Ecuador - Middle of the World

The journey from Kiel to Quito is very exhausting because the sleep rhythm is completely disrupted by the early departure time, the long flight duration, and the 7-hour time zone difference.

But the reunion with Andrea and the first impressions of this different world were so beautiful and exciting that fatigue only got to me in the evening.

The first excursion today went to Mitad del Mundo - the middle of the world - a place with many information buildings about the cultural history of Ecuador. Here at the equator, you stand with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere, or you balance with one foot exactly on the equator line.

The drives by car over the crazy, pothole-studded main traffic routes around Quito already offer a deep insight into the drastic social division of the population. The fat SUVs race past flag-waving vegetable sellers, unlit mopeds weave past old VW T1 buses and diesel-smoking trucks, and Venezuelan refugee families live on the traffic islands and offer lollipops to passing drivers. The boundary between these worlds is not so clearly marked, but hardly overcome and therefore even more impressive.