Take the road that others dare not take, and see the scenery that others can't see. -- Crazie Madman
In Peru, the ears have been cocooned by the Inca Empire. The Inca Empire is estimated to be similar to the Qing Dynasty, and was later cut down by the Spaniards. Probably the closest to their roots, the history and culture of the Incas are always inseparable, especially in the ancient city of Cusco.
The Maras Salinera Salt Flats, a few dozen kilometers from Cusco, existed long before the Incas and have been in use for thousands of years. From May to December, in Peru, it is the dry season, which is also the production period of the salt pan, and everywhere you look, there is a piece of white flowers, and in the rainy season, the salt pan is like the water of the Yellow River. June is a good time to visit the salt fields.
Lin Feng and I rarely follow the group when we travel, and we don't like to be chased by the tour guide from one point to another like ducks, and the tour is over. We (basically him alone) used to arrange transport accommodation and food on our own. In this way, we went to many places that tourists rarely go, saw rare scenery for tourists, made a lot of local friends, and saved a lot of money.
Monday to Friday we work online, plan, go out on the weekends, and then come back to work, and so on.
We are all used to traveling, and the traffic depends on public transportation. Like the United States, many countries are quite perfect in this regard. In Peru, Mexico, for a few hours out of town, I rely on a van, just like my hometown many years ago.
To go to the salt pans we plan to take a van from Cusco to the direction of Urubamba, the road will pass through the salt pans, and then it will be time to get off the bus. A plan is a plan, and when you really do it, there will always be some mistakes.
Early in the morning, I slowly got up from bed, brought water, and set off for a snack. Go to the place of the hitchhiker, the van 10 sole alone, but also wait for the car to be full before leaving; Carpool taxi 15 soles for one person, one driver for four passengers, an hour and a half ride. The difference was acceptable and to save some time we followed the taxi.
In the car was a Cusco native, another with a Colombian accent, plus a Chinese an American. After driving for more than an hour, we realized that something was wrong. There is no direct car to Yantian, we thought this car would be on the way, but this route is not the same as the last time we went to Chinchero.
The abacus was wrong, the driver chose a different route, did not take the highway, Yantian will not be smooth. At this time, there were only tricks to see, and when the driver told us that we had arrived, we got out of the car and walked along the road, waiting for a kind taxi to take us to the entrance of the salt pan.
It was still 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, and there were several large vans coming from opposite directions, and we didn't seem to have any cars in this direction. After walking for about ten minutes, there was a taxi that stopped, and he said he could take us there, and one person would give 2 soles. So we arrived at a small village that we had to pass through to go to Yantian.
There were no people on the road, and it turned out that most of the tourists followed the group into the salt pan from the other side. The salt pans are on the mountain, so you have to climb the mountain. As we walked, we looked at the offline map and found the way to the salt pans. Because it is the dry season, the road is full of ash, if you happen to pass by a motorcycle, you must eat ash.
The altitude here is also three or four thousand meters, so I will walk for three minutes and rest for a minute, so that after 20 minutes, I will see a piece of white flowers in front of me. I was so lucky that I thought I would have to climb a few mountains to get there. Because we were not walking the road of ordinary tourists, we were stopped by the security guards to buy tickets, 10 soles per person. He took 20 and gave us a ticket, and the other 10 Sole may have gone into his pocket!
It may be that it is still early, and there are no other tourists around the salt pan. Listening to Lin Feng, he said that the salt pans here belong to the farmers around here, and one field is a family. Isn't this like the rice paddies in our village? A family divided into several fields. It used to seem to have been taken in by the Peruvian government, but it could not withstand the opposition of the masses of the people and returned it to them.
Living in the salt pans is also watching the sky to eat, and there is no production in the rainy season. During the dry season, the water is evaporated by the big sun, and then the salt comes out.
This salt is also dried from a mountain spring with a high salinity. The water is guided by small canals, flowing from one salt pan to another. On average, a salt pan is dried in the sun for three days, and then the villagers are seen smashing it with hammers, sifting it with a sieve, and packing it in bags. The most delicate layer is used to cook vegetables, the middle layer is still white, and the second layer is generally earthy, as industrial salt.
Walking to the entrance at the other end, a row of colorful souvenir shops also sell salt, food, and bathing, and there are many tricks.
In the past, tourists could still walk between tian and tian, and in 2019, it was banned, saying that it was to prevent tourists from polluting the salt pans, so we went up along the mountain road, and this walk found that I went, the scale of this salt pan is a bit big. It is said that there are about 4,000 or 5,000 existing salt pans!
If there is a new family in the village, it is also necessary to receive training before it can manage its own salt pan. Crossing a mountain road also saw a tourist bus at the end of the road, carrying tourists. They look like little black dots, all crowded around the observation deck to take tourist photos – a visit here, and then a departure.
From time to time, there was a melodious panpipes in my ears, and Lin Feng and I sat under the small pavilion, eating popcorn and fruits, looking at the endless salt pans and the villagers working in the salt pans.
This Malas salt field is to come by yourself to enjoy, want to be in a daze at the salt pan, love to take pictures of the photo, do not have to rush the field yes run.
Although the road to Maras was not so smooth, didn't you also overcome the difficulties and see the scenery of seeing each other?
No matter what scenery you want to see, the road ahead is not easy, please continue to work hard!