The Moon

The houses in La Paz cling to the walls of a canyon. Not a canyon made of rock but of clay. A variety of minerals within the clay means that different areas of the bowl that is La Paz are different in colour. Beige and cream prevail as if La Paz is standing on sand, but turn in another direction and a segment of the bowl that holds La Paz is red. ' That mountain is having its period', the locals say and fall around as if it is now and forever the best joke ever heard.

Some gigantic movement of earth must have formed the dramatic structure of the land upon which La Paz is found; I have no expert knowledge to allow me to explain, but whatever shifting of tectonic plates jolted La Paz into existence there was no equity in distribution of core minerals. The geological tide that spilled towards the lower plains produced ground that lacked resistance. The compounds within it have been no match for the rain and the winds. The land has eroded into a valley of upsetting forms;of jagged edges and bleak masses, petrified in to landscape so alien it has been labelled as coming from another planet. La Valle de la Luna. The Valley of the Moon.

It is possible to walk through this valley and I did. The point of Solo Madonna is travelling alone. To travel alone is not to be lonely, it is to invite in all of the possibilities of life. Nevertheless here in this place I had an overwhelming sense of isolation, of loneliness, of being removed from all other life on earth. I hurried to finish the circuit of the valley, rushing on the rough path I looked up and above me was a man in a poncho, descending from the highest stalagmites to cross my path. He was one of the Aymara, a musician, Valerio Condori.