Ecuador Means Equator in Spanish

After a delightful airplane tour of Quito and the surrounding areas in Felipe's plane, Francisco and I headed to his families palm oil plantation.  Currently his family has about 600 acres (I think...) of land which is growing palm trees which yield palm fruit.  These are not coconuts, it is a different type of tree (like a cousin to the beach dwelling coconut bearing tree we all know and love).  These fruit have massive amounts of oil in their flesh which can be extracted via pressing or the use of solvents.  Palm oil is in turn used to make many many products, namely soap and margarine (both of which I know more than I care to admit about).  

His family is also in the process of building their own palm oil extraction plant where all the oil from the fruit will be extracted using 100% natural means (aka - smash, separate, decant, decant some more, more decanting - sell) vs the use of any type of solvent.  This plant has been designed by Francisco (an ME from Purdue) along with a few of his friends making it quite an awesome achievement for students just out of engineering school.  Here are some pictures!!

Me standing on the top of the final product tank - great view!  You can see the top of the factory roof behind me and all the construction going on also.

Some palm trees and the beautiful plantation

Francisco with his dogs!  He actually has 5 of them, 4 Rottweilers and a German Sheppard.  Very cute and lovey.

 After leaving the farm we headed to a small town very close to the Columbian border called Casablanca which is a beach town.  No, this is not the same Casablanca as the famous movie -that is in Morocco - and if you click over to June of 2008 you will see pictures of me and Katie Hamilton in the other Casablanca during our graduation trip.  This is the Ecuadorian Casablanca, a great little town made for the Quito-ian on vacation.

We passed through  many small towns on the way to the beach and for a while I thought I was in the wrong country... 

Um... Isn't this a rickshaw.... I don`t think I flew over an ocean on the way to Ecuador but I'll be damned if I don't feel like I am in INDIA!!

Yup... this must be India...

After what I thought was a detour through Southeast Asia - we made it to the beach condo.  It is a delightful place with enough space to sleep about 15 people.  There is also a great cook/housekeeper named Carmin (I think..) who made wonderful traditional Ecuadorian food for us.  I've never eaten so many plantains!

The porch of the condo, table all set for one of our meals

Myself, Mona, and Francisco hanging on the beach.  Unfortunately we didn't get a lot of sunshine but that was probably best, I would have burnt like crazy!

As you can see it was a bit overcast, but still a beautiful beach.

Francisco and I  -  standard one arm Facebook shot

HAHAHAHA - LOVED this shirt!!

Picture perfect waves crashing along a rocky shoreline.

This is a snail like creature.  There were THOUSANDS of them crawling under the sand.  It sounds weird and gross but it was actually really cool.  They are almost 100% under the sand so you only see these trails of where they were and they don't bother you at all.  Francisco and I discovered that they come up to the surface sometimes just after a wave has passed by.  They were weird looking things.

 After a few days at the beach condo, laying out, drinking, playing games, eating and over all just enjoying life.  We all headed back to the plantation.  Mona (Francisco's good friend) and her boyfriend joined us at the beach and shared the ride back to Quito with us.  It was a really fun group and I am happy to have had the opportunity to hang out and get to know them all.  Hopefully it isn't the last time I see them either!!

Back on the farm!  Francisco's mom in their swimming pool.  We all suited up for a dip and had a crazy fun time playing water sports until lunch time hunger forced us to the dinner table!

Mona had never been to the farm so we walked around the plant again.  This is the final product holding tower that I was standing on previously.  There is something almost whimsical about it isn't there?  It reminds me of something you might see in Dr. Suess... I think it is the spiral stairs up the side and the large brick pattern of the sheet metal mixed with the delicate rusting.  It looks almost -playful. 

BOILERS!!! - As in Boilermakers, the greatest school of all time... Or in this case, the American made boiler that will generate steam for the plant. 

Me standing behind the BOILER being very excited about the heat exchanger.  It is really cool because the plan is to use biomass to fuel the boiler by burning the left over fibers of the palm fruit after they have been pressed.  Way to be super ecofriendly!

 After leaving the farm we had a nice drive back to Quito.  It was late by that point and we were beat from so many days of doing nothing.  The following day Francisco and I got up and headed to the equator so I could fulfill one goal of the trip - to take a picture laying on the equator being half in the north and half in the south!

 

This is me being a compass - in case you didn't know which way North is - it is UP, South is DOWN, East is RIGHT, and West is LEFT

When you are on the equator, the forces pulling to either side are equal, thus you are feeling zero force.  The theory goes if that is the case then you can balance an egg on end when you are right at the equator.  This is me attempting this claim.  I failed.  The tour guide however achieved a perfectly balanced egg in about 10 seconds.

Geek moment!!  Yes for a mini physics lesson while on vacation!  Newton II anyone??

Much like the egg, if you try to walk a straight line along the equator you feel very unstable as each side pulls you towards it. Because you are pretty much unable to be exactly centered, any shift to one side or the other results in a much stronger than normal feeling of being off-balance.  You go from having close to zero pull on you to having half the world pulling on you.  Here is video proof that it is tricky.  Sorry it is sideways, I don't know how to flip it.  Please - don't laugh too hard.

 After the trip to the equator we headed out to the old part of Quito to see some of the older buildings and meet up with one of Francisco's other friends for a quick drink.  Little did we know, we were about to be in the presence of greatness - times two!

These are the Ecuadorian and Chilean presidents!  Apparently the Chilean president came by as a sign of support and solidarity for the Ecuadorian president seeing as he recently was held hostage by his own army in a hospital.  SO COOL!! 

Enjoying Quito - anyone think Francisco has a bit of Bono going on with those glasses?

Quito at night - so pretty!

 More Quito

Over all it was a very wonderful few days away from work and away from stress.  It was really strange to be surrounded by Spanish though.  Before coming to Brazil my Spanish skills were terrible but existent.  Now, my Portuguese has taken over my brain and I am phyically unable to think or speak in Spanish without EXTREME effort.  When I got back to Brazil I had this huge sigh of relief and I remember thinking, "Thank goodness, I can talk to these people!"  I then laughed at myself and reliazed that, no I cannot speak to them, I've just gotten numb to not being able to understand - either way, it felt good to be back!

Thank you Francisco and thank you to his family and friends for making me feel like a part of the group and showing me a great part of the country.  I am so fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life. 

My life is great because of the people I choose to include in it.  Yes I had a choice, and I choose great people!  Thank you everyone for being one of the many many GREAT people I have been so fortunate to know and get to share my life with.  (sorry, a bit mushy at the end - but I mean it!)