Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Information
Municipal Tourist Office
(Gral Acha; 7am-1pm & 5-10pm Mon-Fri, 8am-1pm Sat)
Across
from the plaza. Can help arrange car or mule excursions into the mountain canyons and
backcountry.
Post Office
(cnr Laprida & Mendoza;
8am-6pm Mon-Fri, 9am-1pm Sat)
vincial Ischigualasto, Talampaya, El Chiflón and horseback riding.
Getting There & Away
From San Agustín's
bus terminal
(Mitre, btwn Entre Ríos & Mendoza)
daily buses head to
San Juan (AR$95, 4½ hours).
TOP OF CHAPTER
Parque Provincial Ischigualasto
Also known fittingly as
Valle de la Luna
(Valley of the Moon; admission AR$70; 8am-6pm)
, this park takes its name from the Diaguita word for 'land without life'. Visits here are a
spectacular step - or drive, as the case may be - into a world of surreal rock formations,
dinosaur remains and glowing red sunsets. The park is in some ways comparable to
North American national parks such as Bryce Canyon or Zion, except that here, time and
water have exposed a wealth of fossils (some 180 million years old, from the Triassic
period).
The park's
museum
displays a variety of fossils, including the carnivorous dinosaur
Herrerasaurus (not unlike Tyrannosaurus rex), the Eoraptor lunensis (the oldest-known
predatory dinosaur) and good dioramas of the park's paleoenvironments.
The 630-sq-km park is a desert valley between two sedimentary mountain ranges, the
Cerros Colorados in the east and Cerro Los Rastros in the west. Over millennia, at every
meander in the canyon, the waters of the nearly dry Río Ischigualasto have carved dis-
tinctive shapes in the malleable red sandstone, monochrome clay and volcanic ash. Pre-
dictably, some of these forms have acquired popular names, including
Cancha de
Bochas
(the ball court),
El Submarino
(the submarine) and
El Gusano
(the worm),
among others. The desert flora of algarrobo trees, shrubs and cacti complement the eerie
landforms.
