CHINCHERO - MARAS / MORAY AND SALTPANS

Chinchero This village is located 28 km from Cusco on the paved road to Urubamba to the north west side. Here lie the remains of what was the royal hacienda of Tupac Inca Yupanqui, visited for its Indian market which is about half for tourists (handicrafts) and half for local people who go there to trade goods produce and to socialise. The main square of the town is famous for its massive Inca wall, set with ten of the largest surviving trapezoidal niches. The church is colonial style, the walls and ceiling decorated with multicolored flowrs and patterns. The view from Chinchero are tremendous: rolling high plains in the distance topped by the dramatic snowpeaks of the Cordillera of Vilcabamba and the Urubamba range, we continue our trip with a visit to Maras; an Indian village of typical colonial era architecture, before continuing to Moray.

Moray (3,500 masl) lies just 7 km away from Maras, a unique site in many ways. It is not the ruin of a city or a fortress: it is an earthwork mixed with the human work.

Is a great example of construction of the ancient people of the región and took four huge natural depressions in the landscape and sculpted them into multi-level agricultural terraces and some with the circular shape that served as an experimental agricultural station for the development of different crop strains.

The terracing survive intact, forming regular concentric layers flowing harmoniously into the land as a round circles where also we can see the presence of the number seven which is giving its religious meaning.

After we continue the trip to the Maras saltpans the local people work a series of terraces to obtain salt by evaporation from the water retained in pools on the place there is a natural spring of salt water. If you are a keen walker then this is a good opportunity to enjoy the region’s beautiful scenery on the Urubamba Valley and the mountains.

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