Back from our adventures we monged in the Old Town before moving hostel to Sunrise hostal in Mariscal to be bit closer to the action, and subsidised many cheeky cervezas by having super cheap (but very good) curries from a local place. The chef used to work in Guildford, so he knew his stuff.

Next day, jumped on a bus to the Midad del Mundo, thats the Middle of the Earth between friends. We did the whole gambit and went to all three options there. First the official monument , for many photos of us doing things with the red painted equator line, which is actually some 400 meters off after some daft Frenchman missed the mark, but still the most official one!

Next, on to a small scientific reseach place, who had been kicked out of the main site for telling tourists that it wasn't truly the middle of the earth, where the guy their showed us photos and graphics of small wall built by a pre inca civilisation on a mountain nearby, that is bang on the equator! Quick classroom lesson later and we were fully armed with facts and somewhat spooky figures about the famous 'line', two tee-shirts and his GPS system which directed us to a dusty lampost a little way up the road, where a small metal plate marks the true 00.00.00 line running through town.

Finally we, dismissed all the science and went into a rather tacky, but quite fun museum, where they perform tricks to 'prove' you're on the equator. Such irrefutable proof included water going plug holes in different directions despite being only metres either side of their equator line and everyone managing to balance an egg on a nail. This doesn't prove much, unless balancing eggs is something you try to do on a regular basis in different parts of the world!?

The official line: Easier because of the lack of gravitational pull on either side! Hmmm, I smell a rat, or is that bulls***e. It was all good fun tho'! Especially when a group of nuns on the run rocked up to try out their amazing feats of balancing skills. Thought they had more important things to do, like make magic creams.

The next day we washed all the equator dust out of hair at the Papallacta pools. Yeah, thats Ecuadors most fancy set of thermal pools. After two hours on the bus, we were hopping from one to another surrounded by beautiful misty cloud forest on all sides. Even managed to score a lift with a nice old guy and his buddy back into town in his super comfy 4x4, taking an hour off the journey home....perfick! Or at least we thought everything we perfect, until we arrived back in town only to find dozens of confused and sober gringos wandering around looking lost.

Discovered to our absolute horror that the whole city was on alcohol shut-down because of the elections! What? We can't even vote for one of the 400 candidates. Further panicked investigation followed and the whole disturbing truth came to light....there was a total ban on booze for three full days....the entire weekend....even dodgy off licences had police patrols stationed outside checking peoples purchases!!!!! Stumbled muddled into a pizza joint where we found out what it must feel like to be Christian with our little personal pizzas and cokes on a Friday night. Aaaarrrghhhh! Suffice to say, the weekend dragged a tad.

By Sunday, thoroughly f***ed off, in a scary state of mental clarity for the first time in over a decade, and feeling odd after a very strange meal in a see-thru' restaurant.....strange because we were forced to enjoy our meal in total sobriety, and because we also ordered coffees like grown up people at the end rather than neck the unnecessarily ordered second bottle of wine as usual.....and we were ready to leave for pastures new. Colombia does produce more than just coffee, right?