Paleontological Research Center

The bike ride there was very nice, and the hills around the area are very beautiful. We were greeted by a tour guide who gave us the tour in Spanish as there were no English speakers on staff. Our Spanish isn’t great but we were both able to mostly follow along, plus we were helped by the signs that were in both English and Spanish.

I’ve seen a few fossil museums in my life and I thought this one was really special. It was small, but a lot of the fossils were real, not cast, which I really liked. I also had never seen many of these unique marine animal fossils before. The ancient fish heads were especially interesting.

The crown jewel of the museum is the pliosaur, a marine reptile that lived 110 years ago. Pliosaurs range from 4 to 15 metres and more in length. The one in the museum is about 7 meters long and exceptionally complete.

The signs were explained in a clear way and did a good job of describing the history of the area and the specimens on display. There was also a small lab where you could see fossils in various stages of being recovered from rocks. We were there for about an hour.

Overall I thought this was a good choice of activity, and there was a place to buy ice cream right across the street.

The bike ride back, however, was a bit of a different story, at least for me. I’m not really in great physical shape and the area is very hilly and I struggled with the inclines. But I survived and if I can do it probably a lot of other people can do it.