Day 5: Museo del Sitio Intinan

A sign in the Sitio del Museo Intinan

After our visit to Yunguilla, we went to the equator museum, a popular tourist destination. The museum is a place to learn about the cultures, wildlife, and geography of Ecuador.

Shrunken head from a 12-year-old boy.

First, we viewed specimens of wildlife, including an anaconda and two spiders. We also got to see two shrunken heads. The Shuar people, an indigenous group, shrunk the heads of enemies they had killed, and the museum has two of these heads in its collection. The process the Shuar used begins this way:
1) cut the head of the victim
2) remove the skull and add a stone (this is the part that gets shrunken!)
3) boil the head to clean it out
4) sew the lips shut (the Shuar believed this would keep the spirits of the victim inside)
We were not allowed to photograph the second shrunken head, as it is old and fragile, but it was incredibly lifelike and creepy.

An anaconda at the Museo del Sitio Intinan.

We also visited an Incan grave. The grave looked like a small cave, and was filled with things the dead person would need in his or her next life. For married couples, if the woman died first, she would be buried and her husband would be free to remarry. However, if the man died first, the woman would be buried alive with her husband, with only a potion to put her to sleep as she was buried. Just another example of the oppression of women!

Incan grave. The dead were buried in the fetal position.

Ms. Meyer and Ms. Ekwall, Hopkinton's K-5 curriculum coordinator,
standing in front of the old (inaccurate) equator marking.

The major attraction of this museum is, of course, the equator line. Fifteen years ago, a GPS was used to calculate the position of the equator, and the location was marked. Each of us took 3 photos: one in the northern hemisphere, one in the southern hemisphere, and one on the equator. There is an earlier equator line that was placed incorrectly, based on older calculations done without the benefit of GPS technology. Today it marks the entrance of the museum.

(Left) Ms. Meyer, standing on the equator!
(Right) Mr. Norton, a Center School teacher, tries to balance an egg on a nail.



This was just a great day overall, and to top it off, we visited a market in Quito for some shopping. One of the coolest things I saw was earrings made out of fish scales, but everything in the market was beautiful.

Fish scale earrings

 

Market stall in Quito market.
So many beautifully colored souvenirs!

At dinner, I noticed a Subway restaurant across the street. Footlongs are $3, rather than $5. Subway is one of the many American chains we’ve seen in Quito and Otavalo. Others include McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and KFC. We’ve stuck to Ecuadorian food, though. If you ask me, toasted corn, plantain, and pork rinds can beat a Big Mac any day!

Subway, with a $3 foot-long sub of the day.