The Salinas de Maras — thousands of pre-Incan evaporation pools stacked down a slope above the Urubamba Valley — are an hour from Cusco and still worked by local families the same way they have been for centuries.
Spring-fed saline water runs off the hillside into terraced pans; the sun does the rest. Walk the paths between them and the salt crystallizes under your feet, white against the ochre earth, with the Sacred Valley stacking up behind. Most Maras cooperatives let visitors buy a bag of the pink salt directly from the family that worked that pan.
Peruways runs tours that pair Maras with Moray — the Inca agricultural terraces 20 minutes away — so the half-day works as a complete side trip from Cusco. Book at Peruways.
