The tour of the Salt mines of Maras and the agricultural terraces of Moray is a great complement to the Machu Picchu Tours.
You will be able to see snow-capped mountains, fields and traditional villages. Daily departures for singles and groups. This tour begins and ends in Ollantaytambo.
We will start at approximately 8:30 am with pick up from the lodge; We will go on to the picturesque town of Maras. It is located at an altitude of 3,380 meters above sea level. This is a small village famous for its salt mines which consist of about 3000 small wells with an average area of about 5m² from which salt is extracted after a drying process.
The Salt mines, better known as “Salineras de Maras”, are literally salt mines derived from the flow of a naturally salinated river creek between Ollantaytambo and Cusco. While they were, in typical Inca fashion, improved upon and made beautiful, it is likely they predate the Incas by hundreds if not thousands of years.
From one source, a small trickle of water coming out of the mountain above, a series of gravity-fed distillation pools have been built, each just a few centimeters lower than its predecessor. This allows a steady but very slow flow of salt water to flow over its large, flat areas and dry out into pure sodium chloride – ordinary table salt.
This have been exploited since Inca times as a means of economic exchange.
7 km from Maras, we will visit the archaeological site of Moray. Here we will see the greatness of the circular terraces of Inca agriculture. Moray is a group of circular terraces which was used as an agricultural experimental center.
The Incas used it to study the adaptation of plants to new ecosystems. The overlapping circular stone rings widen as they rise and it has a total depth of 150 m. After a guided tour, we will go back to Ollantaytambo.
The tour lasts about 5 hours and ends at 6:30 pm in Ollantaytambo.
Day
From € … p.p.