Cerro Colorado
Jesuit Ranch of Santa Catalina
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Where history and tradition mean today...
Where mountain landscape provides a living...
The north area of Cordoba Province is the conjunction of a traditional rural landscape
and a mountain one with gentle undulations, strongly
characterised by its red sandstone, its streams and its
vegetation (the mountain forest with the presence of species typical
of the Chaco forest in particular the carob tree, white quebracho and palm tree groves). In contrast, in
the north-west section of the area are the Salinas Grandes (salt mines) and
the reserve "Monte de las Barracas" with the presence of guanacos in their natural habitat.
The area houses on of the most important archaeological sites in the country: Cerro Colorado, where
the aborigines left testimonies of their culture in numerous pictographs which
are a legacy of great importance at national level and now declared Reserva Cultural-Natural
de la Provincia. But Cerro Colorado is also famous for having been the place
of residence of the poet and folklorist Atahualpa Yupanqui. He is now buried near the Cerro.
However, there is also evidence of colonial times
in the Jesuit Ranch of Santa Catalina and in the trace of the
old Camino Real (Royal Road) to Alto Perú, with a number of villages where the traveller would stop on his trip.
Those villages, some of which are now cities (Villa Tulumba, IschilÃn, Villa del Totoral, Deán
Funes, Quilino, Sinsacate, Cerro Colorado, Avellaneda), still
keep architectural testimonies, customs, handicrafts, and production methodologies
inherited from colonial times and from the XIX century.
The north area is an invitation to experience the present, tracing back to its past traditions,
religious and popular festivities, a slow life-style in balance with nature; everything missing
in the big cities at present.
Read more about Córdoba Province
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