Thursday, November 26, 2015. We just returned to the base camp of San Pedro de Atacama after four days in the salt of the Cordillera de la Sal with friends of the Commissione Grotte Eugenio Boegan (CGEB) of Trieste. The advanced camp was on the near plateau about 75 km from the small village of San Pedro, and the journey was for about 60 km on a track that cuts the arid plateau of the Llano de la Paciencia. The exploration area was at an altitude of 2580 m a.s.l. and was reached by jeep to the foot of the ridge, followed by a trek of 6 km with an initial steep slope and a vertical drop of 240 meters. Nothing for a trek in the Dolomites, but here in the hyperarid climate of Atacama has been a living hell. Each member of the expedition, from the northernmost of Trieste to the southernmost of Sicily, was loaded like a mule: aside from materials of camp and the food, to weigh is primarily the water. For four days in this salt desert we need at least 15 liters per person! It was also brought up the laser scanner Leica HDS7000 of the Company Gruppo Servizi Topografici (G.S.T. snc) of Reggio Emilia, that weighs as child of 7 years! Departure on foot at approximately 17.30 and most of the group has laboriously reached the advanced camp after five hours walking. The overload, combined with the afternoon heat, made us decide to take some of the load to the camp that evening,  while the remaining stopped on top of the initial height difference and reached the camp the next morning. Four members of La Venta have gone back and forth from the car to the plateau in the evening, improvising a bivouac at 2500 with the precious cargo, in the morning four more have reached the advanced camp to support them in the transportation of materials, while other three Triestines have done a full night turn to supplement their heavy exploration backpacks. It is ncredible as it may be large the thermal excursion here at this altitude: 50 ° C during the day just over 0 ° C at night! The advanced camp, located on the bottom of a narrow quebrada (gorge), is the relict of an ancient cave that preserve sometimes the ceiling, it is repaired with an average temperature of around 20 ° C. The first two days of camp in the heart of the plateau were dedicated to the photographic documentation of the large system of caves currently being explorated from friends of Trieste. They really found a beautiful underground world in the salt! Have been two days full of emotions, with over 10 hours of progression and numerous photographic stops: the belly of the Cordillera it is a crystalline world that enchants. The caves in the salt resemble those in gypsum, with waterfall shafts (also 50 meters deep!), meanders, paragenetical morphologies, and beautiful packages of river sediments. Concretions, rigorously of salt, are very white, fragile, mutable and of course recents. There are large stalactites and stalagmites, flows, floors that appears like made of white carasau bread, bubbles of salt (such as sweets made of the white part of the eggs), and thiny eccentrics and needles. The third and last day of work was reserved for the acquisition using the laser scanner to create a 3D reconstructions of some of the most suggestive parts of this salty world. A large room with a salt lake, a pit, a beautiful gallery in salt rock and the typical external karren fields, known as "penitentes", very appropriate name: try to walk on it! Now we have a day of rest, more than deserved, followed by three days of activities at the base of the Cordillera, in the Llano de la Paciencia, to visit and document the most important caves discovered by CGEB already some years ago. And we hope, with these caves, to be able to add other important elements in the understanding of the geological and climatic recent history of this hiperarid region. Jo De Waele The expedition is sponsored by the Italian Speleological Society, and has the support of the Gruppo Servizi Topografici (GST snc) of Reggio Emilia (laser scanner), and of Intermatica (Satellite telephony), Ferrino (Clothing and outdoor equipment), Dolomite (mountain shoes), Amphibious (Dry bags), Scurion (lighting LEDs), Tiberino (freeze-dried foods ready to cook). Participate for La Venta: Jo De Waele, Riccardo De Luca, Umberto Del Vecchio, Marco Mecchia, Fulvio Iorio, Alfredo Brunetti, Laura Sanna, Andrea Cabras, Roberto Ferrara, Norma Damiano, Marco Vattano.