When you travel in Patagonia you will get to see endless plains, some hills, plenty of bushes and almost no trees. Over time the landscape feels quite monotonous, especially if you are spending days (and nights) on busses and cars traversing it.

As such, going to Cueva de los Manos was a great stop. At first it looks like all the surroundings. I even wondered why humans settled here in the first place. And then a lush, green canyon pops up, the canyon of Rio Pinturas. It’s an oasis and you understand why early humans came here. Their primary legacy are rock art paintings, specifically hands with the most famous one having six fingers.

Getting There

The site lies along Ruta 40. If you are travelling by car you can go simply turn off the highway. Note that it’s still quite a distance from the main road on a steep and pretty much terrible gravel road. This probably also stands in the way of hitchhiking here.

There are daily busses to Los Antiguos/Perito Moreno from Esquel (Los Alerces) and at least bidaily ones from El Calafate or El Chalten (Los Glaciares). Having made it to Perito Moreno, though, doesn’t really help as the actual site is still a 1,5h drive away.

Seeing I was short on time (I only wanted to stay one night in sleepy Perito Moreno), I arranged for a tour to pick me up at the bus stop. There are two tour operators I found online operating on alternating days: Chelenco and Zoyen. Both run tours from the more touristy Los Antiguos via Perito Moreno to the site.

While Zoyen did not bother to reply, Chelenco were very helpful, but also very expensive charging 90 USD. I felt this was a bit much for a group tour with maybe 3h transfer in total and 3h on site and that included a way too generous lunch break and some organizational hickups. Finally, they forgot the lunch box that was supposed to be part of the price. Unfortunately, there aren’t all that many tourists, so you probably have little choice.

Lonely Planet claims you can get a tour/taxi in Perito Moreno for as little as 50 USD. Same price as mentioned by Jarek. But I was short on time and frankly didn’t see any hints in Perito Moreno that such a thing existed. It’s probably best to contact the site, the tourist information in Perito Moreno or your hotel to check what they recommend.