The cool change finally came through and we woke to 25 degrees. The
air was very hazy, looked like smoke and we wondered if it was dust
from all the wind. 197km's to Parque provinvial Ischigualasto - Valle
de Luna. We traveled along the boundary of Parque natural Provincal
Valle Fertil at about 800m altitude.
We arrived at the
valle de Luna at about 15:50. There was a convoy tour leaving at 5
so we bought tickets (AU$20 each) and headed to look at the museum. I
had asked the guy if we could camp here and he pointed out a dusty
parking area with lights and no view :-(.
Dinosaurs… This park has
the oldest (in at least Argentina) but they are smaller than the
“younger” ones found in Patagonian.
Dinosaurs… This park has
the oldest (in at least Argentina) but they are smaller than the
“younger” ones found in Patagonian.
The landscape was interesting. Lots of erosion which makes nice shapes. A lot of the “soil” is volcanic ashes. Supposedly this very wet area dried up when the Andes rose, causing the dinosaurs to starve. There are many dinosaurs here. Some have been excavated and others are just marked with poles. The highest pole number we saw was 38, they were numbered out from the entrance and we only saw a fraction of the parque.
Some neat colors,
grey - volanic ash, red - iron oxide, and black – carbon. After
the explanation in Spanish at the first stop I asked for it in
English, we got a short spiel and no more English at any of the other
stops. Disappointing! At the museum where we got to see 3 dinosaurs
partly uncovered in there natural state there was still no English.
The video was in Spanish with no subtitles.
The day was still very hazy and the light flat so photography was difficult, and visibility poor.
We got back to the gate at 20:30 half hour late. We drove ½ way out the entrance and camped 20m off the road and started omelette for dinner.
The ticket sales guy
drove past saw us went back to the headquarters and picked up the
police man.
No camping anywhere
in parque, I had already been told? Not even on road side. They
waited while we packed up and headed off. 35km to be out of park.
We started that way
then realised we’d miss the view in the dark so turned around and head
east. Outside the parque boundary we found a very old road and
parked 20m from the road. Started dinner and john had the idea to
check google to see if we were outside parque - NO - google had a
different boundary than our OSM map. Packed up yet again… and
headed further east.
Outside the boundary this time (we hope) we drove on a track about 200m off the road and camped. Third go at dinner and into bed at midnight, still had a little internet.