MORAS, MORAY & SALINERAS

You will be picked-up from your hotel at 8:30 a.m. in our tourist bus to start our visit to the following places:

MARAS: Located to the west of Cusco at 3300 m.a.s.l. where you can see the Urubamba mountain range and the snowy peaks of “La Veronica” (5682 m.a.s.l.) and the “Chikon” (5530 m.a.s.l.). Settelment took place here during the Spanish conquest when the Inkan nobles were stripped of their palaces in Qosqo (Cusco) forcing them to move and settle in smaller towns like Maras. The town has a church made of adobe bricks with typical religious architecture of the village.

MORAY: Located about 7 km southwest of Maras, it is the only archaeological site of its kind in the region. It is made up of depressions or gigantic natural holes in the surface of the land that were used to build terraces or agricultural terraces with their respective irrigation channels. It is therefore a prototype of a greenhouse or biological experimental station which was quite advanced for its time that helped the andian people to domesticate many varieties of potatoes and amoung other crops such as corn, quenoa and faba beans.

SALINERAS: Also known as the “salt mines” is located to the northwest of the town of Maras and is made up of some 3000 small wells with an average area of about 5 m². During the dry season they are filled or “irrigated” every 3 days with salt water that emanates from a natural spring located in the upper part of the wells so that when the water evaporates, the salt contained in it gradually solidifies. The salt is then pounded & granulate and packaged into plastic sacks and sent to the regional markets. Today the salt is iodised, making its consumption unharmful.

We will then return to Cusco arriving at approximatley 4.30pm.