Maras Cuzco, millennial economic activities done by brilliant minds

Maras is a town located 48 km. northwest from the city of Cusco, 12 km from Urubamba and about 3028 MASL.  Maras was an important town during the viceroyalty (it was the main supplier of salt from southern sierra), as shown by the church and houses that still preserve shields of indigenous nobility in their facades. Houses are made of adobe, white walls with roofs and blue windows,  streets are stone and mud made. On lintels you can read inscribed the date they were built, their owner or a shield or ornament.  Maras was founded by the Spaniards in 1556, and was in charge of the encomendero Pedro Ortiz de Orue, whose house is located one block from the main square, on the lintel of its door it reads the information of its owner, he established this custom, which it is valid today. It is recommended to visit houses belonging to the Inca Tupac Sinchi Roca, the Jesuit portal, the cover of Sancho Usca Paucar which surprises for its work and ornamentation.  San Francisco de Asís Church, built by Orue, has four baroque altarpieces from the 17th century, with beautiful carvings and covered with gold leaf. It has paintings on its walls by Cuzco school painter Antonio Sinchi Roca, with scenes from the Gospel and portraits of saints.  The main economic activity of Maras is agriculture. Among its most visited attractions, its Saltworks, located 10 km. of the town. Nearby is the Moray Platforms

Salinas de Maras in Cusco, or maras salt mines as they are also called, are salt mines whose exploitation is as old as Tahuantinsuyo. Located on the slope of the hill, salt pans located on terraces or platforms are crossed by a stream that nourishes the pools with salt water. Use of the Salt of Maras dates from thousands of years and is inherited in each family, but it is managed in a communal way.  Salworks name in Quechua is kachi Raqay and is composed of about five thousand pools of about 5 square meters each, Water seeps into pools and evaporates by  intense sun action, causing coarse salt crystals to sprout, After 1 month salt reaches 10 cm. height and has to be harvested.  View of the set of pools is spectacular. Villagers show visitors their ancestral techniques and allow them to intervene in gathering, as well as in Andean festivals and rituals.  Salinas de Maras in Cusco is highly recommended for lovers of photography and people who love contact with history and knowledge. The area is ideal for trekking and mountain biking.

Moray is located 7 kms west of Maras. It is 3,500 MASL.  Moray is a route used by cyclists. Nearby is the town of Maras with its saltworks.  Discovered in 1932, Moray is an enigmatic place for those who visit it, its impressive circular platforms that look like a giant fingerprint, Moray was used for plants adaptation to new climatic environments, constitutes another proof of the very high level of agronomic knowledge reached by the Incas.  According to the anthropologist John Earls Moray, it was an agricultural laboratory built by the Incas to recreate a series of microclimates to plant a great variety of experimentally improved crops.  Soil temperature of each platform determined that the Incas could develop twenty miniature ecological zones to produce grains such as quinoa and kiwicha, as well as squash and clear multiple potato varieties.  Platforms of Moray were an experimental station formed by immense conical depressions of 47 to 84 m, cut in the limestone, where different climates were obtained according to the depth of the platforms.  Moray's terraces resemble a sunken amphitheater, like an artificial crater, were built on retaining walls filled with fertile soil and watered by complex irrigation systems. In this way, thermal variation between surface and the bottom of these natural holes was used to adapt different varieties of plants in each terrace (more than 250 plant species). It is speculated that, from their experience in this greenhouse species,  Incas organized agricultural production throughout the Tahuantinsuyo.