Travel Reference
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unique to the southern hemisphere), up to 3m in diameter and 35m in length. Today the
150-sq-km Monumento Natural Bosques Petrificados (Petrified Forests Natural Monu-
ment; 9am-9pm year-round) has a small visitor center, English-language brochure
and short interpretive trail, leading from park headquarters to the largest concentration of
petrified trees. Until its legal protection in 1954, the area was plundered for some of its
finest specimens; these days you're not allowed to take home souvenirs.
The park is 157km southwest of Caleta Olivia, accessed from the good gravel RP49,
leading 50km west from a turnoff at Km 2074 on RN3. There's no public transportation.
Buses from Caleta Olivia leave visitors at the junction, but you may wait several hours
for a lift into the park. Los Vikingos ( Click here ) runs tours from Puerto Deseado.
There's basic camping and provisions at La Paloma , 20km before park headquarters.
Camping in the park is prohibited.
BIG FEET, TALL TALES
Say 'Patagonia' and most think of fuzzy outdoor clothes, but the name that has
come to symbolize the world's end still invites hot debate as to its origin.
One theory links the term 'Patagón' to a fictional monster in a best-selling 16th-
century Spanish romance of the period, co-opted by Magellan's crew to describe
the Tehuelche as they wintered in 1520 at Puerto San Julián. Crew member and
Italian nobleman, Antonio Pigafetta, described one Tehuelche as 'so tall we
reached only to his waist…He was dressed in the skins of animals skillfully sewn to-
gether…His feet were shod with the same kind of skins, which covered his feet in
the manner of shoes…The captain-general [Magellan] called these people Patag-
oni.'
Another theory suggests that the name comes from the Spanish pata,meaning
paw or foot. No evidence corroborates the claim that the Tehuelche boasted un-
usually big feet (it's possible that the skins they wore made their feet seem excep-
tionally large). But it's good fodder for the genre of travelers' tales, where first im-
pressions loom larger than life.
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