Talampaya
Talampaya Park is located in the center south
of the province of La Rioja. It has been created
to protect important
archaeological and pale ontological sites in an
awe-inspiring landmark framework of great beauty,
along with the typical
mount flora and fauna.
Along the Talampaya river canyon, ancient carob
tree forests, surrounded by about 100 meters high
walls can be found.
These walls give the landscape unique attractiveness.
In this place, condors find shelter. Added to
the natural value
of the area, its cultural importance should be
considered. Numerous manifestations of prehistoric
cultures who inhabited
the area about 1,000 years ago, populate the reddish
walls and stones from Talampaya. A 13-meter long
mural full
of petroglifs, maybe the major one registered
so far in Argentina, together with others which
are scattered around the place,
make up a cultural patrimony of incalculable value.
The deep canyons, the valleys populated by
curiously-carved-by-erosion figures, the colorful
sedimentary strata, surrounded by the desert landscape
of great
beauty already mentioned give Talampaya unequaled
scenic importance.
Moon Valley
The Moon Valley “Valle de la Luna”
-called by geologists “Triasic Basin of
lschigualasto”- is a vast depression where
there is a series of ancient sediment belonging
to a geological period called Triasic, at the
beginning of the Mesozoic era.
At that time, the region weather was tropical
humid and vegetation was abundant and thick. The
Andes did not exist,
there were lakes and swamps. Through million of
years, the weather and the landscape started mutating,
the wind
eroded stones and deposited new sediments on former
ones. “The Submarine” and “The
Worm” are eroded shapes
which were carved by the wind on sedimentary rock.
Other shapes are “Aladdin’s Lamp”,
“The Parrot”, “The Mushroom”,
and “The Painted Valley”
Climatic mutations continued: at the end of the
Triasic period, the region was a desert swept
by strong winds and
inhabited by large and more developed reptiles.
“Los Colorados” formation is a result
of this last period.
Finally, much later, about 70 million years,
the so called Andean orogeny movements started.
Its push caused fractures,
folding and sliding, ascents and descents of ancient
crystal blocks –the ones which would later
on make up the hills
that surround the region today- and also of much
more recent sedimentary layers. Once large reptiles
had disappeared,
the valley was populated by cougars, guanacos,
and birds, among which condors and southern ostriches
can be found.
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