Skyrail

September 20, 2014

So today I heard we were going up a mountain, maybe on a hike. I didn't pay much attention as usual. After we got out of the brain flipper (aka taxi), I found out we weren't hiking. We were taking (as they call it) the Skyrail. That's the machine that takes you up a huge hill for skiing. I was majorly freaked out because of my fear of heights.

On the ride up we saw an amusement park. The ride took about ten minutes and we were moving at almost 10 mph. I almost passed out when we got off. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but I was relieved it was over.

When we got to the top we all sat down even though we didn't do anything. Later, we walked around when Maeve suddenly got altitude sickness. So Dad and Maeve stayed behind while Mom and I went ahead and took the exhausting journey higher. Pushing ourselves to climb that much higher was miraculous. It was already hard, but when it's 12,000 feet, it's a lot harder. It got so cold I had to wear two coats. There were so many different platforms. I can appreciate a view or two, but it wasn't too great. We took some photos and went on our way.

Overall, I feel we didn't really get the bang for our buck. I mean $36 for four peeps. We didn't really do much.

Equator in Ecuador

September 9, 2014

The 45 minute drive to the Equator gave me a headache. When we got there, we saw two letters N and S for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. We also saw the big red line that separated them. Sadly that was not the real Equator. The real one was calculated by GPS. The first one was just predicted in the 18th century and they didn't have the right tools to calculate the Equator. We went to both. On the fake one there was a tall building with the Earth on it and it had north, south, east and west labeled on it. We got to go in it for $20. It wasn't very high, but there were those telescope things where you put a quarter in to see super far away. Fortunately, I brought my wallet and got to look through it. There were huge snow capped mountains. I also watched some kids play soccer, unfortunately the team I chose lost.
    Later, we went to the main little shops and got some frozen box ice cream. It turned out to be cookies & cream flavor. We walked around a little and found a park.
    Finally, we went to the museum which held the real equator. We learned about the tribes who lived there were bare naked. The boys had to tie up their "thing" to stop a fish from getting in because they're too lazy to wear underwear. The worst part was that there were photos.
     We did experiments with water. So, if you put water in a bucket on the equator and drain it out, it will just pour out and won't spin at all. But if you put it on the Southern or the Northern hemisphere the water will spin left or right as it drains. Then, we tried to balance an egg on a nail. Of course, I epically failed and never got it, but my mom did on her first try. When it was time to go, we saw a restaurant that served Guinea pig. It is a specialty in Ecuador. I don't think so. {Editor's Note: Museum's experiments were dubious - Coriolis effect is extremely small at this scale so water swirling clockwise or counterclockwise down a drain just a few feet north or south of the equator had much more to do with the guide's finger starting starting the swirl in the preferred direction.

Panama Canal

September 1, 2014

Today was going to be a long day; I could smell it. Not really, it just sounded cool. Anyway, today we were going to the Panama Canal. If you don't know what that is, it's like a huge dock, except that it has to go through locks to get to the other side. If you don't know what locks are, then shame on you. They are gates holding chambers of uneven water, but before they open, they have to even out the water. It takes about 9 hours for a boat to get through the entire canal. So yaaaa. I don't know why the workers didn't save themselves the hard work and the boringness when they could have had the boats just ride down the uneven water. That would be RADICAL TO THE MAX!!

Anyway, we drove to the canal, bought tickets for like $100 together and went inside the museum. We looked at the history of the canal while a little boy grabbed my butt. Don't say awwww, because it's not cute. Meanwhile a grown woman sneezed in my face. There was a lot to see, besides her boogers. There were 4 floors of the museum alone. We saw dead bugs that the workers had to deal with while making the canal specifically, scorpions, tarantulas, fire ants, the list goes on. Later, we went to see a 30 second movie in 3D. After that, we had a 100 dollar lunch. Since we missed the boats coming in, we waited 3 hours for them. Finally, a little cargo boat came in followed by a huge cruise ship. It was called the Carnival something, I don't know.
Eventually, we jumped into an unlicensed taxi that took us home without robbing us or worse.
Peace out