Salt ponds of Maras

Shortly after the village of Maras, an astonishing plain stretches out: in fact, since the Inca period, thousands of wells have been dug, new ones every year, to extract a precious element, salt. The latter comes from the hot spring, loaded with minerals, which flows from a little higher up. To collect it, a technique developed relies on terraces: they retain the water which, as it evaporates, deposits its salt load, ready to be collected. The landscape is breathtaking: the colors contrast; the white of the salt, the green/brown of the grass, the different terraces ranging from ochre to brown, the high Andean plateaus...