Map

To the Somuncurá Plateau See map

From Sierra Grande, and traveling west on Provincial Route No. 5 is reached Somuncura Plateau, a spectacular place of mystique and beauty, ideal for photo safari and other activities. There you can see unique rock formations, native animal species, scenery spots, cave paintings, rock carvings made by indigenous, springs and other places of stunning appeal.

Somuncurá Plateau occupies a large portion of the province of Río Negro in the center-south. It is a protected area of ​​25,000 square kilometers. A basalt plateau with superimposed reliefs, volcanic cones, mountains, hills, small hills mammillary with maximum heights approaching the 1,900 meters above sea level (Cerro Corona) interspersed with temporary clay lagoons.

View of the inmensity of the Somuncurá Plateau. Photo courtesy of Infinite Plateau.

The plateau is a formation of edges that have slits (canyons) locally called "corners", where the streams that cuased them fall.

Attempts to realize the creation of a protected natural reserve area date from 1973. The proposal came from the Center for Scientific Research in Río Negro (CIC). The Somuncurá region is not only of geomorphological, geological, climatic, biological and ecological interest, but sui generis characteristics are unique in Río Negro and in Patagonia.

Finally in 1993, the Law of Protected Natural Areas was declared. This area is of great biological interest by the existence of endemic species and subspecies (living in one place on the planet), a composite or "malvácea" plant or animals as the ancient naked minnow (small fish without scales), the somuncura frog, The lizard of rocks, some subspecies of Patagonian "piche" and an inhabitant of the rocks: the "pilquín" or "chinchillón".

Somuncura means "rock that sounds or speak" in mapuche languague. The name relates to the sound of the rocks, presumably basalts, perhaps related, in turn, with the sound of the wind.