After Mallines Colgados, Route 226 takes us to the Las Tapaderas area. This landscape is the result of a tremendous volcanic eruption in 1932. The area can be defined by sight as an enormous greyish sandbank. The sandbank is made up of very small, very light stones with a soft and cold texture, which have been there since 1932. This is the date on which an explosive eruption of tremendous size took place in the Chilean volcanic complex known as Descabezado Grande.

It was such that even today there are important remnants of the volcanic sand expelled from its depths in the Department of Malargüe.
The eruptive column reached a height of 30 km and then opened like a gigantic umbrella, expelling ash and volcanic sand. It is estimated that the material dispersed in the areas of Malargüe and San Rafael had a total volume of 10 km3.
But the ashes were carried much further by the winds: to other areas of Argentina, to parts of Uruguay and Brazil and even to the other side of the ocean.
The evening light transforms this interesting field of volcanic sand into a place full of magic.