Today you have the two options, either stay in Cusco and relax or to take the Maras Salt Mines and Moray tour; at an additional Price: USD 40 per person.
If you take the second option, we will pick you up in a private transport around 09:00 am. Heading to Urubamba Valley so close to the Sacred Valley. The Urubamba Valley has a fantastic landscape and mountain range to admire.
Once in Maras, a side of the mountain shows us the salt mines. They are like various small lakes over the mountain, the salt effect of displaying their white shores make these mountains a spectacle of real beauty. The Salt mines are located on a wide-open hill above the Urubamba Valley, a natural salt water stream runs underground.
This salt mines dated from pre-Inca times and the local people extract in small amount the salt by evaporating the salty water from its stream.
Our guide will explain to you how this work: there are stream points. The flow is directed into a system of tiny channels constructed so that the water runs gradually down onto the several hundred ancient terraced ponds. The water, which is exposed to the sun, leaves salt on the land. Viewed from the peak, the myriad of rectangles looks like an enormous painting designed by nature.
Finished our visit to the salt mines in Maras, we quickly move to the Moray ruins. They are composed of three big circles each one different on its size, in appearance is similar to a Roman Coliseum. We will be descending to some of these circles which are really big. The archaeologist has been based their theories about these circles as an Inca laboratory for crops.
The Incas who built these circles understood very well the effects. Once this effect is the managing of the temperature as there are sides of the terraces hotter than other ones getting as much as 15 °C/27 °F between the top and bottom.
Finished visiting Moray, we return back to Cusco.
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Another option:
Half day city tour
On this day also still available the half day city tour option instead of doing the Maras and Moray one.
We will pick you up at 1:00 PM from your hotel to start the tour and visiting the following places.
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The Koricancha: Temple of the sun.
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The Cathedral: Marvel of the religious art.
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Sacsayhuaman: Majestic place with impressive works in stone, some up to 120 tons.
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Q´enqo: (Labyrinth) a religious center dedicated to the adoration of the Earth.
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Puca Pucara: (reddish place) that was used as a military control center.
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Tambomachay: (Temple of the Water) a center of adoration and worship of water.
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