Two hours from the town of Samaipata, in Bolivia , where the famous Inca ruins called El Fuerte stand, lies a Cactus "desert" as they call it. There you can go for a hike until you reach the Mataral cave.

At the cave you can see lots of pre-historic rock art said to be as old as 15-20 thousand years. The rock art was painted by travelers on the ancient trade route between Peru and the rest of South America.

On the walls of that cave you can see three signatures of three different merchants/peoples passing by the area and taking shelter in the cave up the mountain.

The inscriptions were painted using blood and pigments of plants. The face of the man is a famous one. The depiction of a fish in this region is not that strange since we know that these people were traders coming from the North West passing by sees as well.

The 4 legged animals is supposed to signify a fox, and the head with two horns symbolizes an insect. The interesting thing is that those people depicted the male just like the Nabateans and other ancient people in far away and different parts of the world like in Egypt and the Middle East.

When asked the guide said the females were not depicted often, and when they were they had mainly a vase shape just like in rock art from Egypt.

Following the decleration of El Fuerte, Samiapata as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO the Mataral cave has received a lot of attention from scientists, and many studies are now being conducted on the signficance of the cave painitings ect..