Friday, April 28, 2006

A yellow pad, stunning colours and ancient artwork.

I'm in Perito Moreno (the town rather than the glacier) at the moment and have just had a great week.

First of all, we managed to blag the coolest pad to stay. It's a cabin (kind of flat/apartment) all to ourselves! With 3 double bedrooms and a spare single, bathroom, big hallway room, a cool kitchen with 2 tables and even our own garden! You can't appreciate your own time and space until you've been staying in other people's for 6 weeks. And all of this at a rate cheaper if not the same as hostels we've been staying at. Sweeeeet.

From here we made a 2 day trip with a local guide (Daniel - a big, friendly bloke with a big beard and a gaucho hat). We drove for ages in his huge pick-up (with loads of features including a snorkel for the engine so it can keep going when submerged), maybe 3-4 hours, to a lake I read about before Xmas - Lago Posadas. It was really cool as the landscpae is full of loads of different colours, deep reds, sandy yellows, turquoise everywhere you look.

Two lakes are divided by a narrow bit of land (an isthmus I´m told) but the lakes are both quite different colours themselves. We spent time fascinated by the different stones and pebbles, setting up camp on the isthmus, walking, a little bit of fishing (spinning) and, of course, making a fire. Later we cooked up a feast on the fire including Daniel's freshly caught trout! Mmmmmmmmm.

During the evening it was real peaceful being 30km from the nearest village - population 290.

The next day, after our routine transport problems that seem to happen every Weds (the motorbike at the horse trek and the miserable hitch hiking) of the pick-up's battery being dead and not being able to push start it due to thick mud from the all night rain (luck came from a jump start later), we made our way towards the cave of the hands. The journey away from the lake was classic pushing the pick-up to the limit; slipping and skidding through the thick mud and deep puddles.

A few hours later we were passing through the awesome valley and started seeing a lot of guanacos (similar ish to llamas) and ostriches (local name choique). The caves are mostly overhanging cliffs but also one big cave that were used by idigenous indians (Telheulche) who painted the images using the different earth colours mixed with water and fat from guanacos. It was fantastic to see them all, mostly pairs of hands but also maps of guanaco trails, an iguana, guanaco figures, hunting scenes, even an ostrich hoof print and dots made by dipping animal droppings in the paint and throwing them up at the overhangs! The oldest paintings are dated at 9,300 years old.

We also walked along the river in the canyon basin and saw cool tucu tucus (rodents that look like big gerbils - kind of), a condor and an eagle.


A cool 2 day venture getting us back to our pad late the 2nd day.