The Sacred Valley is the biggest draw for many people who come to visit Peru, mainly because of the attraction to its crown jewel, Machu Picchu. But there are many more things to see while visiting that lie along the path of Peru’s famous Peru Rail that travels from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the small town where people stay before visiting Machu Picchu. But taking the train is not the only way to get between the two sights; there is also the option of hiring a driver that can take you all the way to Ollantaytambo. You can even arrange to have them stop at a couple of the smaller sights along the way to get more out of your Sacred Valley experience. Two of the easier stops along the way are Maras and Moray, and can make a travel day a great just by taking the time to go off the beaten path a bit.
First of all, know that it is off the beaten path. To get to these sights, you take skinny mountain roads that have not been paved, and drive through the back alleys of small towns hidden in the Andes. You could rent a car to make the drive, but it is not an easy drive. It would end up be a very stressful experience, and it would be much more relaxing to just hire a driver to take you the whole way. This way you can sit back and enjoy the scenery of the valley below you unfold in all its majesty.
If you are traveling from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, the first stop along the way would be Maras. Maras is a actually a small town in the mountains of the Sacred Valley, and it is not the real reason that people come to this area. The main attraction is the salt flats that can be found there. If you do come here, know that the Cusco Tourist Ticket does not include this location, so you will have to pay an extra twenty soles per person if you wish to visit. It is still an interesting place to see, and though the drive on the small mountain roads can be slow due to traffic, you can get some nice views along the way to make the drive worth it. The terraces out there have been around since the Incas, and are still in use today as a way to collect quality salt that is used all over the world.
The salt comes from an underground spring and is collected in an intricate system that allows the water to flow through various quadrants where the lips of each section collect the best of the salt. The water is slowly drained when enough salt is collected and a common salt is scraped together to be distributed to various stores in the region. It is a process that has been repeated for centuries, and you can come here and watch the slow process being done very similar to the way it was done before the Spanish ever made it out to this region.
Only a half an hour drive away is another sight that I think is even more exciting than Maras. This is the ringed terraces of Moray. There are three different locations where these were created by the Incas, and they are not only a marvel in architecture but also agriculture. The Incas built this sight as a way to experiment with their crops. They formed these co-centric terraces in the ground so that there would be different micro-environments that they could plant various crops in. It allowed for different levels of temperature to exist in a small area so they could see which plants would grow best. The plan worked so well that there is a fifteen degree difference between the top level and the lowest one. They even brought in different kinds of soil from the region to see how the plants would grow here.
The marvel of engineering goes even beyond the terrace to the various way that they could travel up and down them as they added rock staircases into the walls to allow for easy vertical maneuvring. Recent rains have caused some damage to the location, but for the most part, it is still intact, and an amazing place to see.
People come out to the Sacred Valley all of the time to see the wonders of Machu Picchu, but there are many other treasures held within the valley. If you have enough time out here, you should try to see as many of them as possible, and Maras and Moray are two easy additions to the trip.
John Collings 