Museum sights in Cuenca
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Museo Pumapungo
Cuenca’s most important museum, Museo Pumapungo has an entire floor of colorfully animated dioramas displaying traditional costumes of Ecuador’s diverse indigenous cultures, including Afro-Ecuadorians from Esmeraldas province, the cowboy-like montubios (coastal farmers) of the western lowlands, several rainforest groups and all the major highland groups. The finale features five rare and eerie tzantza (shrunken heads) from the Shuar culture of the southern Oriente.
reviewed
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A
Museo de las Conceptas
This religious museum in the Convent of the Immaculate Conception, founded in 1599, offers a glimpse into centuries-old customs of the cloistered nuns who live here. You can’t actually see the nuns – they’re cloistered, after all – but you can see their primitive bread-making equipment and dioramas of their stark cells, as well as some important religious art. Strangely enough, this old-fashioned nunnery has wi-fi (but only for visitors!).
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B
Centro Interaméricano de Artes Populares
Just down the stairs on the riverbank, the Centro Interaméricano de Artes Populares exhibits traditional indigenous costumes, handicrafts and artwork from around Latin America and has a classy, well-priced crafts store.
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C
Museo de las Culturas Aborígenes
Along Calle Larga, the labyrinthine Museo de las Culturas Aborígenes has more than 5000 archaeological pieces representing more than 20 pre-Hispanic Ecuadorian cultures going back some 15,000 years.
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D
Museo Remigio Crespo Toral
Inside one of Calle Larga's historical buildings, the Museo Remigio Crespo Toral contains religious sculptures, colonial furniture, paintings and a fine selection of indigenous artifacts.
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