Cal Orck'o

Quarrying for cement at Cal Orck'o cut back a hillside and exposed a bedding plane laid down around sixty-eight million years ago on the shore of a lake, and tilted since by the rise of the Andes so that it now stands nearly vertical: a wall over a kilometre long and a hundred metres high carrying 12,092 mapped footprints in 465 trackways, made by sauropods such as titanosaurs, theropods, ornithopods and ankylosaurs walking the same muddy shore. One sauropod trail runs for several hundred metres, among the longest recorded anywhere. A park with life-size models and a viewing platform sits at the top, and guided walks go down to the base of the wall at set times. The rock is unstable and sections have collapsed, taking prints with them.

What's there

• The vertical trackway wall - thousands of prints on a tilted bedding plane.
• The long sauropod trail - a single trackway running hundreds of metres.
• Guided cliff walks - the scheduled descent to the base of the wall.
• Life-size models - the reconstructions in the park above.

When to go

April to November for dry weather and clearer views; the guided walks run at set times and are the only way to reach the base, so timing matters. Morning light is better on the wall.

Before you go

From the viewing platform the prints are distant and hard to make out without binoculars; the guided walk is what makes the visit. The cliff is unstable and access is sometimes suspended. It is a working quarry with the noise and dust that implies.

Nearby

Sucre lies southwest; the Maragua crater is northwest.

Key facts