Tuesday, December 1, 2015. The Atacama expedition is almost over. Were a dozen days salty spent on a ridge of salt rock a few steps from San Pedro de Atacama, a tourist town at the foot of the volcano Licancabur. It was a glimpse of this lunar landscape, alien, in which develops cavities even kilometers long. Caves in this rock that at times seems glass, a few meters away snow. A rock that creaks when you put on your foot, but also as night falls, with disturbing snaps. Even in this region where it rains very rarely the karst process could act, leaving the cavers an underground landscape to explore. Our friends of the Commissione Grotte Eugenio Boegan of Trieste, with whom we have shared these days, were among the first to understand the exploration potential of this area. We, for our part, have tried to document the wonders of this land, with very special caves that look like those in gypsum, but with the concretions (of salt) aesthetically more beautiful. Look at our pictures to believe it! Not only concretions, but also many morphologies that can tell the story of these karst systems. The caves, in fact, can help to reconstruct weather events of the past. Each rain event, in fact, take away the salt in solution, and cause the transformation of the cave. Water of infiltration, when emerge in the cave, evaporate transforming the concretions already present. On the floors of the caves the fine sediment, still soaked with salt water, exudes and cause the formation of crusts of salt. With the Leica laser scanner, of the Gruppo Servizi Topografici (G.S.T. snc) of Reggio Emilia, we tried to "freeze" the typical morphology of these caves. With this high resolution topographic instrument and with an intense work we were able to survey a full cavity of 600 meters of development. This activity has been realized also thanks to the experience of one of the participants in the expedition, technician of the Institute of Bio-meteorology of thel CNR-IBIMET in Sassari. Several were the scientific sampling, of minerals and of organic remains trapped in the sediments of the cave. We hope to determine the secondary mineral phases in this particular underground environment, and to date some of the of the flood events that occurred in the past. The work ahead is still long, and the rewards certainly will be great. The expedition participants will certainly remember the starry nights on the plateau, the lunar landscapes outside, the subterranean crystalline world, the andean earthquake, the creaking of salt. It was not a dream, believe me. Jo De Waele All this has been possible thanks to our friends from Trieste, which made us as guides and companions for part of the expedition. Thanks to the Rincòn Escondido Coyo and its owners, Guglielmo and Catherine, who have provided assistance and accommodation with the traditional hospitality of the area. Also thanks to Manuel Cortes, person in charge of the Indigenous Association of the Valle de la Luna, and the staff who handle the Cordillera de la Sal that allowed us to do scientific research inside the Park area. We hope in the future to be able to work with them in a joint project of scientific popularization, environmental education and research in the salt caves of the Cordillera. 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.