Cueva de las Manos

To add another (practical) perspective to J_neveryes’ recent review: we also visited Cueva de las Manos in March 2025, but from the Northwest. 

We had some trouble fitting in Cueva de las Manos in our Chile and Argentina trip and in the end the best solution was to fly from Santiago to Balmaceda (in Chile, on the border with Argentina) and drive to Cueva de las Manos by rental car. The flight to Balmaceda landed in the morning, but taking into account some potential uncertainties (time needed to cross the border?, would the flight be on time?, …) we decided to drive to the Perito Moreno area on day 1 and visit Cueva de las Manos on day 2.

The border crossing was fairly quick (the Chilean and Argentine officials are in the same building), but once in Argentina there is about 100 km of average road (40-60 km/u) to be driven before a tarmac road is reached. We stayed in the beautifully located but more expensive than average Posta de Los Toldos (approx. 45 minutes south of Perito Moreno), where we also had a good dinner. On day 2 we took the road from Posta de Los Toldos to Cueva de las Manos (route 1 on the map following the link in Els’ review). Coming from the north / Perito Moreno, this is probably the shortest and fastest option, and it’s also a decent gravel road which can be driven in a standard car (e.g. there was …

My review will cover how we visited Cueva de las Manos from the south and also provide an update on the ticket price situation. We visited the prehistoric site in March 2025.

El Chalten to Gobernador Gregores: Light rain causes detour

Our visit to southern Patagonia started in El Calafate, where we rented a compact car (automatic drive) for five days at the cost of 416,688 Argentinian pesos, which was $549.86 Canadian (or approximately $383 USD). We decided to rent a car because bus tickets around Patagonia were very expensive. For example, a return bus ticket between El Calafate and the town of (not the glacier) Perito Moreno would have cost as much as a whopping $728 Canadian (or approximately $508 USD) for the two of us.

From El Calafate, we then travelled to El Chalten from a few days of hiking.

From El Chalten to Cueva de Las Manos was a 7 to 8 hour drive. As such, we decided to split up the drive by staying in the town of Gobernador Gregores for a night, which was approximately 4 hours drive from El Chalten. Reserving lodging in the town proved to be easy as there was a decent amount of options.

On our drive to Gobernador Gregores, we encountered a police roadblock in a small town called Tres Lagos. Despite the light drizzling of rain, the police told us that Route 40 was closed due to bad road conditions. We were resting at …

The general visitor experience of this remote site has already been well-described by the previous reviewers, but I’d like to add information about what it is like to go there with your own (rental) car.

The site has no less than 4 entrance roads, of which 2 are officially recommended. They lie along the RN40, the seemingly endless road that crosses South America from North to South. The first access is 88km south of the town of Perito Moreno. Here you have to turn into a 27km long gravel road with several steep sections. It seems that the tours always take this access. Online it is stated that most cars can make it, except for those with trailers or heavy loads. However, I saw a handpainted ‘Solo 4x4’ sign when I drove by. So with a regular car, this way of access should not be your first choice.

Instead, drive on for another 32 km on the RN40 in the direction of the town of Bajo Caracoles. Here you will find another access road, it is signposted with a Cueva de las Manos sign and indicated on maps as RP97. This is a wide and well-maintained gravel road, 47km long, that only ascends and descends gradually. You’ll easily drive 50km/h here (the speed limit even is 80!). I saw a YouTube video of a couple driving it on a motorbike and it immediately boosted my confidence that I could manage too in my rental car. And so …

I visited the Cueva de las Manos in February 2022. My base for this visit was the uninteresting little town of Perito Moreno (which, it should be remembered, has nothing to do with the famous glacier of the same name). I arrived there in the evening after several hours on the bus from Esquel (an ideal base for visiting Los Alerces). I had booked an excursion via WhatsApp with Chelenco Tours. Our guide was really friendly and the tour was well organized. I can therefore recommend this agency without any problem.

After he picked us up at our hotel, we drove to the Refugio La Posta de Los Toldos in the Parque Nacional Patagonia. We stopped for breakfast and to pick up other travellers. We finally reached the coveted site on the north side of the canyon. Indeed, rather than simply parking at the reception desk of the interpretation center, our excursion involved a hike across the canyon. The scenery is simply magnificent, and I think this addition greatly contributed to my appreciation of the site. Our guide talked us through the flora and fauna we observed on the way down (and back up!). Black widows, to the delight of my arachnophobic friend, were abundant. We also saw our first Andean condors soaring over the canyon.

Once we reached the interpretation center, we waited a while for the scheduled time of our guided tour. Access to the site is only possible with a guide-interpreter. The paintings …

From Los Antiguos we have booked a trip for 50 EUR per person (blue dollar rate) with Chelenco Tours to the Cueva de las manos. We also looked into renting a private car or a remise, but the next private car available would have been in Comodoro Rivadavia, a 5 hour drive away, and even when we were there earlier all rental cars were sold out short term. We didn't take the remise (kind of taxi) as we thought from a tour would give us more information for not much more money.  
 
After a roughly two hour drive, the first part along spectacular glaciar formed landscape of Lago Buenos Aires, the second on famous ruta 40 and the last part on a bad gravel road going up and down through the steppe with some spectacular rock formations we have reached the visitor center at 11 a.m. on a Thursday. Based on the other reviews here I expected in this remote place almost no other visitors but I was wrong. The 11 o'clock tour was already full and we were only able to take the tour one hour later with almost 25 visitors mostly spanish speaking. As our Castellan is not good and technical enough yet to understand everything we asked for English explainations also and the guide willingly explained everything in Spanish first and afterwards in English for us and a handfull others.  
 
We walked on the wooden structures along the rock structures in which also the main …

This is not an easy place to get to but I did not regret the effort to get here. If you have your own car, then you can drive here on your way between other parts of Patagonia. For me, I found a tour operator that stopped here between Puerto Madryn and El Calafate (two other WHS).

The caves here are incredible and it's likely you'll almost have the place to yourself. The hand paintings are really vivid and you can get quite close to them.

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. …

Site visited in March 2012. All prices were valid at that time with utilization of official peso - dollar rate of exchange. Currently you can exchange your money on black market when rates are much more convenient.

In March 2012 it was extremaly expensive place (like the whole Argentina), normal entry ticket costs 50 ARS (which is around 12 USD) but as it is located in remote area (no public transport) you should combine that with an organised trip (from nearby Perito Moreno town the trip costs 220 ARS per person, around 50 USD). If you don't want to stay in Perito Moreno overnight (the place itself has limited accommodation, especially on weekends !) this should be planned carefully - there are limited transportation between Caleta Olivia (on the coastline) and Perito Moreno as well as on legendary Ruta 40.

I have visited the caves in 1973. Just after a broken axle of the car which I bought in Buenos Aires. My wife and I found the place through some local people we met. We had to travers a river, the rucksack on my head because the water was too deep. It was a marvelous experience to see the cueva de los manos because it was only discovered in 1972 I guess?

regards,

Roman Flueck