Morgan's Cave/Pirate Museum/Coconut Museum

Morgan's Cave

At the Pirate Museum

Morgan’s Cave/Pirate Museum/Coconut Museum

Shiver me timbers! Pirate buffs won’t want to miss Morgan’s Cave, where locals have taken an unassuming hole in the ground generally believed to once have been a hiding place for pirate loot and made it into one of San Andres’ main tourist attractions.

Your visit starts with a trip to the small museum, where a Halloween pirate shows you an impressive collection of fake skulls, fake guns, old treasure-chest looking trunks, nylon pirate flags and plastic swords. Get your picture taken with the clothing-store mannequin dressed in traditional, stereotypical pirate garb! In the back of the pirate museum, you’ll find the “Coconut Museum,” which you may well miss if you’re not looking for it. It’s really just a shelf with several coconuts on it, each of which has been carved into something: a monkey, a drinking cup, etc.  If you expect to learn anything about coconuts from the “Coconut Museum” (other than the fact that it is possible to carve a coconut into a monkey wearing eyeglasses and holding a pineapple) you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Then, it’s on to the little art gallery, a squat building notable for the number of old rum bottles built into the walls. Pirate architecture, I suppose. I mean, what else would a pirate build a house out of except rum bottles?  The paintings, which are probably for sale (I didn’t like any enough to ask), feature mostly seascapes. No parrots or cannons or skulls, but maybe they were sold out of those. Get your photo taken with the bottle-walls.

Once you’ve hit the museum and the art gallery, you get to see the cave itself. According to local legend, infamous privateer Sir Henry Morgan used the cave as a place to stash stolen loot. It’s a bit of a disappointment, especially if you’re expecting skeletons or cannons or pieces of eight scattered around, but it is a sort of cool natural cave, full of fresh water. You can only descend a few feet into the cave before the water blocks your passage: according to the pirate guide, it’s quite deep. Get your photo taken again. There is an old cannon mounted on some concrete nearby: get your photo taken there, too.

There are a couple of “shops” there: you can get a snack or a drink (yes, you can get rum). The usual necklace vendors are there. One of the shops is decorated with hanging randomness: sea-turtle shells, old lanterns and even a battered microscope (a pirate microscope, I’m certain). Be sure to check it out.

The whole complex is silly fun, and just a wink away from tongue-in-cheek. Don’t go into it expecting much more of an education about real pirate lore than you’d get from a comic-book version of Treasure Island and you won’t be disappointed: play along and you’ll enjoy it.

Av. Circunvalar Km. 8.   TEL: 512 2316.

Museum

By Christopher Minster

I am a writer and editor at V!VA Travel guides here in Quito, where I specialize in adding quality content to the site and also in spooky things like...

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