{"id":28996,"date":"2022-11-05T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=28996"},"modified":"2022-11-06T11:30:26","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T21:30:26","slug":"to-cross-the-equator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=28996","title":{"rendered":"To Cross the Equator"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Despite numerous international trips&#8230;  Europe, Central America, living in England for several years, or living on an island in the middle of the Pacific&#8230;  I had never crossed the equator.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-thumbnail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=28913\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/3B231114-FFFE-4924-AD29-0A326ACE7E83-scaled-e1665059419424-200x200.jpeg\" alt=\"Equator\" class=\"wp-image-28913\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Fred and Andrew Cooper at the earth\u2019s equator along the Masaka Road, Uganda<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Unlike so many I would not cross the equator in an aircraft or ship&#8230;  I would cross it by car.  The <a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/maps\/jQfWdnZLw3LDiF23A\">Kampala Masaka road crosses the equator<\/a> at a small town named Kayabwe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The zero line does not pass by unremarked.  Local businesses have turned zero latitude into a tourist stop with large concrete zeroes either side of the road.  Gift shops and a cafe greet travelers looking for an excuse to pause during the four hour journey from Kampala to Masaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>To mark the occasion we did indeed stop and take the obligatory photographs in the zero markers.  Pulling out the phone I found that the GPS agreed, the Google maps application showing 0.0003 latitude while standing a few feet north of the zero marker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Long ago I had visited Greenwich, where the zero longitude line is marked by a brass rail set into the pavement.  With this I have now stood astride both zero latitude and zero longitude.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another bucket list item achieved&#8230;  I have now been south of the equator, if not very far&#8230;  Driving to the national park I reached -0.6<em>\u00b0<\/em> at Mbarara, not even a full degree south.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite numerous international trips&#8230; Europe, Central America, living in England for several years, or living on an island in the middle of the Pacific&#8230; I had never crossed the equator. Unlike so many I would not cross the equator in an aircraft or ship&#8230; I would cross it by car. The Kampala Masaka road crosses &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=28996\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;To Cross the Equator&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2821],"tags":[2816,2840,631,2819],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/3B231114-FFFE-4924-AD29-0A326ACE7E83-scaled-e1665059419424.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28996"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29111,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28996\/revisions\/29111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}