Day 12 - Sacred Valley Part 2: Chinchero, Moray, and Maras

stretching toward the sky like I don't care
wishing you could see me standing there

Sunflower - Shannon Purser

The song is from the Netflix movie, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, which when I watched it, I was like this is so not my demographic anymore. The song talks about how things would be if one was a rose, when in actuality one is a sunflower. By the years I have spent on this earth, I have come to the realization that I would be a proud sunflower if I were one, not wishing to be anything else. However I am not, I wrote about this some time ago when I likened someone as a sunflower and I'm as a thunderstorm cloud. Anyway I could see how teens or the teenage me could get all warm and fuzzy about this movie. The song was sung by Shannon Purser who played Sierra Burgess and she was also Barb in Stranger Things which I am currently watching now. Anyways, moving on to the trip. We're towards the end now.

Day 12 was supposed to be light, but sometime during the day I was feverish again :( That day we're visiting Maras and Moray. First stop was actually Chinchero again and that was unexpected because it's not in the itinerary. The day before I told Gioia that I read normally a visit there would take you to a weaving house, but luckily we didn't because it's not nice to be brought somewhere to buy souvenirs, but that day we actually were brought to a weaving house. There are many of these kind of houses in Chinchero and they're identified by the clay vase of flowers in front of the door. I'm not sure if people actually live in the house or it's just for work purposes only. Also house may not be the correct term to use. This "house" hosts more than 1 family and each family would display their weaving products. By the way the house had a llama or alpaca and a pen for guinea pigs which were not pet but food. When we arrived, we were given tea and one of the girl was explaining how the llama or alpaca's wool were processed and dyed. In Arequipa's Mundo Alpaca we saw what kind of plant was used to get the different colours, here the lady was giving a live demonstration. First we were shown the plant that they use to wash the wool to make it clean. Then how the thread were spooled and next how the thread were dyed. All were done using natural products, like parasites in cactus give out very bright red colour. On another particular plant, they combined it with mineral and a different colour came out, it was fascinating.

After the demonstration, we were given time to see the different products, all handmade and beautiful. I love the bright colours. It's kinda nice that the women had a place to work together though I do wonder if they work for a boss or if it's really something that they run independently as a group.

Then it was off to Moray. The drive there was pretty cool. The view was quite different than what we had seen so far. I guess we're just on a different side of the valley? I don't know.

Moray is cool because unlike the terraces in other places, the terraces in Moray are in circular form and there are 4 of them if I'm not mistaken. The guide showed us photo from up above that managed to capture all the terraces and they look very very cool. The different levels of the terrace experience different temperature and the Inca utilized this differences by planting specific plant suited to the temperature. We were given time to explore, but we didn't walk down to the bottom of the terrace. It was hot and here I started to feel a bit weird that I needed to sit in the shade.



After that we made our way to Maras, but before reaching there we stopped at a shop that sells salt products. Maras is famous for its salt mines. When I saw pictures of Maras I was very interested and since I had never been to a salt mine before, I was really excited about going there. At the shop, the guide gave us some explanation and time to shop. The shop sold interesting products like salt (as expected) and salt flavored chocolate. I didn't get anything though. Here I was really feeling not so good. I was feeling feverish, so I took ibuprofen. Really this trip was the hardest on me physically.

Then it's off to Maras. It was crazy hot and it was quite a walk to reach the salt mines. Isn't it a curiosity to have salt mines in the mountains? The water does come from the mountain and it was salty, we tasted it. Then the mines, well mine is not the correct word, I should be using salt ponds. Well the salt ponds are in the terraces and the water is channeled to these ponds. There are so many ponds and they are in different stages of salt crystallization. Gioia said if you look closely, you can see crystal forming. I tried, but couldn't see it and also I didn't have time to really see because there were so many tourists. It was really busy with tourists than workers. You can walk some part of the perimeter but you can't go deep into the ponds. These are actual working salt ponds. From each pond, if I recall correctly, around 3 types of salt can be harvested, from your common table salt to the ones you use to bath in. It was quite something seeing this. We agreed this was hard work. You need the sun to get the salt, but seeing the workers walking up and down the terrace carrying the salt, that's tough.





After that we're done for the day. It was a long day that day. We decided to be dropped off near Plaza de Armas. There was like a cultural performance or competition thing going on in the Plaza.

We didn't watch much, instead we went inside the Cathedral. I forgot how much the ticket price was. You could buy a combined ticket which included other churches, but we didn't feel like walking to explore the other churches so we just settled for the Cathedral only. You couldn't take picture so I don't have any picture from the inside. What I recall was that the Cathedral was pretty expansive. Then we decided to call it the day. I spent the evening watching When Harry Met Sally... on TV. For pictures from that day, please go here.

:) eKa @ 9:34:00 PM •

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