For some years now, ancient Persia, today Iran, seems to have become a habitual territory for the La Venta Association. After the two expeditions of 2018, one in the pierced high altitudes of the extreme north and one in the south of the country, not far from the Persian Gulf, a new expedition is about to leave.
At the beginning of December the speleologist and vice-president of La Venta, Francesco Sauro, was invited to hold the lectio magistralis for the inauguration of the 931th Academic Year of the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world. Here we report his impressions, and the publication in these days together with other Unibo researchers of a new important scientific article resulting from the research of the Tepui Project of La Venta.
Read more: Caves and black holes, the universal sense of exploration
We have received this email and we like to report it in full:
"I am writing to you because in these days the anniversary of my degree is celebrated. I spoke to you of the thanks given at the end of the thesis in which I spoke of La Venta. In Atacama we talked about it and I think that the members of the Association could be enthusiastic about having spurred on a young speleologist to enroll in university and deepen the scientific side of speleology.
After a night at the airport in Reykjavik, we arrived on the Vatnajokull glacier on Sunday morning, just enough time to set up the tents and the rain started to welcome us. Fortunately the temperatures are not so extreme (we are always talking a few degrees above the thermal 0) but for the first day it was impossible to get out of the tents due to rain and strong wind.
Read more: First news from the Vatnajokull Glacier in Iceland
Palawan, Philippines. Over twenty years and many expeditions have allowed us to make dream explorations in an incredible place. The Puerto Princesa Underground River has dug colossal tunnels into the mountain: it crosses it for miles and then flows into the South China Sea with a large estuary. In the darkness of this cave live hundreds of thousands of bats and swallows, which contribute to creating a unique ecosystem in the world. Also thanks to our discoveries, this cave has been included among the new seven natural wonders of the planet.
Also this year we returned to Albania together with the Speleological Group of Martina Franca and the Speleological Group Faentino. First in the Albanian Alps, to continue the research in the area of ??Vranë and then on Mali Me Gropa (Mountain of Buchi in Albanian language), where already in the 90s some cavities were explored in an expedition attended by some of the current participants.
