MARAS MORAY TOUR FULL DAY
In order to escape the crowds and have enough time to visit Maras Moray Tour also Chinchero Ollantaytambo, we will leave early 7:30 am from your hotel and head to the high mountain village of chinchero where you will visit the women’s weaving cooperative where we will watch a demonstration of local weavers who are still using traditional Inca patterns and techniques for dyeing fabric.
After that you will continue to Moray that is a group of circular terraces of different sizes, which at Incas’ time were used as an agricultural experimental center; right there they performed their studies of plant adaptation to new ecosystems. Continuing the tour we will go to visit the salt mines, composed of about 5000 small salt ponds from where the salt is extracted then drying salt water from an underground spring. The “Maras” have been exploited since Incas time so that it was used as a mean of economic exchange.
Then continue to Urubamba for lunch (not included but the guide could recommend you a good place)
After lunch continues to visit the Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo considered a living Inca town because it has been continually inhabited but still preserves its original Inca urban planning, as well as structures, agricultural terraces, and reservoirs being witnesses of the past. One of the most outstanding features is the rose granite monoliths joined together with impressive perfection
After visiting Maras Moray Tour also Chinchero Ollantaytambo we can come back to Cusco to the hotel or any hotel in the sacred valley, also if you plan to go to Machu Picchu we can leave you to the train station.
PRICE
PERU CULTURAL CONNECTION requires at least 2 people for this tour, but you can leave any day you would like. The departure is 100% guaranteed once booked.
The price is based on the group size. If you are with a larger group, please contact us for a discounted rate.
NOTE: PERU CULTURAL CONNECTION will never pass you onto another operator or share service with other companies as most agencies do here.
MARAS SALT MINES INFORMATION
Approximately one hour and 10 minutes away from the city of Cusco, there are the Maras Salt Mines, located in the district of the same name, province of Urubamba.
Those who travel to this place for the first time are not only surprised by the great number of pools that exist in an average of 5 thousand square meters of territory, but also by the whiteness of the area and the capricious form that nature has given it, over the years.
The Salineras de Maras have more than 3 thousand pools of different sizes and dimensions, the same ones that belong to the local families, who in times of drought take advantage of the salt generated to treat it with iodine and sell it to the housewives.
The entrance to the Salineras de Maras costs 5 soles and those interested can visit this place, mainly in the dry season, that is, when there is no rain, in order to walk along small paths that join one pool to another, discuss and share the process of removing the salt from the pools with the inhabitants and finally, if they wish, acquire it.
This town, located between the hills of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, is close to the mountain of Weqey Willka, a place in which according to the legend, Ayar Kachi, the smallest of the Ayar Brothers, who came to Cusco to found the Empire of the Incas, would have been locked up.
According to the story, he cried from such sadness for the betrayal of his brothers in the darkness, his tears became transparent crystals. The same ones that sprout today like water through a subway channel and allow to fill the wells, reminding this person of the sacrifice of Ayar Kachi.
The wells of the Salineras are filled in three days, when the water evaporates, it solidifies up to a height of 10 centimeters, then the salt is removed to be commercialized.
The natural scenery, apart from the income that the families of Maras can report, is really impressive and takes the visitor through time. Some will recreate its origin from Andean myths, and others will prefer to give a more scientific explanation, which establishes that these solid tectonic formations are the result of processes that the Andes have experienced for millennia.
But, when we talk about the Maras district, we are not only going to highlight the Salineras, it is important to invite national tourists to visit the town, where you can still see houses with stone portals.
Perhaps others prefer to go to the Pichingoto sector, where, according to the former president of the College of Tourism, Miguel Angel Oróz, there are still families living in a kind of small caves, which are also the result of the morphological changes of the land for many years.
But that is not all. At 7 kilometers from Maras, there are the archaeological remains of the district of Moray.
Moray is formed by four circular platforms in the shape of an artificial crater, where pre-Incan cultures would have cultivated varieties of corn.
Maras is a small town located at 3,300 meters above sea level and was founded in colonial times by Pedro Ortiz de Orué. It was formerly called Villa de San Francisco de Asis.
Moray tourist attraction of Cusco
This site is located near the city of Cusco, in Peru. At first sight, it seems to be a kind of amphitheater, made up of several circular platforms, located at 3,500 meters above sea level.
The archaeological site of Moray is located 7 kilometers from Maras, in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, 38 km northwest of Cusco. It is possible to reach Moray through the road that leaves from the town or directly from a detour on the main road. Moray is a Quechua word and names a sector occupied by the peasant communities of Misminay and Kaccllarakay.
Moray was possibly an Inca agricultural research center where cultivation experiments were carried out at different heights. The disposition of its terraces produces a gradient of microclimates with the center of the concentric circular terraces having a higher temperature and gradually reducing towards the outside at lower temperatures, thus being able to simulate up to 20 different types of microclimates.
It is believed that Moray may have served as a model for the calculation of agricultural production not only in the Urubamba Valley but also in different parts of the Tahuantinsuyo.
Various theories explain the use of Moray in the Inca era. According to the historian Edward Ranney, the Incas used the terraces of Moray as a place for special agriculture, perhaps for the development of their most precious crop which was the coca leaf. John Earls claims to have discovered vertical stones on the terraces, the same ones that would mark the limits of the shadows of the sunset during the equinoxes and solstices. The local people call these stones “ñustas”. Earls concludes that each terrace in Moray reproduces the climatic conditions of different ecological zones of the Inca Empire.
TOURIST INFORMATION OF OLLANTAYTAMBO
This complex is another national archaeological park located in the district of Ollantaytambo, province of Urubamba. The town is approximately 76 km away. (47.2 miles) from Cusco on the Chinchero Urubamba road and approximately 68 Km. (42.2 miles) by the railroad at an altitude of 2700 mts. (8856 feet). It is an immense complex in the central part is the town going from Cusco to Pachar there are a lot of crops that are already part of the complex.
Ollantaytambo is a compound Quechua word that is derived from “Ollanta” personal name, and “Tambo” Spanish form of “Tanpu” city that offers lodging, food and comfort for travelers. “Ollanta” is the name of an Inka Captain whose story was kept as an oral and written tradition and as a drama by Antonio Valdez, a priest of Urubamba, in the middle of the 18th century, it was adapted for a play and opened in 1780.
For the noble population that lived in this city there was a wide urban sector, a square surrounded by important buildings and towards the south of the town an impressive “Kallanka”; that is, a building with colossal dimensions and completely covered. It served as a house and perhaps as barracks for the numerous army of the region. The present town is located in the same place where the urban sector was in Inca times. It is very interesting because it is the only place where it is possible to find people who live in the same buildings that served as houses for the nobility of the Inca society. Some of its narrow streets still keep their clean water flowing for the use of the population; these are in the middle of the square. The streets still keep their Inca names. The town was divided into rectangular blocks with a well planned geometrical scheme that gives the impression of being a town designed by modern architects. Each block was composed of two “kanchas” (apartments); the royal palaces had wooden doors with many rooms around a central patio the lower part of the buildings is original and made with “pirka” walls that were covered with clay and possibly also had paintings. Today their thatched roofs have been replaced by tiles and it is possible to breathe a certain air of modernity the village has electricity and water but still has an Inca flavour. Some decades ago in Ollantaytambo a world meeting of Indian representatives took place and they declared this town as the “Indian Capital of the World”. At that time some efforts were made for an effective conservation of the original structures. To the east of the town is the hill of Pinkuylluna (pinkuyllo = wind musical instrument similar to the “quena” or Andean flute) where a large and imposing building stands out and over which there is much myth.
Some very imaginative scholars argue that it was a school, a hospital, some others a prison or a cliff; according to Inca archaeology and architecture it was a “Qollqa” or “Pirwa”; that is, a barn or storehouse for the food, clothes and weapons of the local army.
