Argentina Guide
Patagonia
Monumento Natural Bosques Petrificados
The MONUMENTO NATURAL BOSQUES PETRIFICADOS (sometimes called Bosque Petrificado de Jaramillo; daily: April– Sept 10am–5pm, Oct– March 9am–8pm; free) is down a branch road 50km off RN-3, some 256km from Puerto Deseado and 210km north of Puerto San Julián. It stretches the imagination to picture this desert covered with plant life, but a forest it once was – and quite some forest, too. The sheer magnitude of the fossilized trunks here is astonishing, measuring some 35m long and up to 3m across. They're strangely beautiful, especially at sunset, when their jasper-red expanses soak up the glow, as though they're heating up from within.
The primeval Jurassic forest grew here 150 million years ago – 60 million years before the Andean cordillera was forced up, forming the rain barrier that has such a dramatic effect on the scenery we know now. In Jurassic times, this area was still swept by moisture-laden winds from the Pacific, allowing the growth of araucaria trees. A cataclysmic blast from an unidentified volcano flattened these colossi and covered the fallen trunks with ash. The wood absorbed silicates in the ash and petrified, later to be revealed when erosion wore down the supervening strata.
Surrounding the trunks is a bizarre moonscape of arid basalt meseta, dominated by the 400-metre-tall Cerro Madre e Hija (Mother and Daughter Mount). Guanaco roam around, somehow managing to find sufficient subsistence from what plant life does exist. A two-kilometre trail, littered by shards of fossilized bark as if it were a woodchip path through a garden, leads from the administration past all the most impressive trunks.
Day-trips to the park are easiest if you have your own car but can be organized with travel agents from Comodoro Rivadavia or Puerto Deseado. There are fascinating fossils such as the araucaria pinecones in the small museum. Don't succumb to the temptation of picking up "souvenirs", and note that you're not permitted to pitch a tent in the park; the only camping nearby is at La Paloma, 24km before the administration ($15 per person).