Cueva de las Manos

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Cueva De Las Manos, Rio Pinturas, 1999); Rock Art Of Stencilled Hands And Hunting Scenes Dating Back About 9,000 Years · Perito Moreno, Santa Cruz

Cueva de las Manos is a series of rock shelters high on the wall of the Rio Pinturas canyon in northern Santa Cruz, painted over thousands of years by the hunter-gatherer peoples of Patagonia. The oldest images date back roughly nine thousand years. Most famous are the hands: hundreds of them, mostly left hands, stencilled in red, ochre, white and black by blowing pigment around a palm pressed to the rock, overlapping in a crowd that reaches across the cave. Among them are hunting scenes of guanacos being chased and surrounded, painted with real movement. UNESCO listed the site in 1999. It is one of the most remote cultural sites in Argentina, far from any city, reached on gravel roads off Ruta 40, and visits are with a ranger along a walkway on the canyon wall. The canyon itself, green along the river and bare above, is spectacular. Most people come on a Ruta 40 road trip or on a tour from the town of Perito Moreno or Los Antiguos, and they rarely regret the detour.

Ruta Provincial 97, Canadon del Rio Pinturas, Santa Cruz, Perito Moreno, Santa Cruz, Z9040, Argentina

Open daily in daylight hours; visits are only with the ranger-guided tour, which leaves at intervals. Confirm times. The access roads are gravel and can be affected by weather.

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