#4 – Maras Salt Mines
Your fascination with the Inca Empire and their ingenuity will continue into Maras. Maras is home to an incredible network of ancient salt deposits, from which salt is extracted using evaporation pools since before the Incas.
Warm salty water from a natural spring on the side of the mountain, is cleverly directed into hundreds of shallow terraced ponds via an intricate system of narrow channels. When full, the water is left to evaporate leaving 100 percent natural and unrefined salt in its place.
One of the most amazing facts about these salt ponds, is that they follow a community and cooperation-based system, established as early as the Incas, or even earlier.
To see the continuation of work that has been going on for thousands of years and a direct link to the Inca and their ancestors, Maras is worth the stop.
