2006-12-29T10:42:00.000-08:00

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Finally, welcome South America, bienvenidos Ecuador!!!! Welcome to the country that defines the tropical!!!!
The obvious starting place is Quito, the capital.. Certainly starting from the old city, a world heritage site for colonial architecture...

Always better to have a top down view first =)...
I went there with an american who lives there.. While entering it said, be cautious while climbing on the sign... She looked at the sign and said, "oh god!!! They even have a warning sign,, it really must be something!!!!!=)... Look at the second picture and imagine that staircase being 35 meters above the ground with no protection at all, and you will understand what she means =)....

Isn´t it worth danger, isn´t it worth the adventure?

These are the warm ecuadorian people. The lady in white is getting married to his husband again with her husband after 50 years!!! One wonders,,, you look for an answer you write songs for it, you want to believe it but everything outside pushes you not to, you don´t want to make fool of yourself you raise your defenses,, at the end you have nothing but suspicion... But looking at this picture,,, maybe it is true, maybe it is worth it, maybe the real love exists, and maybe you can find it even in the furthest points in the world... I wish them a happy life together forever...

And my colonial architectures of course... And they were able to conserve the historic old city, thanks to conscious people around... We need more of those guys in Turkey certainly...

And now, the regular japanese touristy bits of my trip... I am in the middle of the world... French scientists came here on an expedition and calculated the point where equator line passes through with their triangulation around 1500s... And then they put a huge monument signifying the advancement of french science at that time... But guess what.... They were wrong!!!! Soo they are now shouting whole world that they were wrong with a huge monument 200 meters away from the middle of the world =)... Soo the first 4 pictures I have are not really in the exact middle of the world.. The second one is though, later proven by Americans too with GPS devices... Soo the second one is my picture in which my left foot is in the south hemisphere and my right foot is in the north.... =)

Those two pictures are from the very interesting ethnographical museum inside the fake monument for middle of the earth. It contains information, relics and models about 20 different races-cultures that are living within the borders of ecuador... You can find more about them in ecuador culture drops page...

And these are from the museum near the real equator. The first picture shows some of the herbs and stuff that are used for shamanic healing.. The last three, you can look at the pictures and try to guess (Answer is below the explanation for the next picture )

And me hunting some birds for the poor locals =)

BTW answer for the 3 pictures question above.. They show a procedure and its result from the Shuar tribe that lives in Amazonas of Ecuador. After they kill an enemy the warriors of these tribe actually like to get the heads of their killed enemies as a trophy and actually make a necklace from it... The first picture shows how they cut off the head and then boil it inside a secret combination of herbs that causes the head to shrink down (scientists are still trying to find the correct herb combination and weren´t able to find up till now). Once they boil it down, in the second picture you see how they make their actual trophy of war, they take out the eyes and then sew the eyes and the mouth (the reason is that they believe otherwise the spirit of the deadbody will run away through eyes or mouth!!!) =). And the third picture actually shows the result of this process. It is applied to an indigenous child and this is the real mummified head of an indigenous child who was killed 50+ years ago.... BTW, if you are interested in buying on of those heads, it costs around 100.000$,, not bad for billionaire psychos isn´t it!!!?

And more of my beautiful colonial architecture in quito of course.. The green mountains behind the colonial architecture is the thing that struck me as beauty of quito.. This is only old city though, I believe the new city ( called mariscal also) is not as beautiful I didn´t even go for seeing it as I only reserved a week for whole of ecuador ( you will see how wrong I was in my planning later)...

Heyy, Ecuadorians have some musical taste and a sense of humor too... Just watch the second guy moving back on your ass making the exact same moves you are doing and you will understand... You really have to watch your back in Quito =)

Night passes, details of the night stays in the night... Now I am heading for the famous ottavala market, which is apparently second to none during weekends in south america.. Unfortunately I am going there on christmas day, which is not a saturday either.. But there should still be something for my taste... Of course I don´t forget to take some memleketim manzaralari from Ecuador on the way...

A small proof that even Turkish is enough for basic survival in Ecuador. =)

And I am finally at ottavalo, I buy 2 very cool woven 100% cotton shirts, one necklace and a wristband, pay 15$ in total for them after Turkish bargaining =).. And the picture is for free in exchange =)...

As you can see ottavala is a colorful city, I wander around and enjoy the streets made with combination of creativity of ecuadorians and money from the tourists... Through the market in the second picture, you can see another old friend the shy volcano of imbabura.. I decide to have some better views of it, so head towards lago de San Pablo, which is another gorgeous ecuadorian lake as you will see soon...

On my way I see an indecisive ecuadorian cow,,, the grass here is good, hmm the other side looks good too!!! I decide to take picture as it reminds me of my years in Bilkent =))

I told you lago San Pablo was gorgeous.. It is a lake in the mountains with high altitude and totally fresh breathable air... The simple proof, look at where the clouds are!!! This is the second thing I like about ecuador, besides the green mountains, the clouds are always so close to where you are in general as the mountaineous part of the country is pretty high....

Who says that ecuadorian villagers wash their clothes differently than Turkish villagers.. They are not singing Turkus that is though =).. Maybe I should have showed them some =P

And this is the good old imbabura,, seems tired after all its eruptions... Now it is a wise mountain sitting on top with clouds around him you know what they say in turkish big mountains have cloudy heads.. (Buyuk daglarin basi dumanli olur) =)

Enough of hiking, I don´t care if it is christmas and I am Turkish... Nothing stops me from partying!!! They tell me merry christmas, rather than trying to explain why turkish don´t celebrate christmas I ignore, celebrate their christmas, and dance and dance and dance.... As you can see from the picture even the rain can´t stop us.. Now I am free, nothing can stop me, nobody can tell me what to do... Now I am free working hard thinking hard travelling hard... Why should I party soft... Cheers!!!

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My quito mitad del mundo and ottavala