Maras and Moray
We pick you up at 8:30 am or 12:30 pm and drive in our private transport to the village of Maras where they still keep a good part of its colonial architectural beauty. You can see made of thin stone and lintels with sculptures in bas-relief. Then we go to Salineras where the salt mine is located consisting of 3,000 small pools roughly 5 square meters (53.8 ft²) in size. Every three days, during the dry season, workers fill the pools with salt water that comes from a natural hot spring at the top of the Maras complex. When the water evaporates from the pool, the salt is left for collection. This process is carried out over a one-month period until the pools reach an approximate volume of solid salt that is 10 centimeters (4 inches) in height. The salt is ground up, treated with iodine packaged, and sent to various markets in the region. It is a short picturesque walk downhill from Salineras taking approximately 40 minutes back to our transport.
Then we go to the Moray ruins located at 3,450m, where we find the agricultural terraces of Moray with their complex system of irrigation and terraces. Different levels of terraces are carved into a huge bowl, part of which was further excavated by the Incas. The terraces have varied microclimates depending on how deep into the bowl they are and they were thought to have been used by the Incas to discover the optimal conditions for their crops. These terraces served as a natural greenhouse to grow an extraordinary variety of crops at an altitude that they would typically only grow in the tropical Andes. It has also been suggested that they had a cosmological meaning.
Then we return to your hotel in Cusco.
