🇦🇷 Argentina · Cuyo
Sierra de las Quijadas National Park protects one of the most spectacular and surprising landscapes in San Luis: a set of canyons, cliffs and rock formations of intense red that recall the great desert parks of the American West. In the northwest of the province, on National Route 147, it preserves an arid Chaco scrubland environment and valuable palaeontological heritage.
The park's great emblem is the Potrero de la Aguada, an enormous natural amphitheatre of some 5,000 hectares with walls up to 400 metres high, carved by erosion, which you take in from an imposing lookout. But the Quijadas hold another treasure: dinosaur and pterosaur beds from the Cretaceous period, which make the park a palaeontological site of international importance, along with traces of early Indigenous inhabitants.
This guide covers the essentials of Sierra de las Quijadas National Park: the lookout and the trails of the Potrero de la Aguada, the guided circuits to the canyons and the fossil beds, the fees (entry currently suspended) and the guide, and how to get there from the city of San Luis. A destination not to be missed for lovers of desert landscapes, geology and palaeontology.
Sierra de las Quijadas National Park was created by Law 24.015 of November 1991, over 73,534 hectares in northwestern San Luis, to protect its red formations, its arid scrubland and exceptional palaeontological heritage. Its Cretaceous rocks (about 100 million years old) yielded dinosaur remains and hundreds of specimens of the pterosaur Pterodaustro guinazui, a filter-feeding flying reptile described by José Bonaparte in 1970. The area also preserves traces of the early Huarpe and Comechingón peoples. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The 'Gateway to Cuyo' between the sierras and the plain: land of Comechingones and Ranqueles, contributor to the Army of the Andes, home of Colonel Pringles, of the Sierras de los Comechingones and of the red canyon country of the Sierra de las Quijadas.
Read the history of San Luis →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Few travelers expect to find a piece of the American West in the middle of the San Luis plain: red canyons, cliffs hundreds of metres high and a desert silence broken only by the wind. And yet there it is, 120 km from the city of San Luis, the Sierra de las Quijadas, a landscape many compare to Arizona or Utah and which also holds a secret not even the Grand Canyon can offer: a fossil lagoon full of flying reptiles from 100 million years ago. The rock that forms its spectacular red walls was laid down during the Cretaceous, when the region was a world of lagoons, rivers and wet plains whose sediments turned, over time, into the sandstones and clays we now see stained red by iron oxides.
The park's most imposing feature is the Potrero de la Aguada, an enormous horseshoe-shaped natural amphitheatre ringed by walls up to several hundred metres high. This great depression formed through differential erosion: water, wind and temperature swings wore away the softer rock and left the harder rock exposed, carving canyons, spires and fantastical formations. The result is a monumental landscape, comparable to that of the great desert parks of western North America.
The aridity of the climate — scant rain, big temperature swings, intense sun — is key to this landscape: the lack of dense vegetation leaves the bare rock exposed in all its raw colour. The Quijadas are, then, an open book of geology, where you can 'read' the history of the Earth in its strata, and a natural setting of overwhelming beauty that shifts in tone with every hour of the day.
The Cretaceous rock of the Sierra de las Quijadas doesn't only shape a spectacular landscape: it also holds a valuable fossil record that has made the place a palaeontological site of international importance. In its strata, around 100 million years old, remains have been found of dinosaurs, fish, crustaceans and other animals that lived in the region when the environment was one of lagoons and wet plains, very different from today's desert.
The most famous find is Pterodaustro guinazui, a truly singular pterosaur (flying reptile), described in 1970 by the great Argentine palaeontologist José Bonaparte from remains found in this region; the site in the park where hundreds of specimens turned up is known, fittingly, as Loma del Pterodaustro. Its most astonishing feature was its jaw, curved upwards and fitted with a thousand extremely fine bristle-shaped teeth in the lower jaw, which worked as a filter: the animal swept the water of the lagoons to catch small organisms, much as flamingos do today. It's one of the most curious and best-known pterosaurs in the world, and the Loma del Pterodaustro ranks among the richest flying-reptile beds in South America.
These finds make the Quijadas a place of great scientific and educational interest. The park and its interpretation centre let the visitor look into this remote past and grasp the enormous geological age of the landscape they're walking through. The combination of spectacular geology and exceptional palaeontology is one of the great reasons the protected area was created.
The Sierra de las Quijadas wasn't only a setting for dinosaurs: it also holds traces of human presence. Indigenous peoples such as the Huarpe and the Comechingón lived in or frequented the area, drawing on its resources in a demanding environment. The park preserves traces of that occupation, such as old kilns and processing sites, testimony to human adaptation to the arid scrubland. Those traces add a cultural and historical layer to the natural value of the place.
Recognition of the sierra's geological, palaeontological and natural importance led to formal protection: national Law 24.015, passed on 13 November 1991, created Sierra de las Quijadas National Park over 73,534 hectares in the Belgrano and Ayacucho departments, adding this unique landscape to Argentina's system of protected areas. The measure sought to conserve both the spectacular rock formations and the fossil beds and the biodiversity of the scrubland and arid Chaco it holds — guanacos, pumas, maras, condors, tortoises — with its plants and animals adapted to dryness.
Today the park is one of San Luis's main tourist attractions and a recognized destination for lovers of desert landscapes, geology and palaeontology. Run by the National Parks Administration, it offers trails, lookouts and guided visits that let you discover, in a few hours, a place where the deep history of the Earth, the mark of the Indigenous peoples and a scenic beauty that leaves no one indifferent all come together.
The origin of the name 'Sierra de las Quijadas' has several possible explanations. The most widespread holds that it derives from the Indigenous word 'Hue-Quijadas' or from the abundance of animal bones and jawbones (quijadas) in the area, though it has also been linked to the shape of the rock formations themselves, which would recall teeth or toothed jaws cut out against the sky. The exact etymology is still debated.
The sierra, rugged and hard to reach, also fed stories and legends over time. Because of its labyrinthine geography of canyons and gullies, it was associated with the hideouts of bandits and cattle rustlers who, according to popular tradition, found shelter among its walls to hide from the law or stash their loot. These stories, a mix of fact and folklore, are part of the imagination that surrounds the place.
Beyond the legends, what's certain is that the combination of a monumental landscape, an extraordinary palaeontological past, Indigenous traces and popular stories gives the Sierra de las Quijadas a powerful and singular identity. It's one of those places where nature, science and culture intertwine, and where every visit invites you to imagine the many layers of history — geological and human — held in its red canyons.