Museo del Banco Central

Today we visited the Museo del Banco Central. This musuem is basically a cultural musuem of Ecuador and also has an art gallery, a library, and a section about Ecuadorian currency. Entry is free, and in a lot of ways you get what you pay for. The cultural part was interesting, and basically gave a brief overview of many of the indigenous groups of Ecuador. There were also some replicas of clothing, pottery, etc., although one of the indigenous scarves had "Galapagos, Ecuador" woven into it despite there being no groups indigenous to the Galapagos. The art was basically an exposition of an artist named Chalco, and frankly I find the street art around Cuenca more interesting. We did peruse the various coins and bills that Ecuador has used over the years. It was interesting that some of the first coins were actually Colombian coins that had been stamped over. We ended up talking to the security guard, Bolivar, for about an hour after we had wandered around the musuem. Just another example of friendly locals interested in our travels and always excited to talk to foreigners and help out. It turned out he had worked in New York City for a while and has two kids who live there, but he decided to return to Cuenca. We ended up deciding to delay our trip to the Panama Hat musuem until tomorrow as we are both a little tired. Unfortunately the musuem today does not allow photography, with a little luck the Panama Hat museum will tomorrow!