The cave
A giant mouth.
Remi Jouan — CC BY-SA 3.0 · xiquinhosilva — CC BY 4.0 · Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Lorna-Lorna — CC BY-SA 3.0
A huge cave in Cerro Benítez near Puerto Natales, its wide mouth like a giant jaw under a roof of hanging rock, about two hundred metres deep and now a protected natural monument. It became famous when skin, bones and dung of the mylodon, a giant ground sloth extinct for thousands of years, were found here in 1895. At the entrance a life-size statue shows the mylodon standing on its hind legs, about three metres tall, giving a sense of this enormous animal. The visitor centre explains the extinct animals and the early people who lived in the cave. You walk inside the vast cave on a path between fallen boulders, with light pouring in from the great mouth. The reserve also has smaller caves, a rock shaped like a chair, and short trails with views over plains and lakes. It lies on the road to Torres del Paine, so many stop on the way or make a half-day trip from Puerto Natales. Bruce Chatwin wrote about it in his classic travel book «In Patagonia».
A giant mouth.
Three metres.
An odd boulder.
About 24 km north-west of Puerto Natales, on the Torres del Paine road
A giant ground sloth extinct for thousands of years, whose remains were found in the cave in 1895; a life-size statue stands at the entrance.