A Fracture in the World

Driving through the landscape of the north, one is struck by the stark contrast that the colour green places on the red and tan earth of the desert. Climbing mountain roads at noon, cornering a bend that opens into a 10km valley, farm land a 1000ft below the edge of the road, an oasis in the centre of an ancient fissure.

The road to Codpa rises and crosses through landscapes born out of a dream. Hills and valleys covered in red volcanic sand and black porous rock, lightened veins flowing down where erosion has cleared the colourful debris of a massive volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. We stop at the highest point in Umallany Valley. It is a sea of monuments, thousand of tiny structures climbing a little further into the sky, wishes of safety and prayers to the dead. It is said that by building a mound of rocks here, you can protect your loved ones and remember those who have passed and I do the same for mine.

On every road in this region you see shrines left in memory to those who have died. Killed in falls off the hairpin cliffs or crashes between sleep-deprived truckers and bus drivers, these constructs lie at the roadside, behind the barriers or at the very edge of the rock face. A ‘good-bye and I’ll never forget you’ adorned in wilted roses, burnt out candles and a photo decayed by the elements. A sadness can dominate you out here, centuries of hardship, loss and loneliness rising up in you through imagined stories of your life in this place.

Codpa is a town so small, buried so deep inside a valley that people have died never having known they were standing at the edge of salvation. The is a feeling of safety here, of womblike protection, and a understanding that apart from the people who live here, you are completely isolated from the outside world. Here, it is possible to be last one awake, the only one outside at night wandering the road totally alone. After 10pm there are no street lights, no lights at all out except for candles, the moon and stars to help you find you way. At the entrance to the town there is a cemetery so old they don’t know who is buried there, guarded by a lone sarcophagus with its unknown occupant holding watch for the rest of the residents. You know with absolute certainty that you would see them walking the streets after dark, waiting to tell you their stories in the language of the natives.

There seems to be a peace here that makes one not want to leave or wonder about what lies outside the valley.