Inca Ag With a Grain of Salt

If the Inca had a football team from Moray, they probably would have been called the “Aggies.”

From Wikipedia:

Moray is an archaeological site in Peru approximately 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Cuzco on a high plateau at about 3,500 m (11,500 ft) and just west of the village of Maras. The site contains unusual Inca ruins, mostly consisting of several enormous terraced circular depressions, the largest of which is approximately 30 m (98 ft) deep. As with many other Inca sites, it also has a sophisticated irrigation system.

The purpose of these depressions is uncertain, but their depth, design, and orientation with respect to wind and sun creates a temperature difference of as much as 15 °C (27 °F) between the top and the bottom. It is possible that this large temperature difference was used by the Inca to study the effects of different climatic conditions on crops. Speculation about the site has led to discussion about Moray as an Inca agricultural experiment station. Its microclimatic conditions and other significant characteristics led to the use of the site as a center for the ancient study of domestication, acclimatization, and hybridization of wild vegetable species that were modified or adapted for human consumption.

We took this tour as it promised to be a little less “ruiny.”  It was great fun, although we have found everything in this area to be far more touristy than anything we had experienced before.  For example, we stopped at a place for a demonstration of how the indigenous people prepare and dye wool.  We’re pretty sure that at the end of the day, some of these women take of the costumes and put on the sweats.  It was, nonetheless, quite interesting.

Then there were the musicians on the bus.  We have heard many musicians performing in the area.  Usually there are Andean flutes involved.  Each performance is usually followed by the musicians shilling their cd’s.  They did perform quite admirably given the bus was going around hairpin mounain turns and on dirt roads filled with rocks.

We proceeded to Salinas, an area known for making salt.  There are 400 members of the community, and they each share in the profits from the salt made in the mines and pools here.

This area used to be under the sea.  Volcanos pushed it up and encased pockets of salt.  Now they have some of the finest salt in the world (according to them).