Maras Salt Mines and Moray Mountain Bike Tour

Maras Salt Mines and Moray Mountain Bike Tour

This mountain bike trip visits two of the most interesting and unique Inca archaeological sites in all of Peru – Moray and the Salt Mines of Maras. These two Inca sites are on everyone’s “must see” list -as they should be, as both are fantastic.

You begin this trip from Ollantaytambo. It is one of our most popular mountain biking tours and is a great half day activity. You will drive with your guide for about thirty minutes through the Sacred Valley of Peru to the site of Moray, which is a set of circular terraces built by the Incas as a ceremonial crop site. Before you begin mountain biking, your guide can explain further the various theories about this place.

Entrance is included with most "Boleto Turistico" tickets, otherwise entrance is only 10 soles (not included). After spending around a half an hour exploring this fascinating place, you will start the main part of the mountain bike ride, which is a 9 kilometer route of gentle up and down single track through gorgeous farmland and views of the Urubamba glacier range. The riding is of an intermediate level – basic off road experience and skills are required – but with those, anyone can do this ride and enjoy it.

After a nine kilometer ride across the Andean altiplano, you will arrive mountain biking at the town of Maras – originally settled as a station for distributing the salt supply and also known for its unique, carved stone doorway headers that date back up to 500 years ago. After a brief rest, you continue on the mountain bike ride, taking a steeper downhill and somewhat rocky path down to the Salt Mines themselves. These salt pans were built even before the time of the Incas and are still functioning today. Particularly during the months of May to December, you can see first hand how the sunny climate evaporates the naturally salinated stream as it slowly flows through the gravity-fed evaporation pools.

You also will be able to see the actual harvesting of the salt by local families, each of whom controls a half dozen or so of the pools, of which there are hundreds in total. We can go down into the pans itself and taste a little of the salt or even buy a small souvenir bag

After this visit, you have one final stretch of mountain biking single-track before ending down at the Urubamba river, the same river that goes through the base of Machu Picchu before eventually making its way out to the Amazon jungle and Atlantic Ocean. At the end, you load the mountain bikes on the vehicle and head back to Ollantaytambo. This ride makes an ideal half day excursion before taking the train to Machu Picchu from Ollantaytambo; also many of our guests add this trip to a already-needed car trip between Cusco and Ollantaytambo, in either direction.