La Rioja (500 meters over the level of the sea)

It is the capital city of the province of the same name.  The city is located at the foot of the magnificent Velasco Hill.  The main characteristic of this province is its geography, which presents a great number of accidents, it is an odd mixture of mountains and plains, and also characteristic hills and valleys, which yellowish- brown color is interrupted by the different colors of the plantations. From the point of view of the architecture, it presents a combination of ancient and modern, with low buildings, narrow streets, and well decorated squares.  The commercial center is active, and mainly located around the main square. Some traditional festivities are, the National Festivity of the "Chaya", San Nicolás, and Niño Alcalde, the last being a moving religious ceremony which origins can be traced back to the year 1593.

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Distances from La Rioja
Chilecito: 192 Km
Famatina: 225 Km
Parque Nacional Talampaya: 210 Km
Parque Provincial Ischigualasto (Valle de la Luna): 170 Km
Villa Unión: 271 Km
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El Chilecito

It is the second most important department in the province of La Rioja.  Located at the foot of the impressive Famatina massif, of 6,250 meters over the level of the sea.  The architecture of Chilecito is the result of a mixture of finisecular houses with modern constructions. In the main square, there are native vegetal species, such as teasel, carob tree, acacia, a type of hawthorn, mistletoe, chañar, hackberry tree, and broom. On the street Governor Jamín Ocampo, you can find the San Franciso Mill _ the Museum if Chilecito, showing archeological, historical, paleontological pieces, and artistic works. The surrounding fields offer good harvests of grapes, and other fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which are then processed in a modern plant. There are also regional vineyards that produce wines of a renowned quality. Chilecito is internationally important, because it is the most important exploitation mining center.  Its name comes from the great number of Chilean miners that came here at the end of the XIXth Century to work with the gold riches of the area. Thanks to the fact that it is located in a valley, it offers several tourist possibilities to enjoy the stay in contact with nature. You can also visit the picturesque towns surrounding the city no very far away.   

Talampaya National Park
 
It is located at the South Center of the Province of La Rioja. It is one of the natural museums, of harmonious folding, that summarize the geological history of the Earth.

It treasures the great accumulations of Rust and trashes that the alluvions of the Permic and Triassic periods deposited in its slopes, giving them their peculiar reddish color. As you get into the steep mountain passes, the feeling of smallness increases as you face the colossal rocky walls of over 150m., and the diversity of the shapes that the water and wind capriciously eroded on them. All along the canyon of the Talampaya River, there are millenarian carob tree woods, framed among rocky walls almost 100 meters high, which give a unique attractiveness to the landscape.

It is also a shelter for Condors. Wide extensions of arum and brooms are inhabited by gray foxes, black-legged chuñas, ñandúes petisos, maras, and so on. Some endemic species of our country such as the Gallito Arena (Little sand rooster), find shelter there, too.  The reddish rocky walls of the Talampaya are covered by several manifestations of pre Hispanic cultures that inhabited the area about 1,000 years ago. A natural thirteen meter-long wall full of petroglyphs. There are also sedimentary deposits of the Permic and Triassic periods, that are rich in fossils, especially of great anphibia and reptiles. This fact makes the place internationally relevant, being, together with Ischigualasto, a few kilometers away, one of the most important deposits of its kind. The deep canyons, the valleys full of curious figures carved by erosion, the colorful sedimentary strata, all framed in a dessert landscape of immense beauty, give to Talampaya a unique scenic importance. Archeological/Paleontological Deposits: The cave art developed in Talampaya constitutes one of the most valuable Indian manifestations in our country.

The carvings in the rocks at the foot of the ravines are more than one hundred, and they represent stylized human figures, ñandú footprints, cats and several signs and geometric figures that have not been interpreted yet.  The most important center is the one called "Los Pizarrones" (the Chalkboards).  It is located on the bank of a temporary stream affluent of the Talampaya River, in a plain, rocky, 15 meter-long sector, covered by engravings (petroglyphs) several years before the conquest. Another natural attribute of great importance is its paleontological value.  All the valley comprised between the Señogasta and Morada (Purple) Hills, is of the same Triassic origin as the neighbor area of Ischigualasto or Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) in San Juan.  This two areas are separated by the Morada Hill.  

Ischigualasto Natural Provincial Park.
Valle de la Luna  (Moon Valley)

The Ischigualasto Natural Provincial Park, is 330km North East from the capital of the province, in the Department of Valle Fértil. To the North it is bounded, by the Talampaya Provincial Park, in the province of La Rioja. It was created to preserve one of the most important paleontological deposits of vertebrates representatives of the Triassic period, in the American Continent, and in the world. The are has a semi dessert and desolate aspect, and that is why it is called Moon Valley or Painted Valley.  In the past the area was covered by a lush forest of Acacias, Ginkos, and Palm Trees, and there also were some lakes and swamps.  The apparition of the Andes, only 60 million years ago, changed completely the life conditions that existed in the previous 180 million years.  

Today, that lush environment has been transformed into an arid region in which erosion carved peculiar shapes.  Brick-red sands, spattered with isolated green and ocher blocks, with up to 200 meter-high rough slopes and reefs where you can easily distinguish the different strata, giant columns and thin obelisks, combined with gullies where streams and rivers run during the summer, form the landscape of the Park. The vegetation is formed by thickets of less than 3 meter-high bushes, the arum being the most representative species.  The Guanaco and the mara are the biggest herbivores; among the  carnivores the ferret, and the small gray fox, as well as several cats like the puma, are included. The most common bird is the ñandu, followed by the common heron, and birds of prey like the eagle and the carrion hawk.

The fields of Ischigualasto with its green, gray, black and red sediments, hide such an impressive quantity and variety of fossils, that constitutes one of the most important paleontological deposits in the world. The Ischigualasto Provincial Park is considered one of the richest paleontological deposits of Triassic terapside reptiles, those from which the mammals would later evolve.  Almost all the area of the Ischigualasto is formed by lands of the Triassic period, characteristic for the absolute domain of the dinosaurs, which has contributed with a wide range of fossils and their study has enabled important advance in the knowledge of  the history of life. Several fossils of herbivore, as well as carnivore reptiles have been found in the area.  The most recent discovery, the one of the Coraptor, revolutionized science, and is the oldest dinosaur known (228 million years old).

Fossils of reptiles very similar to the current crocodiles and other species of great interest for the science, have also been found. Besides these fossils of reptiles, rests of great petrified trees have been found, and they can bee seen at a place called the "Petrified Wood", within the tourist circuit. The cultural testimonies are present in the inscriptions and drawings in the rocks, tops of arrows and other stone elements that have found in different places.  Although this evidence has not been thoroughly studied, it is supposed that they are about 1,200 or 1,400 years old.