Hiking in the beautiful salt mines of Maras, Cuzco
As soon as the bus halted, I quickly got off it as I wanted to soak in every minute of my stay at Maras. I took a deep breath and did I taste salt?Harmony Travel, the company our school hired, paid a small fee of 10 soles to enter the valley beyond where the salt mines are located. I caught a glimpse of the salt mines from a distance and it was breathtakingly beautiful. I had never seen anything like that before in my life. I tried to take a picture but the beautiful scenery was too far away and too magnificent to be captured by my automatic camera. I yearned for a Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera.
The salt mines almost looked like a decorated gingerbread house with mostly white icing. Only the chimney was missing.
This was our second day in Cuzco, Lima, Peru. We were in Maras, which is a town in the sacred valley of the Incas, 40 kilometers north of Cuzco. Cuzco is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Urubamba Valley, in the lap the imposing Andes mountain range. The town is well known for its salt evaporation ponds, since Inca times.
As I approached the mines, I was greeted, rather awkwardly by a row of shops. Did I come here to shop? As I went closer I find the shops were neatly decorated with the colorful hats and bags, what you get everywhere in Cusco. What was different that these shops were also selling salt, all types of them: sun salt, herbal salt, bath salt and pink inca salt. I purchased a pocket-sized pink inca salt packet for one sol.This would be something to remind me of Maras when I was back in Lima. The salt is also supposed to be infused with medicinal properties. Some others bought large quantities. How they would lug it during the trip?
As soon as we reached the threshold of the salt mines, I started to take pictures. I was really shutter happy. Although the light of the pictures was not perfect because of the bright dazzling sun, the scenery more than made up for it. It can be hot on a sunny day even in the mountains. I was happy that I had come prepared with sunglasses, caps, sunscreen and a bottle of water.
The color of the salt pools ranged from white to a light red and white to brownish tan. Almost all the ponds were less than four meters square in area, and none exceeded thirty centimeters in depth. Maras had a few water streams too. I saw some of my classmates tasting the water from the streams. As my tongue was parched having foolishly drinking up all the water as soon as I got down from the bus, I decided to try it too. I dipped my hand into the warm waters of the stream and cupped the water out into my mouth. The moment the water touched my tongue, I shrieked! The water was the saltiest water I had ever had. I couldn’t get the taste of my mouth for a few long minutes. Yes, there is this much salt in Maras.
Along the place we were walking in were piles of salt. They almost looked like snow. We had to walk on a few thin pathways, if we took one wrong step we would end up falling into the salt pools and possibly hurt ourselves. That would be salt to injury. I didn’t quite relish the idea, and decided that to focus my head and mind on the pathways throughout the hike.
On the way, I stopped a couple of times to take pictures as I knew that I would never see something like this again. I took a hundred pictures, so many, that it I knew it would be a tough choice to pick the better ones later.
The last twenty minutes of the hike were tough for me. My lips were chapped, very dry and coated with saliva. My lips had been dry ever since I had reached Cusco because of the high elevation. Luckily the packing list had recommended us to get a chapstick each. When in Cusco, remember to carry a chapstick wherever you go. I took out my chapstick from my daypack and smeared it all over my chipped lips, hoping that it would help. My throat begged for water but at the same time the water inside me was threatening to come out. We were all promised that after the hike, we would straight go for lunch. But the salt in the air had whetted our appetite. What I needed was water, sweet water, not with salt in it.
Thinking about salt, I realized that we were no longer hiking in the marvelous salt mines of Maras. I look behind see the salt mines for the last time. If you are ever traveling to Cusco, I strongly recommend you visit the salt mines of Maras and you needn’t take it with a pinch of salt.
