Quebrada del Condorito

Quebrada del Condorito National Park was created in 1996 in the Sierras Grandes of Córdoba, in central Argentina, and protects some 376 km² of the Pampa de Achala, a granite plateau lying above 2,000 metres.

The landscape is one of high-altitude grassland, crags, peat bogs and headwater streams, a mountain environment isolated in the middle of the pampa that works as a biogeographical island. That isolation has produced notable endemism, with species found only on Achala such as the Achala toad, the Achala lizard and several plants.

The ravine that gives the park its name is a canyon some eight hundred metres deep whose walls are the principal roosting and nesting site of the Andean condor at the eastern extreme of its range: here the young birds learn to fly using the thermals of the canyon. The park also performs a decisive hydrological function, because the Pampa de Achala is the main water catchment area of the province of Córdoba, and its bogs and grasslands regulate the flow of the rivers that supply millions of people.