With an Ecuadorian woman I went to the Mitad del Mundo, the center of the world. This is not far away from Quito! The Ecuadorian accompanied me in an instant. Generally Ecuadorians are always receptive to join an activity - great!

Not quite the actual center of the world
The equator runs right through Ecuador. In the small town of Mitad del Mundo there is a small exhibition and it is described how gravity here shift a little when you are at the equator. For example, here at the equator you are 0.5 % lighter than for example at the south pole (because the earth is not a perfect sphere).

Mitad del Mundo marks the place where Charles Marie de La Condamine was the first European to determine the exact position of the equator with a French expedition in 1736. I finally found myself with one leg on the southern hemisphere and the other on the northern hemisphere hehe

However, today's calculations have shown that the equator is actually 240 metres further north. So my two legs were only in the southern hemisphere, but even that was a novelty in my life!

We went to have a lunch in a small place where they even offered grilled guinea pigs. Yikes!

Forfeiting my return ticket back to Germany

Actually, I had planned to return home after 5 months of travel, but as I still hadn't had enough of Latin America I decided to travel on. I had already booked my return flight ticket before (unfortunately). It should go from Sao Paulo to Munich. Fortunately I had booked a flexible ticket with Lufthansa. I wanted to postpone the date by 6 months.

They told me that this route would no longer exist and that I would have to pay a rebooking fee as well as a surcharge for a new route and thus a further surcharge for a new fare class. So in total, the rebooking costs would have been nearly 500 € and more expensive than a normal return flight ticket and this although I booked a flexible ticket. I let my ticket expire, approximately 500 € were gone!