the only thing wrong is the admission price; charging tourists only $2 for a 1 hour guided tour of a beautifully kept site is ridiculous; it should be more with a discount for Ecuadorians!
Showing the reflecting properties of one of the 6 major pools. This is a view looking into the crater of the Pasachoa volcano near Quito. The area is a forest preserve, but a small group of indigenous people continue to farm the base of the crater, which is the plug of an active volcano not a dormant one!
The volcano is near where the Ecuator intersects Quito. There is a fun interpretative centre there (although the guides knowledge of physics is bit sparse) where you can try experiments that demonstrate you truly are at the equator. There is the old standby of water going down the drain straight on the line, clockwise south of the line and counter clockwise north of it, but the real challenge was balancing an egg on a nail. Jane and I couldn't do it (we're blaming the wind), but we did see it done.
Ecuador nearly lost all its llamas to sheep farming, so the centre was our first encounter with this charming beast.

We then had a leisurely drive to Hacienda Pinsaqui near Otavalo, an 18th century hacienda, although all but one part had to be rebuilt in the 19th after a major earthquake. We were welcomed with traditionally cinnamon flavoured fruit tea and pretty potent cinnamon and cane alcohol liquer and had and hour before dinner of traditional local music and dancing in the cellar that is the part survived the aforementioned earthquake.