Can you spare some change?

If you're going to visit Ecuador, take along plenty of small-denomination bills. Ecuador now uses U.S. dollars, and apparently there aren't enough to go around. Twenty-dollar bills can be difficult to change, $50 bills a real nightmare, and $100 bills virtually impossible to spend. I took a taxi in Quito one night, and the driver couldn't break a $5 bill. I ended up having to short-change him for the $3 fare. My hotel in Quito had a fit when I presented them with a $50 bill. They had to send a bellboy running to nearby stores before they could cobble together the right change. If you only carry large bills in your wallet, you could end up on the street asking passers-by for spare change.

La Mitad del Mundo near Quito, Ecuador

On my recent trip to Ecuador, I made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Mitad del Mundo or "Middle of the World" monument about 22 km (14 miles) north of Quito. This 30-metre-tall (98 feet) cement pyramid topped by a globe is supposed to pinpoint the exact location of the equator, and a yellow line running from the monument allegedly marks 0 degrees latitude. Tourists (myself included) inevitably have their pictures taken standing with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in the Southern Hemisphere. Little do they know that they are not really straddling the equator. Modern Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology has revealed that the equator actually lies 300 metres (984 feet) to the north of the current line. Plans are in the works to erect a new monument on the correct spot by the end of 2008 and to build a theme park around it. The old monument will remain. And who knows? It may prove to be more of a curiosity than the new one.