Between El Chaltén and the city of Perito Moreno, a little bit sidewards from Ruta 40 is a deep canyon with a river which has water all the year. That thousands of years ago in this area humans
had lived as hunters and gatherers is proofed by wonderful rock painings on walls and in caves.
This is something to be seen and after a pitch dark night with millions of stars in the canyon we belong to the visitors participating in the first guided tour that day. Visting the rock painings
without guide is not possible anymore as too many people have destroyed them or tried to steal parts of the paintings.
The cave has the right name. Handprints and handprints everywhere: big ones, small ones, sometimes the right hand, sometimes the left hand and all of them in their original colours of yellow,
red, brown, black and white. All the colours have been sprayed onto the rock, while hands were placed on its cold hard surface, have left the impressions in negative of the fingers and palms.
Fascinating as the oldest are meant to be more than 9000 years old and have never been renewed.
But we also see other motives like guanakos being hunted as most important source to survive, a moon and geometric forms and decors. It all tells something about the lifes of those who lived here
so long time ago. It's like getting a postcard from the past and combined with an one-hour walk also a beautiful experience of nature.
What makes people destroy things which have lasted for thousands of years: here or anywhere else in this world?
