The Shepherd on the Colca Canyon Ridge

Maria Quispe was seven years old the first time her father took her to tend alpacas along the rim of Peru's Colca Canyon. The drop was over ten thousand feet. The trails were narrow, loose with volcanic scree, and one misstep could send a child tumbling into the abyss.

"Papa, aren't you afraid?" she asked, pressing close to his leg.

Her father pointed to the mountains towering above them — Ampato, Sabancaya, their snow-capped peaks glowing amber in the early light. "Do you see those mountains, mija? They have stood here since before your grandmother's grandmother was born. But the God who made them is even more steady than they are. He watches you right now — and He does not blink."

Every morning for the next eleven years, Maria walked those canyon trails. She walked them in fog so thick she couldn't see her own hands. She walked them in rainstorms that turned the path to mud. She walked them in the dark before dawn, when the only light came from stars sharp as needles above the Andes.