Maras and Moray

On my third full day in Peru, I took my third and final tour with Denomades, which was a tour of Maras and Moray. These two places are both located in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, but they are usually visited in a separate tour, while the Sacred Valley tours cover Písac, Ollantaytambo and Chinchero.

After doing the Sacred Valley tour the previous day, I wasn't sure if this tour might be rather similar, and I wondered if I should have done the Rainbow Mountain tour instead, which I'd decided against when planning my trip, as it involves a very long and difficult hike, and the famous pictures of it are heavily photoshopped (Google "Rainbow Mountain photoshop" and you'll see!). But in fact, the Maras and Moray tour was quite possibly my favourite out of the three tours I took. These two sites are truly incredible, and I'm really glad to have visited. (And maybe I'll do the Rainbow Mountain hike on a future trip!)

The tour started off in the town of Chinchero, where we went to a different wool workshop to the one I'd visited the previous day, but where we listened to almost word-for-word the same presentation! But luckily we weren't there for too long, and soon afterwards we were arriving at Moray archaeological site.

Moray is comprised of three circular agricultural terraces, and is one of the most photogenic sites in the Cusco area. A lot of people just visit the circle nearest to the entrance, as it's the biggest and most impressive, but we visited all three on our tour, which was nice. The third one is also great for photos, because it has amazing views of the mountains and glaciers behind it, which are really stunning.

Moreover, the history of Moray is fascinating; it was basically a huge scientific laboratory. The Incas used the different levels of the terraces to experiment with growing various crops at different temperatures. It's a great example of how they used ingenious methods to build a huge empire all across the Andes, which is not a naturally hospitable area.

Overall, Moray was a stunning place to visit - I like how it looks like something out of a science fiction film, although it was made by humans hundreds of years ago!

Next it was time to go to Maras salt mines. Before visiting the mines themselves, we went to a small museum in the town of Maras, where we listened to an interesting presentation about how the salt is harvested and how the different layers of salt (brown, pink and white) are used. Amazingly, the mines have been in use since pre-Inca times, and their salt is the highest quality in the world, along with Himalayan salt.

After the presentation, we tasted some chocolate flavoured with Maras salt and then we went into a shop next door, where you can buy all sorts of products, all made with Maras salt, of course. I bought a bag of the pink salt as a present for my mother-in-law, as well as some of the chocolate to take back to Chile.

Then it was time to go and visit the mines. The first glimpse we saw of them was from above in the minibus, and it was really incredible just to see how many of them there are - apparently there are at least 3000!

The entrance to the salt mines costs 20 soles (five dollars) and gives you access to a few different viewpoints where you can watch people harvesting the salt and take some nice pictures. There were lots of people (myself included!) trying to get the perfect shot for social media - so many people that I had to crop the picture our guide took of me by quite a large amount! Maybe the touristy nature of the place detracts a little bit from the beauty of the site, but all the same, it was absolutely incredible to see these mines stretching out between the mountains as far as the eye can see.

Afterwards, it was time to go back to Cusco, where I had quite a relaxing afternoon seeing a bit more of the city, and buying some small souvenirs and gifts in San Pedro market. To be honest, I hadn't been sure how much I liked the city during my first evening and morning there, but by the end of this third day, I was growing quite fond of it. However, the next morning, it was time to move on; I had a train to catch to Aguas Calientes. The most adventurous part of my trip was about to begin!