 Sandra Bonetto y Julián Varsavsky  Agencia Provincial de Turismo de La Rioja
Talampaya National Park, maximum pride of the people of La Rioja, lodges the Lost City, the longest circuit in the entire park. |
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In order to visit the famous Lost City, it is necessary to hire an official guide at the access to the national park for several reasons. The tour may be done either on a 4WD vehicle or on the park’s vehicle. In our case, we left the National Parks Office in the company of our guide retracing our steps towards the access and taking National Route 76.
The stretch is short. Three kilometers ahead, we turned left into a red soil path that led us to the most hidden nooks of Talampaya National Park.
The road winds across the desolate steppe in this area that used to be a tropical rainforest with large ponds and a plentiful fauna 225 million years ago, according to our guide.
We toured around the dry bed of the Guabo River, which represents a real two-kilometer-long sandy highway. It is hard to believe that the first dinosaurs dwelled in this place millions of years ago: the remains of the Lagosuchus Talampayensis, one of the oldest on the planet, was discovered in the park.
Today, as this sector does not receive frequent visits, it is feasible to see specimens of the local fauna, such as a couple of hares hopping away, some fox slipping behind some bush and even guanaco herds petrified to observe visitors and then fleeing when the leader cries out to withdraw. |
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A Three-Kilometer Crater
In the distance, we spotted the reddish geological formation known as Los Chapares, which is part of the Ischigualasto basin, declared World Heritage by UNESCO. After fifteen kilometers free of obstacles along the river bed, we parked our vehicle in the shade of a carob tree.
It was then when we started walking. A brief and monotonous hike across sandhills covered with creosote bushes forecast that amazement stood a few steps ahead.
As the path features a slope upwards, we could not get a panoramic view of what lay in front of us. However, as we got to the highest part, an unexpected crater appeared before us level with the ground. Its diameter was three kilometers and it contained the Lost City.
Just like Borges described it, “at the foot of the mountain ran a noiseless, impure stream, clogged by sand and rubble; the City of the Immortal shone dazzlingly on the far bank.” This city might have something in common with the Lost city.
Astonished at the unexpected scene, we stood on the natural viewpoint in order to observe the panorama from the edge of the crater, which is indeed a depression formed by the tectonic movements that made the soil sink.
To our feet, a complex labyrinth of sand chambers and formations resembling the remains of a ghost city destroyed by a meteor shower. |
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In its center, the Lost City features a dark basalt formation that gives shape to an almost perfect pyramid called Mogote Negro. The labyrinth invites visitors to discover it. We went down seventy meters to enter it through a simple flank of the crater.
As we crossed those chambers created in the Triassic period, we had the feeling that we would be flabbergasted by a group of pterodactyls that would soar up from behind the great walls any time.
Through the Labyrinth
Once we were wandering inside the mysterious Lost City, we toured around its loins through a series of natural paths that are in fact the dry beds of the whimsical water streams formed inside the crater during the rain season.
These water streams are as powerful as their existence is short because the sandy soil absorbs the volumes that enter through the east in the summer and after deepening the crater leave towards the west giving origin to Los Verdes River. In spite of their short existence, the waterways change the shape of the labyrinth periodically and carve strange shapes worthy of a kaleidoscope.
We found ourselves in front of a fragile world of sand sculptures that has survived the passing of time from the times of the dinosaurs. Under the sunset, when the red formations switched on to the west, the silence around let us hear our own intimate heartbeats.
This scenery is quite different from the traditional image of Talampaya. To begin with, the hues are softer and the red becomes pink. There are also other shades, like some greenish and whitish tinges that prevail on some walls.
After going along real passageways, the Amphitheater appeared to the southwest. It is a hole in the ground that measures around a hundred meters in diameter and eighty meters deep. This well, made by the rain and erosion, hides in turn new and strange irregular formations we discovered when we leaned upon its vertiginous cliff.
Finally, we went down to a narrow canyon called Barrancas Coloradas, that leads to a water spring that runs into a small fall. |
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