🇧🇴 Bolivia · Valleys
Cal Orck'o is one of the most impressive dinosaur track sites in the world: an enormous, near-vertical wall on the outskirts of Sucre, preserving thousands of fossilized footprints left by dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period. The site came to light during quarrying for the local cement plant, which exposed this exceptional record of prehistoric fauna.
Next to the site they built the Parque Cretácico (Parque Cretácico Cal Orck'o), a theme park that pairs views of the track wall with life-size dinosaur replicas, explanatory panels, a museum and lookout platforms. It is one of Sucre's most popular attractions, ideal for families and for any traveler interested in paleontology and the history of the Earth.
This guide covers the essentials of Cal Orck'o and the Parque Cretácico: what there is to see, how much admission costs, how to get there from Sucre, opening hours and practical tips for visiting one of the most fascinating paleontological corners of Bolivia.
The Cal Orck'o tracks were exposed during quarrying for the Fancesa cement plant, on the outskirts of Sucre, where the work revealed a colossal wall with thousands of Cretaceous dinosaur footprints (about 68 million years old). Scientific recognition of the site and the creation of the Parque Cretácico in 2006 turned it into one of the region's great attractions. The wall, more than 1,200 meters long, preserves over 12,000 tracks from around eight different species. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The department where Bolivia was born: land of the White City of Sucre, the country's constitutional capital, seat of the Audiencia of Charcas and of the 'first libertarian cry of the Americas', with the textile culture of Tarabuco and the dinosaur footprints of Cal Orcko.
Read the history of Chuquisaca →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
At first glance it looks like a trick of the eye: thousands of dinosaur footprints 'climbing' a near-vertical wall 80 meters high, as if those giant animals had defied gravity. The explanation, of course, lies in deep time. Around 68 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, the area where Sucre stands today was a warm plain on the shore of a large lake, and dinosaurs of many species moved across its wet mud. It was the slow uplift of the Andes that, millions of years later, tilted that ground until it stood on end.
Walking over that wet mud, the animals pressed in their footprints. Under the right conditions, those prints dried out, were covered by sediment and, across geological time, fossilized, preserved in the rock as a direct record of the dinosaurs passing through. Cal Orck'o preserved an extraordinary set of these tracks: thousands of footprints from different kinds of dinosaurs —from large herbivorous sauropods to carnivorous theropods— documenting the abundance and diversity of the fauna of the period.
What makes Cal Orck'o unique is the number and variety of tracks gathered on a single surface, which turns it into a genuine 'chronicle' of dinosaur movement in that ecosystem. For paleontologists, these trails supply immensely valuable information about how they moved, how they grouped together and which species lived alongside each other on the South American continent before the great extinction.
The Cal Orck'o site came to light in an unusual way: through industrial activity. On the outskirts of Sucre the Fancesa cement plant has been operating for decades, working a limestone quarry in the area. Extraction gradually ate into the ground and, as it cut through the rock strata, exposed an enormous surface on which the fossilized footprints became visible. The first records of the find date from 1985, though for years the marks went almost unnoticed outside the local area.
That great wall, raised and tipped to near vertical by geological movements over millions of years, thus revealed a record that would otherwise have stayed buried underground. What was a rock face to the quarry turned out to be one of the most impressive sets of dinosaur tracks on the planet, which drew the attention of Bolivian and international scientists.
Paleontological study of the site confirmed its exceptional value and its importance to science. Conserving the site, however, raised particular challenges: the quarry's own activity, exposure to the weather and erosion all threaten the wall, so protecting it and reconciling industrial extraction with the preservation of paleontological heritage have been central issues in how the place is managed.
To make the most of the site and let the public enjoy it without damaging the fragile track wall, the Parque Cretácico was built next to Cal Orck'o. This theme park pairs views of the site from lookout platforms with an educational circuit that includes life-size dinosaur replicas, a museum and explanatory panels on the fauna, the geology and the discovery of the site.
The Parque Cretácico quickly became one of Sucre's main tourist attractions, especially popular with families and paleontology enthusiasts. Its approach brings the fascinating story of the dinosaurs that lived in the region to a wide public, combining the scientific rigor of the site with lighter, visual elements that make the visit appealing at any age.
Today Cal Orck'o carries a double value: on one hand it is paleontological heritage of world importance, direct testimony to life in the Cretaceous; on the other it is a tourist and educational resource that enriches what Sucre offers, a city already famous for its colonial heritage. The track wall and the park beside it let visitors travel back in time to the age of the dinosaurs without leaving the constitutional capital of Bolivia.
The systematic study of Cal Orck'o was carried out between 1994 and 1998, when a team of Bolivian and foreign paleontologists led by the Swiss scientist Christian Meyer —director of the Natural History Museum of Basel and a world specialist in dinosaur tracks— surveyed and certified the site. The results revealed an exceptional scale: the wall measures some 1,200 meters long by 80 high, tilted at 73 degrees, and preserves over 12,000 individual footprints grouped into more than 460 trails, left by at least eight —and by some surveys as many as fifteen— different kinds of dinosaurs around 68 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, shortly before the great extinction.
Among the prints are trails of titanosaur sauropods (enormous long-necked herbivores), carnivorous theropods, armored ankylosaurs and ornithopod dinosaurs. The most famous trail belongs to a young theropod nicknamed 'Johnny Walker': an unbroken track of some 347 meters, the longest documented in the world for a dinosaur. According to Meyer, Cal Orck'o 'documents the high diversity of dinosaurs better than any other site in the world', and it is an essential reference for the study of the behavior and locomotion of South American dinosaurs.
The great challenge at the site is conservation. The wall is exposed to the weather, to rain, to earthquakes and to the instability of the rock, made worse by the proximity of the quarry. On several occasions, rockfalls have brought down fragments bearing footprints, which set off alarms about how fragile the site is. Bolivian institutions, together with international bodies, have worked on monitoring and protection plans, and there is a hope that Cal Orck'o will be recognized as a World Heritage Site, given its paleontological importance on a world scale.
The name Cal Orck'o itself holds a clue to its geological story: in Quechua, the native language of much of the Bolivian Andes, it means roughly 'lime hill', a reference to the limestone the Fancesa cement plant works in the quarry next to the site. That double character —industrial resource and paleontological treasure— runs through the whole history of the place since its discovery.
The figures for the site have been revised as the studies advanced: the first surveys in the 1990s recorded some 3,000 footprints visible on the surface of the wall; by 2006, when the Parque Cretácico was created, more than 5,000 had been counted; and the most recent surveys raise the figure to over 12,000 identified prints, spread across more than 460 trails from different species, confirming Cal Orck'o as the largest dinosaur track site on the planet, ahead of other famous sites in North America and Europe. Among the most cited finds is the footprint of a titanosaur —a giant long-necked sauropod that could reach 25 meters— measuring some 70 centimeters, and the unbroken trail of the theropod 'Johnny Walker', some 347 meters without interruption, considered the longest documented in the world.
Given this exceptional scientific importance, Bolivia has for years been pushing the candidacy of Cal Orck'o to be declared a Unesco Natural World Heritage Site, a recognition that would seek both to protect the fragile wall more effectively against erosion and quarry activity and to consolidate its international standing as a tourist and scientific destination. While the process moves forward, the Parque Cretácico goes on receiving visitors from all over the world, making Sucre an essential stop not only for those seeking its colonial heritage but also for anyone passionate about dinosaurs and prehistory.