An hour up the valley from where the bus had dropped me, at La Capilla, walking up the gravel track, I approach a man standing at the roadside outside a small farm building.
“You were here before” he tells me.
It had been four weeks since I had walked the road as far as the stones of Retama, and looked down and across the swollen river to Cochineros. This man had been tending his chickens in the block brick building by the Retama stone, had quietened his dog and fetched a broom to sweep the dust from the rock, and shown me the footholds to climb up to the top of the rock.
I shook his hand and asked him what he knew about the stones.
“ I have found many things…one time working in Chincheros I saw something shiny in the soil. Looking closer, I found a silver figure, this size.” He held up a calloused black-nailed farmer`s thumb.
“Another time I found a little bag, full of beads. The beads were made of stone, in white and red, blue and green. The bag was woven from vicuña.”