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FOLLOWING THE ROCKS, SCALING THE WATERS – COLOMBIAN QUARTZITES 2022 Francesco Lo Mastro, Antonio De Vivo, Francesco Sauro The quartzite project, launched in Venezuela in 2008, has expanded over the years, touching upon another two neighbouring countries: Brazil and Colombia. Despite the seeming oxymoron of the title, we arrived in Colombia after thirteen years of research as if we were following the course of an imaginary river of stone. Having initially gone up the Rio Negro to explore the Aracà tepui in Brazil, La Venta goes even further upstream with this project to the most remote rivers in the Amazon basin. Indeed, in order to make our way to the Colombian quartzite area involved in our project, we used motor launches to travel long stretches of the River Caquetá, whose waters are characterised by strong currents and where the flow is often interrupted by tumultuous ra-
Navigating along the Río Caquetá
pids, some of which can only be overcome by abandoning the boats and proceeding on foot. The “Colombian Quartzite” project aims to explore and study the geological phenomena, caves and environment of the quartzite areas in the south of the country, particularly the Caquetá Department, including the zone in between the protected area of the Ciribiquete National Park to the north and the Amazonas Department to the south; to be precise, an area of primary forest, the Colombian part of the immense Amazon rainforest. This isolated territory is difficult to access as there are no overland communication routes. Most of the territory is only accessible in small aeroplanes, landing on poorly maintained dirt runways near godforsaken military outpo-
