In Argentina, a national park offers prehistoric voyage

Argentina's Talampaya National Park, located in the northwest province of La Rioja, offers visitors a voyage into prehistoric times.

The park is one of Argentina's seven UNESCO-designated World Heritage Sites, thanks to its unusual landscapes and paleontological finds.

On a tour of the 215,000-hectare park, visitors will see, among other special features, narrow canyons formed by reddish cliffs carved thousands of years ago by rivers that have long run dry.

Federico Posma, a park ranger at Talampaya, told Xinhua the area was named a national park in 1997 and a Heritage Site in 2000.

The vistas, which evoke a prehistoric landscape, are the result of tectonic plate shifts coupled with water and wind erosion, and the extreme temperatures of desert habitats, where days are scorching and nights are freezing.

In Talampaya, whose name means "dry river of the celtis tala ( tree)" in an indigenous language, the wind is always blowing, and it has gradually sculpted the stone cliffs into curious shapes, such as one resembling a cathedral.

Geologists and paleontologists find much to admire here, in rocks that record the evolution of the planet over millions of years.

Researchers have found dinosaur fossils at the park, including the Lagosuchus talampayensis, one of the first prehistoric creatures to roam the earth some 250 million years ago, or ancient turtles that lived here 210 million years ago, such as the Palaeocheris talampayens.

Visitors who come here, via the highway that links the towns of Patquia and Villa Union, will see more than unique rock formations. By simply looking up, they can spy Andean condors majestically gliding through the sky. The more attentive may spot a gray fox, eagles and falcons.

Researchers have also uncovered signs of human inhabitants that date back to between the years 120 BC and 1180 AD, in rock paintings and petroglyphs.

Sonia Gonzales, a park guide, said "different groups" have lived in the region over the years.

"Nomadic groups are always mentioned, due to the lack of evidence of residences or burial grounds, groups that passed through the place, using it perhaps as grazing land," she said.

Majestic and imposing, Talampaya National Park, considered to be Argentina's answer to the Grand Canyon in the United States, offers visitors to the country's northwest an ideal place for hiking, photo safaris and bird watching. Endite