Maras Moray & Salt Mines Half Day Tour

To begin the Moray and Salt Mines of Maras half day tour, your private tour guide and driver will pick you up from your hotel in Cusco at 8:00 am to head to Chinchero town – a small Andean village located at (3,750 meter/ 12,303 feet), dedicated to agriculture, textiles, and home of the famous Peruvian weaving, where you will enjoy the traditional handmade weaving demonstration of textiles, on how to make beautiful natural alpaca wool sweaters, you’ll also have the opportunity to purchase some textiles here if you wish.

After Chinchero, we will drive to the farming laboratory in Moray. This trip takes about 1 hour and is really beautiful. You’ll discover immense snowy mountains, vast fields of corn, meandering through the lush fields of potato, wheat, and beautiful high Andean villages. Finally, you’ll arrive at the fascinating circular terraces of Moray, which is located at (3,450meter /11,318 feet). The size of the terraces is really impressive! Although it seems like an amphitheater, this mysterious circular place is a gigantic Inca agricultural laboratory.

• The archeological site of Moray boasts three amphitheater-like terraces – large, medium and small, all made by Incas. These different levels of terraces were carved and built into a huge bowl with their complex system of irrigation. The Moray Inca site is thought they were used to determine the optimal conditions for growing crops.

Once you’ve finished exploring Moray, you’ll head to the village of Maras, a colonial town built, during the Spanish invasion to exploit the Salt mines located near the village. In the Maras’ town you can see the ancient ways, the colonial architecture with beautiful church built-in 1650, where its images of lintels with sculptures in bas-relief are still preserved.

After your Maras visit, you’ll continue driving for 30 more minutes to the Maras salt mines. This place is famous for its salt production dating back to ancient times. There are more than 3,000 wells of salt, carved into the mountain side that is filled daily with groundwater. It was the main provider salt center to Cusco and it’s still even today for many communities around and the Sacred Valley, where locals still farm the salt by hands as the Incas used to do it centuries ago. You’ll also have a surreal landscape at your disposal to take the best photographs.

It’s time to return to Cusco, but don’t worry, the tour is not over yet! On our way back, we’ll stop at the beautiful Huaypo Lagoon. Another great place to take photos located high up on the windswept plains of Anta at 3,657 meters high! In addition, you’ll appreciate the incredible local wildlife and visit some of the communities where many of the Inca Trail porters live. After the tour we drop you off at your hotel or if you want we let you at Main Square of Cusco.

Important Note: On this Maras, Moray & Salt Mines Private Tour, we will visit the attractions as the itinerary describes, except for some attractions; However, you can contact us and we will do our best to modify the itinerary based on your preferences. Also, Participants should accept that there is the possibility of changes, being necessary liable to local conditions, e.g, strikes, natural disasters, these changes might be at the discretion of your travel company.