Chapter 22: The Inca salt mine and agricultural research station

Maras,  August 21. The high plains above Urubamba are primarily farmlands that incongruously look out over glaciated, dry mountains. It's strange, thinking of farmers growing crops at 11,000 feet in a land so arid that the mountains which frame the vista are crested with ice but barren of snow. It's Sunday, and we are heading for Maras, a Quechuan community where, in the coming days, we will flouride the teeth of school children,  teach them to wash hands, and install water filters in their classrooms in what, at first appearance, looks like a futile attempt to interdict the cycle of parasites that feed on them. But today the health issues don't hold our attention. We are driving to the canyon where the children of the sun used that sun to evaporate water from a briny mountain stream in order to collect the water-borne salt. 500 years after the fall of the Inca empire, their descendants still gather salt in an estimated 6,000 evaporation ponds, raking the crystals into mounds and then bagging the salt for distribution.. From the road above, it looks like an industrial Superfund cleanup site, a bleak landscape of yellow brackish pools and ground poisoned with chemicals.

 Within those pools, laborers toil under an unrelenting sun.

 Salt-laden streams are channeled toward the ponds, encrusting the surrounding landscape.

 The view is almost surreal:

 A barefoot worker rakes the salt crystals into piles to further drain and dry.

 Pyramids of salt will be gathered and bagged.

 At a shed on one side of the canyon,the bagged salt awaits distribution.

A few miles from here, there are natural depressions, 500-foot deep sink holes caused by leaching of calcium-rich soils. Research that turned up seeds has contributed to the theory that the Incas studied the impact of the natural microclimates in these depressions to learn about growing crops.

 Note those  rocks set into the sides of the terraces. That is an Inca stairway, without bannister. They are not easy to descend.

 They are easier to climb , but it's still 500 feet back up to the top.

 Next time: Installing stoves.

Love,

Robert