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| We started off at the local market. And I mean for locals. It occurs every Wednesday when the villages come to sell their goods. |
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| We bought a few things and my dad couldn't resist buying a duck. This was a source of great entertainment for all as he roamed the bus squeaking. We even gave him food and water. |
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| Our assistant tour guide offered the idea of giving the duck to a local person as this would be a really great gift. My dad gave it to a girl working at the bathroom at one of the sites. She was thrilled. She decided to name the duck Que, after my dad. |
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| We then went to the salt "mine" called Maras. This is an ancient site that has been used for thousands of years to harvest salt from a local stream. This was a major source of Pre-colonial wealth since Salt is vital to people as well as livestock. |
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| On our way to the next site we saw this very picturesque woman so our guide stopped the bus and we talked with her. She was tending her sheep and she showed us her lunch she was carrying on her back. It was very traditional corn, fava beans and a local corn beer. It is incredible to me how people still live such traditional lives. |
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| The next site was Moray. This was an Incan experimental farm. It was here that many crops were domesticated and experimented with. According to our guide, the Inca were doing selective breeding many hundreds of years before Western civilization to make domestic crops edible and to feed their large empire. |
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| My mom and I went all the way to the bottom |
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| We were very privileged to go to a home in the town of Maras. It is so humbling and makes me so grateful to be born in the USA when you see conditions that people live in. But the people are thriving and happy. It is amazing! |
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| The local woman cooking dinner. Notice how smoky it is. I couldn't be there for long because of all the smoke. Also notice the guinea pigs in the lower right corner she is raising. |
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