On Sunday we got up and grabbed a quick breakfast at our hostel before heading down to Plaza del Armas for our tour for the day. We were shuttled over to Plaza San Francisco where we grabbed a bench and waited. Our 9:00am tour actually started at 9:50, but we were essentially on a private tour with the 6 of us and Matt from Michigan who was with us on our tour the day before. We were headed out towards the Sacred Valley to Maras and Morey, and despite it being late, it was a great tour. We started in Chinchero (3,750m) where we had a great demonstration of how alpaca and lama wool is used, dyed, and woven. It was really nice and informative and we already felt it was an improvement on yesterday’s tour.
After turning off the main highway and onto a dirt road going through fields, it was amazing to see the agriculture and the stunning beauty of the area.
We got to Moray which was an absolutely stunning array of terraces.
Moray was essentially an Incan test farm or agricultural lab to create hybrids see what crops grew best at what altitudes, And it just has a great spectacular look to it. We worked our way all the way down to the centre and again back out which gave a great changing perspective, and took a lot of Incan steps.
We continued to the salt mines of Maras, which were in use in Pre-Incan, Incan, Spanish colonial, and current times. Again coming over a ridge and seeing this was quite a sight.
Currently the salt mines are owned by a cooperative and there are over 2,000 terraces from which salt is extracted. The white ones are for human use, the yellow ones are for animal use, and the grayish/black ones are for industrial use.
We hiked down and onto the top level of terraces, and the salt provides so much grip that you can almost go down a 45° slope without any slipping.
After buying some salt, we headed back to Cusco and had some lunch (where Tyson had to wait almost an hour for his “chicken gordon blue”; I love some menu items and their creative spelling in other parts of the world). Then it was off to the supermercado to get water, snacks, and other supplies for the trip. Then it was back to the hostel to pack up into our day packs for the hike. We went out for some pizza for dinner and then were off to bed early.
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