On Wednesday 20th all three classes of first of ESO from La Salle school went to the Altamira Caves next to Santillana del Mar. It was a sunny day, and we went to Altamira by coach. We waited for a little while till it was our turn to go in. While we were waiting we took photos of our friends, and the teachers took photos of us.

En la puerta del Museo de Altamira.

We were divided in four groups because there were many of us. The first thing my group did was doing an activity about ropes in the Paleolithic era. We were able to make our own ropes out of dry nettle. We also learned about other interesting things, such as the use of these ropes, and we nearly managed to set fire to a rope, like the early men did!

After that, we went into the museum and we were divided again into groups of three people. Then the tour guide gave us a notebook in which we had to answer questions about life in the Paleolithic. It was easy because at school we had been studying those things in history lesson.

Aprendimos un montón de cosas.

When we finished we went into the cave. Well, it´s not the real one which is closed because tourists damaged it by changing its climax. When the real one was open, lots of people went in to see the paintings inside, and the paintings began to deteriorate, so they had to close it. Later they opened this cave, which is an exact copy of the real one. Anyway, there were many things inside, like prehistoric tools, bones…But the most important things were the pictures and the rock carvings on the ceiling. They were pictures of animals like deer, horses, bisons and other pictures of hands. When we got out of the cave, all four groups returned to the village to have lunch.

We all had lunch in a park in the centre of Santillana. After lunch we stayed in the park for a while and then we got on the coach. We arrived at the school gates at about five o´clock, and then we went home.

I think it was a great trip and it was very interesting to learn about art and the way people used to live thousands of years ago.
I hope we can go back again another year!