Around the World in 8000 days: Triassic Parks

Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Triassic Parks - Ischigualasto and Talampaya

Painted Valley, Ischigualasto, Argentina

Our main reason for coming to this area of Argentina, was to visit the World Heritage Site that encompasses the Provincial Park of Ischigualasto and the National Park of Talampaya.

The parks are said by UNESCO to have the "most complete continental fossil record known from the Triassic Period."

Ischigualasto, Argentina

The Triassic Period was the 199-250 million years ago, and was the first part of the Mesezoic Era, or the 'Age of Reptiles'. It came immediately before the Jurassic Period, so saw the very beginning of the dinosaurs.

The sediments that gradually layered into the ground over these 50.9 million years, captured in them the history of this period, and is now of huge interest to paleontologists.

Ischigualasto, Argentina

Whilst we recognise the importance of the place for those reasons, we were here more to see the rock formations. After all of those sedimentary layers had settled, the movement of the earth's plates caused some of the surface to push up, creating tall outcrops. Then the weather eroded these rocks, whittling them into interesting shapes and forms.

Bowling Balls, Ischigualasto, Argentina

We decided to make life easy for ourselves, and do both visits on the same day with a tour company. It was more expensive that way, but if we had done it on the bus, we could only have gone to Talampaya, and as it turned out, it would have been a everyone day.

Ischigualasto, Argentina

Tamsin, a British woman that we'd been chatting with in our hostel, who had initially planned to take the bus with some others that she'd met, came to the same conclusion, and joined us for the trip.

Ischigualasto, Argentina

Our first stop was Ischigualasto. You can't go in on your own, so our driver joined a convoy of vehicles to follow the guide around the route. There was some great scenery as we drove through, but we stopped off at five particular places for a better look, and a chance to take some photos.

The first was the painted valley, which is an area of badlands, where the weather has eroded the flat ground unevenly, exposing layers of different coloured sedimentary layers, giving a great stripey effect.

The next was the Sphinx and the Bowling Balls. The Sphinx is fairly self explanatory, as it actually does resemble the Egyptian cat pretty well. The Bowling Balls are a large number of small round rocks that sit in one area, a bit like bowls on a green. Cue lots of people posing as if they were throwing a bowl.

Ischigualastia bones, Ischigualasto, Argentina

Our third stop was the Submarine, which took a little bit more imagination to see, and the fourth was the museum. This was pretty limited, but they did give a little talk about the fossils found here, and you could see a semi uncovered Ischigualastia, which was a herbivore of the period.

Our final stop here was at the Mushroom. Again, fairly obvious.

Talampaya, Argentina

Then we were off to the second park, Talampaya, where we had to take a separate tour with their company. There are a couple of slightly different options for the tour, but they are quite infrequent. The girls that came on the bus were still waiting - it ended up being about four hours - to do the one they wanted. We opted to do the one that was leaving in five minutes.

Petroglyphs, Talampaya, Argentina

Again, you are driven around, and stop off at a few points along the way. There is a commentary in Spanish, but they did give out a sheet with the main information in English, so we were able to get the key points, and the signage at the stops has English translations.

Our first stop here was the Petroglyphs, which were drawn by the indigenous people, around 1500 years ago. There were various pictures and they had decent descriptions of what was being depicted.

Next was the stop that they call the Botanical Garden, because it has lots of different plants, including the carob tree. We were more interested in the 150m canyon walls, including some fascinating circular hollowed 'chimneys'. This was a participatory moment for the group, as the guide encouraged everyone to call out in unison to demonstrate how these hollows acted as an echo chamber.

Canyon, Talampaya, Argentina

We also made a rather unnecessary pause here for a glass of wine. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a 'free' glass of wine normally, but in this instance, I'd have preferred that we spend the extra time seeing what we had come for!

Gothic Cathedral, Talampaya, Argentina

The next stop was the Gothic Cathedral, which is still part of the canyon, but here the formations have an effect of turrets on the edge, which is vaguely reminiscent of a gothic building. They don't let you get too close here though, as apparently bits have a tendency to fall down on you!

Our final stop has a few formations, which they call the Monk, the Bottle and the Tower. These are quite interesting shapes, but you do need to use your imagination to see the suggested forms.

Along the way, we also managed to spot a few of the animals that call the park home. There was a grey fox, a few Patagonian Mara and a nandu, which is like a rhea or emu.

Overall, a great day out, and lots of photos for you today, including a couple with us in them, where hopefully you can see our progress on the healthy regime!