Caravan travel involves negotiating long distances with unforeseen delays. Due to the difficulty in scheduling encounters between caravans as highly mobile segments of the population, settled villages probably served as important nodes in the fluid regional interaction network (Dillehay and Nuñez 1988). The manner in which these temporal factors intersect with the diachronic nature of reciprocal exchange is counter to the synchronic expectations of establishing immediate, market-based equivalences for goods.

When caravan drivers do not have established trade partners in a settlement they may initiate a new trade relationship with unknown partners upon entering the community. Casaverde Rojas (1977: 177) describes how women in Cabanaconde, in the lower Colca valley, would besiege the first caravans to arrive seasonally at the village entrance with offers. The women would attempt to establish trade partner relationships by negotiating favorable terms for agricultural goods and a place to corral the caravan animals in exchange for labor and pastoral products. Nielsen (2001: 183) states that when market prices fluctuate then contemporary caravanners in Oruro, Bolivia, will sometimes avoid established trade partners in order to better pursue profit opportunities with the greater variety offered by modern market forces; the compadrazgoinstitution seems to be waning. As Danby (2002) and M. E. Smith (2004) both argue, commercialization and alienability of products in all ancient economies should perhaps best be considered in terms of degrees and not in absolutes.