Heading for the Hills

A woman "harvests" salt at the salineras de Maras.

[Please forgive me for the photos in this post. As I intimated in my first post about Peru, I bought a new camera the night before we left Ottawa. Somehow, I set the camera to "Portrait" mode which blurs the image. Intentionally! I've used Photoshop to recover some of the details, but it was extremely frustrating to deal with at the time.]

When I was planning our trip, the travel agent suggested many things — and I accepted them without much thought, really. We ensured a leisurely pace (at least two nights in each location, occasional free mornings or afternoons), but ensured that we made the most of our trip.

Consequently, there were many pleasant surprises for us, including the salineras de Maras  (the Maras salt mines), which was our first stop after flying to Cusco from Lima.

Salineras de Maras

Near Maras, a saltwater spring bubbles from a mountain and flows into terraced salt ponds. For centuries, local people have "mined" the salt from these ponds. Observing the work, it looks more like harvesting as they scrape the crystals into piles and shovel it into heavy bags.

Proof that we were there. I love that my "tanned" legs match the salt ponds.
(Photo taken with Steve's camera, so it is sharper than any of mine.)

Each plot (area squared off with a stone wall) is managed by a single family, in a cooperative. It takes about one week for the water to evaporate enough to harvest the salt. The whole family pitches in to rake up the salt, bag it, and carry it up to the trucks. (Previously, the salt was carried by foot all the way to the depot.)


After the tour of the salt mines, we went to a local house for lunch.

Stephen is definitely taller than the average Peruvian.

Quinoa soup

The quinoa soup was delicious — a poultry broth with pretty curls of quinoa and a large dollop of potato. We learned that this particular potato was used in soups. Dessert was a simple slice banana with honey and toasted chia seeds.

Bananas

This was our introduction to the mountains, at about 11,500 ft (3,500 m) and we both felt it. For my part, I felt like a little, old lady. Stephen, on the other hand, had a dizzy spell while we ate lunch.

After lunch, we visited the ancient ruins of Moray.

Sadly, this is the best picture I got.

Moray is much like Ottawa's Central Experimental Farm, a place where agriculture was managed and studied by the Incans. There were several sets of concentric terrace pits. Each terrace — and each section of each arc — has a unique microclimate. On these farms, they developed hybrids of their staples (especially corn and potato) so they knew which ones to plant on specific levels in the Andes.

The rectangular structure in the plateau area was a granary or storage hut. Even the storage huts were studied for optimal performance.

The whole thing was impressively sophisticated for the 1600s. It wasn't something I would have sought out, but am immensely glad to have seen.

PS. This was our itinerary for the Sacred Valley. We landed in Cusco, but didn't actually stay there until after our visit to Machu Picchu. I've noted the elevations so you'll see that we started out at quite a high elevation (to acclimatize) and moved lower.

And here's the Google Maps version so you can click and explore: