The name “La Venta”

March 1989. Due to a strange twist of fate, a “transversal” group of speleologists, hailing from several different parts of Italy, finds itself on an expedition to Palawan, in the Philippines. A few months later, in the August, an even larger, wider and more battle-hardened group organises, in partnership with Russian counterparts, the first “Samarkand expedition”, to Central Asia, which produces exceptionally good results. There was something in the air...the frontiers of exploration were reachable. In January 1990 we carry out the descent into the canyon of the Rio la Venta, which brings six people to breaking point and, at the same time, demonstrates that it is possible to execute, with great success, missions that are small, fast and efficient. These three intense experiences, completed in just ten months, convinced some of us that the time had come to set up an association specialising in geographical exploration – a potent group dedicated exclusively to the threefold purpose of discovering, documenting and disseminating. We did so the following year – on 20 June, 1991, to be precise – and the name La Venta came naturally...but not only because of the wonderful canyon we had just made our way through. Certainly, the canyon was then, as it still is now, an encapsulation of what exploration is all about: speleology, archaeology, geology, biology....and so the name encompassed all of these different aspects. But in that “Mexican” period, which for me had begun a decade before, we had got to know another place with the same name, which its own way had inspired us tremendously. In the state of Tabasco there is an archaeological site called La Venta, which is famous for its colossal heads with their Negroid features, carved out of the basalt by persons still unknown. It is another small mystery in the context of a whole culture – that of the Olmecs – about which little is known. This is a stimulating place, then, which fascinated us and provided food for many a dream. We did not know at that time that those Olmecs had also been leading lights of the area of the Rio la Venta, which we were once again promising we would explore. And so it came to pass. Thinking of two places that we liked for different reasons, but which had the same name, we decided that the new group of darkness-loving explorers should take that name, too. And perhaps our group would fascinate many others on the long journey that we hoped to take.

One of the Olmec heads on display in Villahermosa at the “Parque Museo La Venta” Side view of one of the Olmec heads on display in Villahermosa at the “Parque Museo La Venta”