Torotoro National Park

Torotoro National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Torotoro Canyon
Coordinates	18°6′S 65°46′W / 18.100°S 65.767°WCoordinates: 18°6′S 65°46′W / 18.100°S 65.767°W
Area	165 km^2

Torotoro National Park (Spanish "Parque Nacional Torotoro") is a small national park in Bolivia, situated among the eastern mountain ranges of the South American Andes cordilleras.

Geography

Torotoro National Park is situated in the northern Potosí department, 140 km south of Cochabamba and only accessible by gravel roads and riverbeds, which takes seven hours in the dry season and much longer in the rainy season when sometimes the route becomes completely impassable. Torotoro National Park covers 165 km² and is located at 18° 7' S and 65° 46' W in a semi-arid landscape at altitudes between 2000 and 3500 m above sea level, with canyons as deep as 300 meters.

Places of interest

The Torotoro National Park offers scrubby woodland with wildlife like flocks of parakeets and the red-fronted macaw, as well as typical features of karst terrain like caves and dolines, Paleozoic and Cretaceous calcitic deposits with fossils, and panoramic landscapes eroded by glaciers, wind and waters. Among the main features of the park are:

• Uma Jalanta cave, for miles northwest of the town of Torotoro, 4,600 m long and 164 m deep, one of the longest and deepest caves in Bolivia, with stalactites and stalagmites, blind fish and waterfalls.
• Dinosaur bone fragments and more than 2,500 dinosaur footprints, of biped and quadruped dinosaurs, theropods and sauropods from the cretaceous period 120 million years ago.
• The Vergel or Waka Sinqa Canyon with waterfalls and pools and lush tropical vegetation.
• Llama Chaki, an archaeological site southeast of the town of Torotoro with remnants of the Quechua culture.