Travelogue: 向南美出發 Day 4

2018年7月24日星期二

向南美出發 Day 4

今天到chincero 參觀印加遺址。

導遊Naomi生於此地，所以很細心的講解，原來在這裡有2000 多種薯仔。而印加人主要利用梯田，輪耕方式，在潮濕的夏季耕作。在乾旱季節給田地，休養生息。田的旁邊用大石頭作為屏障，阻擋山泥下滑，在泥土方面就把gravel放最底疏水，clay 放最面保水同保持養份。印加人的農耕文化和智慧真的和中國近似。

Chincheros Inca ruins

Your tour guide will pick you up from your hotel/hostal at 8:00am and you will travel by minivan to the amazing village of Chincheros.

In Chincheros you can visit the artisanal market where they will show you the way in which the Inca’s people used to get the natural dyes from all the native plants in the Cusco region. Also you will visit the Chincheros Inca ruins.

Natural Dye (colours)

potatoes

Alpaca

之後，我們也到了一個叫maras 的同心圓，這是一個小山谷，用了微氣候的原理，據說身在山谷底部是最溫暖，因為山坡反射熱力出來，而這是有屏蔽的地方可以檔風。到了晚上，內陸水氣少無雲。天氣開始變冷，同心圓上空的空氣都是冷冷的，但同心圓的底部都是暖暖的，所以原本在高地不能種的植物例如棉花、可可葉就可以在這個山谷種植，真聰明啊。

Moray 農業實驗室 (Credit: The only Peru Guide)

之後，我們去MARAS SALT MINE/ Salineras de Maras (鹽田)，而鹽的由來要追塑到版塊活動，在納斯卡版塊下沉（subduction) 而仍成今天的南美洲，這地方從前是海洋，所以，在推擠作用底下，海底的沉積層岩石被褶曲抬升，這個地方就有鹽水，它是秘魯唯一的鹽田。

Salt water in the Andes? Credit: Peru for Less

You might be wondering how large amounts of salt deposits ended up in the middle of the Andes Mountains. Though the salt pans themselves are man-made, the water that is channeled through them comes from a subterranean natural spring, which is mixed with salt deposits from prehistoric salt lakes. Over millions of years, tectonic plate movement has buried the deposits deep beneath the mountains: the salt is accessible from an underground water flow of brine -a mixture of salt and water – that bubbles up in a natural spring near the small town of Maras. It’s believed that the salt pans were originally constructed by the Wari civilization, which predates the Inca. However, the Inca saw the economic opportunity in harvesting the salt of Maras and expanded the salt pans further up the mountainside.The salt is mined through the evaporation of the brine that is channeled into the pans. When the water evaporates, members of the local communities carefully scrape the salt crystals from the earthen surfaces. When all of the crystals are removed, the pan is filled with the salt water again – a process that has been practiced since before the time of the Inca.Today there are over 6,000 salt pans near Maras, and each one is no more than 13 square feet and less than 1 foot deep. Each pan is owned and mined by a local family of the Maras community, and the salt is collected and sold in local shops or nearby towns.