Argentina Cave with prehistoric art World Heritage
Cueva de las Manos
8 °C inside, all year.
Fjturban · Public domain
The descent
The entrance, at 464 m.
The real relief above Cueva de las Manos, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey. No depth has been published for this cave yet.
464m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
8°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
250m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
8,000
Visitors a year
published (Wikidata)
Inside and outside
8 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 8 °C here, in January and in August. In January the afternoon reaches 22 °C at the entrance, 14 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket.
- 22°7°Jan
- 22°7°Feb
- 18°5°Mar
- 13°2°Apr
- 8°0°May
- 4°-2°Jun
- 4°-4°Jul
- 6°-2°Aug
- 10°0°Sep
- 14°2°Oct
- 17°4°Nov
- 20°6°Dec
Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.
Cave with cave paintings in Santa Cruz, Argentina
Cueva de las Manos is a cave with prehistoric art in Argentina. The entrance is at 464 m. It has an underground river and stalactites and stalagmites. It is open to visitors. It is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Getting there.
- Show cave: open to visitorsUsually with a guided tour; check times and tickets on the official site.
- Parking 830 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Viewpointsnearest viewpoint · 0.9 km from the entrance
- Perito Moreno Jalil Hamer Airport (PMQ)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 72 km in a straight lineCar hire in CoyhaiqueDiscover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The water
The Pinturas River runs highest from August to October.
The Pinturas River carries about 15 m³/s on average here. It runs highest from August to October, fed by melting snow. It is lowest from January to March.
- 3.3 m³/sJan
- 3.5 m³/sFeb
- 6.3 m³/sMar
- 10 m³/sApr
- 18 m³/sMay
- 19 m³/sJun
- 29 m³/sJul
- 40 m³/sAug
- 44 m³/sSep
- 38 m³/sOct
- 24 m³/sNov
- 11 m³/sDec
From about 3.3 m³/s in the lowest month to 44 m³/s in the highest. Its basin above this point covers 3,287 km².
Estimate: long-term flow from the HydroATLAS model (WaterGAP, 1971–2000) shaped by the monthly rain, snow and temperature of the area (NASA POWER). Dams change it. Not a forecast.
From above.
The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.
N
1.5 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Around the entrance.
- 1other cave entrances within 3 kmCueva de las Manos
- 7viewpoints within 3 kmMirador El Condor, Mirador Cañón Pintura and 5 more
- 3car parks within 2 km
- 1information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 3campsites within 8 kmLa Señalada, Camping del Rio
- springs within 2 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- marked hiking routes within 3 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 km
- bus stops within 2 km
- hotels and guesthouses within 8 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
In our other atlases
What else is around Cueva de las Manos.
The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.
Peakyas4 mountains within 10 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, NOAA, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Month by month
The weather outside, at the entrance.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon | 22 | 22 | 18 | 13 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 20 |
| Afternoon | 22 | 22 | 18 | 13 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 20 |
| Night | 7 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | -2 | -4 | -2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Rain (mm) | 10 | 16 | 18 | 22 | 35 | 32 | 28 | 30 | 20 | 18 | 17 | 13 |
| Rainy days | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Sun hours/day | 12.2 | 10.8 | 8.8 | 6.7 | 4.3 | 3.4 | 3.8 | 4.9 | 6.8 | 9.3 | 11.2 | 11.9 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 12 | 17 | 17 | 16 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 22 | 22 | 7 | 10 | 12.2 |
| Feb | 22 | 22 | 7 | 16 | 10.8 |
| Mar | 18 | 18 | 5 | 18 | 8.8 |
| Apr | 13 | 13 | 2 | 22 | 6.7 |
| May | 8 | 8 | 0 | 35 | 4.3 |
| Jun | 4 | 4 | -2 | 32 | 3.4 |
| Jul | 4 | 4 | -4 | 28 | 3.8 |
| Aug | 6 | 6 | -2 | 30 | 4.9 |
| Sep | 10 | 10 | 0 | 20 | 6.8 |
| Oct | 14 | 14 | 2 | 18 | 9.3 |
| Nov | 17 | 17 | 4 | 17 | 11.2 |
| Dec | 20 | 20 | 6 | 13 | 11.9 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (464 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
Recent years
Wet years, dry years.
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A dry year means a lower river and hotter rock; a wet one, more water in the gorge.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 34% | 143% | 49% | 71% | 107% | 130% | 207% | 30% | 30% | 48% | 26% | 117% |
| 2021 | 188% | 51% | 52% | 100% | 42% | 47% | 20% | 74% | 34% | 43% | 19% | 42% |
| 2022 | 75% | 181% | 68% | 177% | 32% | 17% | 41% | 33% | 82% | 56% | 33% | 71% |
| 2023 | 304% | 11% | 85% | 36% | 42% | 89% | 139% | 114% | 109% | 27% | 25% | 139% |
| 2024 | 6% | 35% | 107% | 79% | 46% | 212% | 65% | 71% | 69% | 5% | 214% | 283% |
| 2025 | 91% | 222% | 252% | 230% | 101% | 366% | 150% | 80% | 97% | 61% | 23% | 20% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Caves nearby.
Cueva de las Manos
Argentina
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 464 mEntrance altitude
- 8 °CInside, all year
Piedra Museo
Argentina · 209 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 80 mEntrance altitude
- 11 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q223385) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| River flow and basin | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Rivers, waterfalls, lakes, mountains, canyons, beaches and islands nearby | Coastya, Lakeyas, Peakyas, Cascadyas, Islandyas, Riveryas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.
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viewpoints
Every viewpoint with its real 360° panorama: the peaks you can name, how far you see and where the sun sets.Coming soonVisit 
birdwatching
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Every forest with its land-cover rings, what grows and lives in it, and the best months to walk it.Coming soonVisit