240 meters
Sunday. Carmen wanted to take her friends from church to the Mitad del Mundo, the monument at San Antonio, so I drove.
Everyone stands with one foot on each side of the yellow line on the ground and takes a photo. "One foot in each hemisphere." I took my old yellow Garmin out of my jacket, out of habit. Thirty-four years of surveying, you don't leave the house without it.
The line is not the equator. The Garmin says the real line, 0°00'00.0", is about 240 metres north of the monument. I checked three times. I walked north until the readings got close to zero and ended up in the parking area behind a souvenir shop.
Carmen said, "Nobody cares, Jorge." Her friends are now in forty photos with both feet in the northern hemisphere.
I care a little.