When I was in the 4th grade, Jurassic Park came out and rocked our world. I was one of the millions of kids who heartily exclaimed, “I want to be a paleontologist!” with a little too much glee.
Hey, I think Shaun was doing that too. I’m not the only one.
Regardless, I find myself GEEKING OUT every time I’m around a museum that has fossilized footprints out on display. Oh boy did we find the holy grail of dino footprints at El Parque Cretácico, the dinosaur museum in Sucre, Bolivia. Not only do the footprints take up an entire side of a mountain (the concrete company next door stumbled upon them), but they have one of the largest collections in the world.
The mountain is sadly collapsing right now due weathering effects, however, the cool part of it is that it has exposed several other layers underneath that have other dinosaur footprints peeking through.
The geological history of South America is an interesting one for sure. At one point in time the entirety of South America was flat and had a huge section of the Atlantic Ocean covering it. When the Andes formed, it pushed the crust up creating the alti-plano in Bolivia, making some water recede, and leaving the rest to form the salt flats. The muddy continent before the Andes is what is seen on the side of the mountain. TOO COOL.
To get out to the museum, catch the DinoBus in front of the cathedral in the main square that leaves at 2:30pm. The return trip fare will run you 17 Bolivianos (not including the entrance into the museum at 30 Bolivianos). The whole ordeal takes about 2 hours and is totally worth your time if you are into kitschy corny things like we are.
Honestly, I think we would have gone just to take pictures of the life sized dinosaurs.
There’s a reason why we get along great. I’m about to visit dinosaur museum in China! 😀
Ok, so now I definitely have a reason to visit Bolivia. 🙂
Nice added bonus that there’s a bunch of stuff outdoors apparently.
haha, looks like a fun place to spend the afternoon 😀
SO COOL!! This is totally right up my alley. I love dinosaurs!!
@Juno: HELL YEAH! Awesome lady! Hope you had a blast. Can’t wait to peek at the pics.
@David: Seriously, kitsch +10 here. It was RAD.
@Audrey: TOTALLY.
@Amanda: I’m surprised how many positive comments we have gotten about a dino museum! My geeks unite! <3
See no fair you can’t talk about dinosaurs near Easter…
Cuz that gets me thinking about the debate of how old the earth is…
Which makes me think how AWESOME it would be to have a dinosaur mount…
(come on, it would be cool. Think of the fuel economy!)
Which makes me think of the classic arcade game ‘Joust’…
(don’t even act like you didn’t see that one)
Which makes me miss video games while I’m on the boat!
;-(
PS – anatomically correct South American Brontosaurus = EPIC!
@Greg: You would fit in nicely with our friends in regards to your tangents. <3
it’s good to be reminded I’m not the only one 😉
OMG I love it!! I had the same reaction to Jurassic Park when I was a little kid haha. I would LOVE to see this park. I still am super geeky about dinosaurs, my mom and I drove over an hour and a half away to a museum when “Sue the T-rex” was touring around the US a few years ago. This is so going on my South America bucket list!!
Geeks unite!
We spent 2 hours here and I almost feel like it wasn’t enough. They do have some mini dinosaurs you can ride in the kids playground. Make sure to get a picture of yourself on a mini TRex like I did.
Yay! So glad to see people enjoying the dinosaur park as much as we did. Never really did understand when people said they didn’t think that much of El Parque Cretácico….huh? What’s not to love about dinosaurs!
Great news is that they’ve just built a new path which gets you a few meters from the wall so you can see the footprints with your naked eye.
Also got to stand right next to real life dinosaur footprints during our trek through the Maragua crater which was pretty cool.
Great photos btw 🙂