Pajcha - Museo de Arte Ethnico Americano de Salta

From Salta

ing more than a random entry in Lonely Planet, we decided to visit this tiny private museum, which was situated in the same road as our hotel.  An interesting choice as it turned out.  On arriving in front of the museum premises you are confronted with a closed door and an intercom.  Pressing the buzzer and a disembodied voice said "hold on my friend, I will be with you shortly".  Eventually the door was opened and we were greeted enthusiastically by Diego, the deputy director of the museum, who welcomed us into his domain.
We soon realized that we we the only visitors to this establishment that day (and possibly that week), and after a fairly manic introduction to the collection, we opted for the guided tour option @ $40 pesos.  (I think we would have ended up with this anyway, whether or not we had opted for it, as Diego was too enthusiastic to keep anything to himself for very long). For the next two hours he proceed to guide us though the eclectic collection of South American pre-Colombian artifacts.  Diego's particular speciality appeared to be the subject of paintings of angels with firearms.  No, that is not a mistyping. Diego and the museum's founder and director had spent many years traveling to churches in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Chile to undertake research on this subject. They had collected a mass of photographic evidence to illustrate this strange school of painting, which involved the depiction of angels (distinguished by their wings), but dressed in 16th century European dress, and carrying firearms.  And apparently no one knows how this started, and why the style became so widespread across the Inca region.
The rest of the museum contained a bizarre mix of ancient artifacts from the region, and tried to show the link between these old crafts and those still in use in modern times.  All in all, a very informative and entertaining collection, and well worth the visit.   Highly recommended if you happen to have a couple of hours to spare in Salta.