Cueva de las Manos

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Cueva de las Manos

For all you travelers out there planning on going to Patagonia one thing to keep in mind is how expensive it is. Buses, hostels, entrance and exit fees, and food, all add up very quickly. One way that we have saved a bunch of money is by hitchhiking. Thank goodness we have been blessed by generous travelers.

After El Chalten we wanted to head north so we set out to find a ride. Another tip for travelers is it is very helful to have a femal with you while hitchhiking because people always stop to pick up girls, they are less intimadating and face it girls rock ;). Mike usually sits on the side of the road by our stuff while I work the thumb.

After only being out on Route 40 for about 15 minutes a fabulous truck stoped and offered us a ride to our next destination which was 12 hours away. Thank you Leo and Maria fro Chile. Can you imagine riding in a car for12 hours with people you just met? Well we did and it was great!

Route 40 is the only road that stretches up the western side of Argentina. It´s a nortorious road because it´s unpaved, extremly muddy after rain storms, and you can only go around 50 - 60 kilometer per hour. The ride was bumby and made me extremly car sick but we were happy to have a ride. The surroundins are also very dull, long stretches of bush fields, a random mountain here and there, and guanacos.  

About 3/4 the way up to Perito Moreno there is a historical site called Cueva de las Manos (cave of the hands). We had planned to stop by along our way, because Maira really wanted and we were in not rush, but it was closed. We were happy just to continue driving to our destination but Maria insisted that we slept over night and go the next day. We ended up camping over a night in a very small run down truck stop and then waking up early in the morning to go.

This is the valley where Cueva de las Manos is. It is believed that thousands of years ago a civilization lived down in this valley. This valley was the perfect set up because it had fertile soil, a fresh water river running throuh it, and much game to hunt.

On the side of one of the walls there are hundreds of hand prints made by various colors, manily red, black, and white made from guanaco poo, glay, water, and blood. The interesting thing is that they didn´t dip their hands in paint and then press them against the wall instead they used (theroletically) a straw of some sort to suck up paint and them blow the paint around there hand. They believe that their hand prints were a type of sign in book kinda like the ones you find at weddings stating, yep I have been here.

Here is fabulous Leo and Maria.

The hand prints have been preserved because the rock mountain hangs over so no rain and little sun gets to it.

Yeah buddy, the cave of the hands

If you look closely you can see the guanaco (part of the lama family) painted on the side of the wall. They have many drawings of hunters chasing and killing the guanacos. The paintings are a story or history of the people, there valley, and the game they hunted.

Yes, we got to wear these sexy helmets.

All of the hands painted besides a couple were of the left hand significing that the majority of the people were right handed. In this picture you can see one of the very few right hands that were painted. On the wall they also found a six fingured hand print.

Overall the cave was very cool 

As we were leaving the cave we were fortunate enough to drive by a bunch of gauchos (cowboys) rounding up sheep. When you see gauchos you gain of sense of what this country used to be like. They dress very traditional liked they stepped out of the 1800´s.

After 15 hours of driving (took a bit longer because there was a huge rain storm making the dirt roads muddy and extremly slippery; nultiple times I thought I was going to die), one night sleeping in the middle of no where, and visiting Cueva de las Manos we made it to our destination.

A huge THANK YOU to Maira and Leo!