11/12: Sucre, Bolivia: The World's Largest Collection of Dinosaur Footprints!

Earlier in the day we had toured the beautiful capital city of Sucre's Casa de Libertad aka House of Liberty where the country's independence was proclaimed. Then, hopping on a local bus, we made our way to Parque Cretácico for an English-guided tour at 2 of what is considered the best collection of dinosaur tracks in the world!

After traveling for almost an hour north of the city, we knew we had definitely gotten on the right bus when we saw the dinosaurs on the roundabout! A mind-boggling 68 million years ago, a diverse population of dinosaurs were living on, and stomping around in, the soft clay shores of a vast ocean inlet which covered large areas of Bolivia, coming as far inland as Sucre. As the clay dried, the footprints left behind by the dinosaurs ossified into stone and eventually disappeared under layers of sediment.

Fast forward to the present day. Shifting tectonic plates thrust the expansive Andes mountain range up through the middle of the South American continent, pushing the ocean back thousands of kilometers. What was once a flat clay beach is now the near-vertical 4,000 foot long limestone cliff Cal Orkc’o or ‘dinosaur wall’ which contained about 5,000 tracks of at least eight different species of dinosaurs located three miles north of Sucre and almost 10,000 feet above sea level!

The footprints remained covered until 1994 when the grounds of Sucre's Fancesa cement quarry were being cleared. Workers had mined away the sedimentary layers for use in the production of concrete, stopping just short of the layers containing the footprints which, thank goodness, were unsuitable for making concrete.

The footprints have been turned into a major tourist attraction with the creation of a dinosaur-themed park which included a museum and a collection of life-size dinosaur sculptures.

As we hiked up to the entrance, a series of plaques on the long wall described critical periods in the earth's history. For example, the first massive extinction occurred 2,100 million years ago which resulted in the atmosphere becoming oxygenic.

1800 million years ago, the first single cells were able to float on sea plankton. 1700 million years ago was a pivotal time as the earth's crust moved, the seas expanded, there were the first cells with a nucleus and algae became resistant to drought.

Three hundred million years later, the ozone layer became thicker. Sexual reproduction in eukaryotes - algae, plants, fungi and animals - began to take place 1100 million years ago. A 'mere' 100 millions years ago saw the 'era of the giant dinosaurs in the South,' the growth of coniferous forests, the first snakes and volcanic eruptions in Bolivia.

The beginning of the elevation of the Andes mountain range happened 90 million years ago. 65 million years ago was the Cal Orck'o Lime Era, when the Atlantic Ocean reached Bolivia from Argentina as a narrow strip of sea and there was brief contact between North and South America.

How much fun it would be to be a child and come across over two dozen life-size sculptures of many of the park’s original inhabitants in Cretaceous Park! It was fun enough for us especially when the dinosaurs moved their heads and emitted sounds like you would expect from a dinosaur!

One of the world’s largest sculptures was a 118 foot by 55 foot replica of a Titanosaurus.

Our first sight of the Cal Orck’o cliff was pretty darn amazing! The cliff just went on and on! We were excited at the prospect of taking the tour so we could get so much closer to the footprints.

A couple of shots from the viewing platform to hopefully whet your appetite of the many dinosaur footprints still to come! As always, click on any photo to make it bigger.

After the cement company mined the cliff's initial layers, gravity, rain and earthquakes stripped off the remaining sediment revealing perfectly preserved 5,055 dinosaur footprints up to two and a half feet long! In 2010, a section of the wall broke off destroying some of the tracks but revealing another layer underneath. It is believed that there are multiple layers of tracks below what was in front of us!

Before the tour began, everyone had to don hard hats and goggles in case parts of the cliff gave way!

We were so fortunate that a new path was very recently opened that allowed much closer access to the footprints from the base of the cliff. The nine hundred foot-long path was constructed from rocks from the site, many of which contained
fossils of invertebrate animals.

Our guide, Romel, stated there were some 12,000 footprints discovered by scientists but that number was well more than double what I read in other sources.

We didn't relish climbing back up the steep path for a while as the altitude was much higher once again.

It was almost overwhelming when faced with the enormous cliff in front of us and seeing just thousands of footprints. I couldn't help but wonder how we would ever be able to differentiate the prints.

We were glad that Romel stopped for a few minutes beside the chart of the four groups of dinosaur prints as we hoped it would help us later when we had time to explore the cliff and determine what prints we were looking at!

It was somewhat easy to determine these rounded footprints were of an Ankylosaurus, a type of armored dinosaur whose fossils have been found in geological formations dating to the very end of the Cretaceous Period, about 68–66 million years ago.

Amazingly, the tour allowed us to get within just a few inches of the wall as there was no rope or barrier! I was just flabbergasted and rather saddened, too, that we could have put our hands out and touched the footprints. I heard of one woman in the earlier tour who rubbed her finger across a footprint while the guide was distracted and the rock crumbled away underneath it. Literally millions of years of history was rubbed away with a moment's stupidity.

If I had to bet, I think these belonged to a Sauropd, surely the world's largest lizard between 98-115 feet long and with a weight of up to 80-100 tons.

These three-toed prints belonged to a Therapod. Meaning 'beast-footed dinosaur,' they were bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs who had strong sharp claws and an extraordinary agility. Therapods were of different sizes and some were authentic predators.

Some of the prints were, as kids would say, ginormous!

Even though I couldn't begin to fathom what most of the footprints were that we saw, it was still a magical experience coming so close to them.

I was relieved to read that the park was in the process of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site as that would raise $8 million towards conservation of the prints. One planned protection for the site is to cover the cliff wall with a clear fiberglass layer to minimize the erosion which is slowly damaging the footprints.

Otherwise, it has been estimated that the tracks will be completely damaged by erosion of the soft limestone by 2020 if not protected. Thank goodness, we were lucky enough to get there while the prints were still in such excellent shape although I pity future generations who may not be as fortunate as we were.

After the tour was over, we toured the site's small museum. There we saw a Carnotaurus, a type of large theropod dinosaur that lived in South America during the Late Cretaceous period, between about 72 and 69.9 million years ago. The name Carnotaurus means 'meat-eating bull,' an allusion to the animal's bull-like horns.

How cute was this - I couldn't resist taking the photo!

The model represented the cliff wall we'd just toured.

Among other fossils that were found at the site were shells, the hard, upper shells of sea turtles, crocodile teeth and vertebra. The most common natural element in Cal Orck'o were remains of freshwater fish.

The red 'Dino bus' regularly transported tourists to and from outside the cathedral but we were glad to return to the city via the bus stop just outside the cement factory.