Až na dno... Cotopaxi

Soon after the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact tanks ended the Prague Spring reforms in the summer of 1968, the Iron Curtain closed the borders of the former Czechoslovakia once again. Some of those who had tasted free travel around the world in the previous years were reluctant to give it up, so they invented a way to continue, at least to a limited extent. From the late 1960s onwards, expeditions set off from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to all corners of the world. They were organised mainly by young people who first had to spend many months negotiating with the state bureaucracy and various state enterprises. You can read about this too in the book about the descent into the crater of Ecuador's Cotopaxi volcano. It was written and prepared for print in 1973-4, but the Party decided that its authors were politically unreliable and banned its publication. It was not until many years after the revolution that the Czech Geological Survey decided to publish it in a limited edition. The book in your hands is a new, revised and expanded edition.