Ischigualasto (Valley of the Moon)

Declared a provincial park in 1971, its nickname the Valley of the Moon describes a desert landscape of rock formations eroded into strange shapes that recalls another world. Its real treasure is palaeontological: its Triassic sediments, laid down 230 million years ago, have yielded the remains of some of the oldest dinosaurs known to science, Herrerasaurus and the tiny Eoraptor among them, which shed direct light on the first evolutionary steps of the group that would go on to dominate the Earth for 165 million years. It has shared a UNESCO World Heritage listing with Talampaya since 2000.