I drove west from Córdoba in a ridiculously small Renault with, as it turns out, horrible gas mileage and a teeny tiny eight gallon gas tank. I rented a mini instead of an economy car because it was cheaper. Lesson learned. Anyway, after several hours of driving I’m now in the very small and very very remote Villa San Augustín, my base for the next few days. There really is not much at all in San Augustín and there’s hours of driving to get anywhere. That small gas tank makes me nervous.

I came to this remote area to visit two national parks and one provincial park. I started at what is apparently Argentina’s largest national park, Parque Nacional Talampaya. This park is kind of unusual in that you can’t get into the park without booking a guided tour. They take you on a bus through Talampaya Canyon and make only a few organized stops. The first stop was to see some ancient petroglyphs.

The stops were all pretty quick, but there were actually a lot of petroglyphs here.

Talampaya was both a good experience and a frustrating one at the same time. The canyon is really beautiful and when we were allowed off the bus I really enjoyed it. It seemed like most of the experience though was wishing I could get pics of some of the vistas that I could just barely make out through the curtains and tinted windows of the bus as we passed by. I would’ve much rather just walked through the canyon on my own.

The sort of end of the road was at the Torre de Talampaya. We got off and there was a short boardwalk to see some of the other crazy rock formations in the area.

Next up was a quick drive and then a short walk up Shimpa Canyon. This park really is beautiful. As we’re walking up the canyon, I’m imagining all the different hiking trails that could be and scoping out possible routes. It’s painful!

I suppose it’s time to meet the Guanaco. I saw several of these crossing the road on the way here, but they were a little too quick for pictures. These guys are one of the two wild versions of llamas. Vicuñas are the high elevation version, and these Guanacos are the lowland version. They’re cute as hell.

The one hike I did in Talampaya was only allowed as a guided hike and for a hefty extra fee. I thought it was going to be a much longer climb, but the Balcones hike was just a brief mile and a half round trip. What a view though!

Visiting Talampaya was a ridiculously expensive endeavor. After the entry ticket, then the basic bus tour (required), then the extra bit for the Balcones hike, I had been separated from roughly one hundred thirty five dollars. That makes this the most expensive national/provincial/state park I have visited anywhere in the entire world! I hope Argentina is proud of that.

This area reminds me a lot of Arizona, and it reportedly gets as hot as AZ in the summertime, that’s why I came here early to beat the heat (Argentina’s winter and summer are opposite from ours). I may have come a bit too early, though, because while the weather in Talampaya was a perfect 65°, the next days high only got up to 34°. Brrrrrr! It rained all night and even snowed a little bit. Consequently, Parque Provincial Ischigualasto was closed and my plans for the day were kaput.

Ischigualasto may have been closed, but thankfully, their small Paleontology Museum was open. This region is known for some of the oldest dinosaur finds in the world. For example, the eoraptor above is referred to as the evolutionary father of all the sauropods. The eodromaeus below is considered the evolutionary father of most of the later carnivorous dinosaurs. At least according to the signs.

I also learned that Argentina has another dinosaur of its own, named after San Juan Province, where it was found, Sanjuansaurus (seen below). The saurosuchus below that is one of the earliest crocodiles.

The museum was small, but really interesting. Ischigualasto is another park that requires paying for a tour. I couldn’t even get into the trailhead for Cerro Morado, the highest mountain in the park that I was considering climbing. Oh well!

Back in San Augustín, and since I have plenty of extra time today, I searched out their own petroglyph site on the edge of town, Piedra Pintada. The nice part was the sun was starting to come out a bit. It was still super cold though.

The next morning I left San Augustín and headed southeast to the third park on my list, Parque Nacional Sierra de las Quijadas. It was a little over four hours of driving through the desert. There was a visitor office, but there didn’t seem to be anyone there, so I just drove on in and went to the trails. Yay!

There was a couple of short hikes to some viewpoints of the valley that were just phenomenal! The hikes may have been short, but it felt so good to get out of the car for a change and just walk. My take on these parks are that they really highlight the paleontology, but the hiking opportunities have gotten lost in the mix.

I didn’t spot any guanacos this day, but they’re obviously around because I found tracks pretty much everywhere. I did see a fox, though. He ran away before I could get a picture, but that was a cool sighting.

These little yellow birds were everywhere too. They were zipping around like lightening and stopped to beg for food while I was eating my lunch next to the car. All I kept thinking was, “Please don’t attack me.” Ha! They didn’t.

After that I drove to the nearest town of San Luis to spend just one night. In the morning I’ll drive to the next stop. There’s a LOT of driving involved on this leg of the adventure.

That wraps up this remote stop. I feel like the brakes have been stepped on a little, which is odd this early in the trip, but it is what it is. I have so much energy and I’m not ready for a break just yet. I’ve been checking the weather and road conditions and it’s looking like I may not get to do what I planned at the next stop either, but we’ll get to that in the next post. Wish me luck…