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Aguada.- What began as a collection of old bottles by a curious teenager, is today the only museum in this town that is open to the public. And where much of the history of the Ciudad del descubrimiento (“City of the Discovery”) is compiled.

Casa Museo is located on the ground floor of a residence in Barrio Piedras Blancas. It is where Christian Acevedo-Cabán maintains the exhibition he began when he was 13 years old. An exhibition which includes antiques, handicrafts, documents, and photos, among other items of historical value.

Christian mentions says that it was after he heard someone say “Aguada has no history” that motivated him to gather all the information possible about his town, with the help of his parents.

“That was the spark that made me search for what we had in Aguada, and how I realized there were so many things [...] The issue was that it was all scattered and there wasn’t a space where people could gather it all,” explained the young man. He is currently the director the Aguada Office of Tourism, Art and Culture.

Also known as La villa de Sotomayor (“Sotomayor’s Villa”), it had an official museum that opened in 1980, but closed in 2015. It left Casa Museo as the only historical reference exhibition and was officially inaugurated and open to the public in 2017, on Highway 411, km 1.0.

“It’s called Casa Museo (”House Museum”) because it’s not a historical building. It’s a house in which the first floor was set up as a small museum with the history of the town,” explained the young man. He hopes to soon be able to acquire a larger location; the space has already become too small due to the donation of items it has received in the past four years. It has, though, welcomed more than 6,000 visitors.

“Without culture and without identity, we’re nothing […] we’re destined to become extinct as a race and as a people. So I feel a great responsibility to try, as much as I can, to protect our heritage so that it isn’t forgotten. I would like this to become a historical archive. A place where people who want to do a master’s or doctoral research, or simply seek information about the town for school, could come here,” stressed the proud young man from Aguada.

Guided tours are offered at Casa Museo via appointment through its Facebook page on weekdays from 4:00 p.m. and on weekends from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. There are also cultural tours of the town and of the western area on weekends, for which you can make an appointment. For more information, call (787) 224-8713.