Level                  : Easy ride, no experience required.
Location           : Moray – Maras
Duration          : 7 hours from Cusco (3 ½ hours riding approx.)
Season               : All year round
Departures      : Every day. All year round

Unique horseback ride visiting villages and agriculture crops at the Sacred Valley of the Incas.

Itinerary description

We will pick you up from your hotel and drive you Maras, here we will meet the horses, and passengers will receive the safety explanation. We will follow ancient trails and start the uphill ride; on the way, we will appreciate Andean communities with its traditional houses built with adobes (mud bricks), crops fields. After riding 1 hour we will arrive to the highest point of the tour (K´asa) from this place we will enjoy the beautiful views of Urubamba chain that surrounds the Sacred Valley with snowcapped mountains of Pitusiray, Chicon and Verónica. Continuing with our ride we will have the first views of Moray terraces, arriving there after 2 hours riding, we will dismount our horses to visit this place.

Moray was used as an Incan laboratory to acclimatize their crops. Ancient people of the region took four enormous natural depressions in the landscape and sculpted them into several levels of agricultural terraces that served, hundreds of years ago, as an experimental agricultural station for the development of different strain of crops. After visiting this place, we will have our picnic lunch.

We will continue our ride towards the town of Maras for approximately one hour, Maras is a typical Andean village; after resting at the main square, we will continue our ride to Maras salt mines for almost one hour. Arriving to Maras salt mine we will appreciate many salt small pools with an average area of 5 m² (53.8 ft²), constructed in a slope of the “Qaqawiñay” mountain. People fill up or “irrigate” the pools during the dry season every three days, with salty water emanating from a natural spring located on the top of the complex, so that when water evaporates the salt contained in it will slowly solidify. That process will be carried out approximately during one month until a considerable volume of solid salt is obtained. After this visit we will take our private vehicle that will transfer us back to our hotel.

(Optional: passengers can finish the riding in Maras’s town and catch the van to visit Maras Salt mines).

Rider´s weight: Max. 85 kg. (187 pounds)

Price includes: 

• Private transportation
• Professional English speaking guide
• Muleteer
• Leather mount
• 1 Peruvian Paso Fino horse per client
• Helmet and gloves
• Picnic lunch
• Entrance fee to Maras

Price does not include: 

• Alcoholic beverages in included meals
• Tips
• Extras not mentioned in itinerary
• Extra muleteer $25
• Entrance fee to Moray