October 17: Rest day in Perito Moreno
Today was a weird trip. Ate croissants at the breakfast buffet, got on the road before 9. But my seat was comfortable. The sun was bright but I couldn't feel it. The plants were blown by the wind, but it didn't touch me. I was passing things from yesterday: the weird junction with restrictive lanes. The truck stop. But yesterday's S-bend downhill was now an uphill. I cruise up it effortlessly ... and there is no wind noise. Instead a long and very sincere lecture in Spanish.
Have I started retelling dreams? Did I inadvertently have some maté with interesting active ingredients? Did this actually happen?
Well: not yet, not yet, and yes: this is a fully honest retelling because I'm taking the tourist bus to go visit the Cueva de las Manos. It is a thoroughly disorienting experience to recognize things that yesterday were milestones on a day-long struggle, but now are scenery unworthy of notice. Then, the direction of a curve will take you into or away from the wind and it's very important; now, it's hard to even tell if there is any wind.
If you're going through Patagonia take a car, it's is definitely better than a bike.
So the Cueva de las Manos (="Cave of hands") is a rock cliff with painted hand outlines from up to 8000 years ago. They're in remarkably good condition, considering that the paint is in the open air, not a cave. It doesn't rain much here: I'd expect a good downfall would wash most of it off. The sun shines on it; places where it's more exposed are faded but there's some on rock overhangs where the sun doesn't every reach that still have strong colors.
From left to right: Guaco vs llama vs vicuna vs alpaca. The valley and environment. Selfie front of some hand painting. At the valley lookout. Another valley view. Puma footprint.
It's on the side of a pretty epic valley: all volcanic rock, so it's all near-vertical. Back in the day the locals survived by hunting guanacos (llama relatives), and would follow the herds. Apparently these beasts like to go down into the valley during the winter because it's warmer: there's evidence that the hunters would trap and slaughter them there. Can't say I know much about arranging a group of lads to mass-murder a bunch of guanacos but this does sound like a very good plan, the valley walls are almost inescapable, even if you have hands.
Anyway, it's not clear what the purpose of the cliff art is but there's 800+ handprints so it was definitely fashionable back then. And some of the pigments came from hundreds of kilometers away! Seems that the picture of hunter-gatherer life is more interesting than following around herds of guanacos and occasionally knocking one over.
From left to right: the handprint at the top is about 8 feet from the ground, getting it done must have been an accomplishment. Coique (native flightless bird) foot shapes. Six fingers. Old-school archeology, paint right next to the unique and irreplaceable rock art! Arturo was here too. Bird spikes, so bird poo doesn’t damage the rock art.
There was a bit of walking today. It's been five long and tough days in the saddle, and my legs still work but they don't like it: even a few stairs makes them unhappy. After we finished with the rock art I misheard the guide say that finishing the loop would be a 10km walk, and my legs were seriously not up for it. (Actual message was it's 200m to the lookout.) So taking some days off is definitely the right choice. And I'm going to try to arrange the cycling so the next few rides are shorter.
