Sierras and Lihué Calel National Park

Municipalidad De Santa Rosa

    Lihuel means life, breath; and Calel in Mapuche language is body.

    South of Santa Rosa, driving along National route 152, and past General Acha, through the touching solitude of the Valle de los Angelitos, where aborigines buried their children in aerial burials, you will see the “Sierra de Lihué Calel”, a tradition and an attraction that goes beyond geography and trascends to the deepest meaning of culture.

The average height of the sierras is 600 m, their original height lowered over 200 million years since they raised from the surface of the planet. These sierras are a magnificent viewpoint to contemplate the horizon.
The name Lihué Calel in Mapuche means “Mountain of Life”. The prototehuelches travelled through these remote valleys and left their cave art on the rock.

Lihué Calel National Park was created in 1.977, with a surface of 9.900 has. It protects the widest variety of plants within the province of La Pampa, and animals indigenous to the shrubby forest. It has a dry weather, with a wide thermal amplitude and an anual precipitation regime of 400 mm. The maximum elevation is 590 metres above sea level in Cerro de la Sociedad Científica, where you can go walking or by car through self-guided trails . On the hillsides you can observe unstable rocks.

    Magic increases while walking along the Valle de las Pinturas with the secret hope of discovering some unadverted painting.
    There are areas specially prepared for camping and starting some pleasant adventures like hiking, photographic safaris, birds and animals watching, and the fantastic experience of finding oneself surprised by a group of guanacos, pumas, American ostriches and charos, eaglets and owls, woodpeckers and calanders.
    The predominant plant is the jarilla, a shrub ramified from the base, with yellow flowers and leaves, and also the alpataco, the pepper tree and the cactus.
    You can choose from a variety of journeys to the points of interest, like for example, climbing the Cerro de la Sociedad, visiting the ruins of estancia Santa María, observing the indigenous flora and fauna, apart from the possibility to camp in any of the areas assigned by Parques Nacionales all year round.


    Photos: www.santarosa.gov.ar - www.lapampa.gov.ar