The Salineras de Maras — around 48 km from Cusco in the Sacred Valley — are a cascade of roughly 4,500 small salt pans dug into a mountainside at 3,380 m. They have been worked since before the Inca Empire. A warm, salty spring at the top of the slope feeds the pans; families fill, evaporate and rake the salt by hand on rotation, as they have for roughly 1,500 years.
Visiting is a 30-minute walk down a stone path above the pans. In dry season (May to October) the full field is white and lets you walk the edges; in the wet season the lower pans flood and the view thins out.
Peruways runs the Maras–Moray day from Cusco: the salt pans in the morning, the circular agricultural terraces at Moray in the afternoon (where the Inca ran altitude micro-climates for crop experiments, a 30-metre difference between top and bottom tier). Local Quechua guides from the Maras community lead the walk.
Plan the Maras–Moray day with Peruways — hotel pickup, transport, licensed guide and site tickets in one booking.
