Cusco museum, don't bother

When we arrived in Cusco, we thought that the Cusco museums would be fun and exciting to tour. We believed like most people that they would have cool relics, artwork and contain a lot of interesting history about the Inca people. We were wrong! Cusco museums are sparse, have virtually no cool artifacts and are sorely lacking in history.

I think one explanation for this could be two fold. The political nature of Peru is such that the government and people who control Lima, do their best to keep the money out of Cusco, Arequipa and other large cities. They can do this by taking any cool relics or other interesting artifacts and installing it in the Lima museums. Another explanation is that the Cusco museums don't really have a lot of relics to put on display because the Spaniards took everything and refused to leave the Incas with anything. Literally, the Spanish raped and plundered the country of anything of value, which of course is something that would look nice in a museum.

There are several Cusco museums and you should consider spending your time elsewhere, however, if you do decide to go, you should check out the Art museums, since they are the only ones that actually have something interesting to look at. You want to check with the tour guide map that you will get when you arrive in Cusco, because the museums have odd hours and can close for no apparent reason. We suggest that you go at opening hours or within an hour or two after, that way you can be assured of actually getting in. We were locked out a couple times from several different museums, even though we could tell there were still people in them and the museum was supposed to remain open for another hour and a half. In a third world country, whatever the boss says, goes and the rest of the world has to just deal with it.