Salt Mines and Inca Ruins and a surprise dinner

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Today began a little on the rainy side. We are relatively high in the mountains so it was clod, foggy and a constant but light drizzle. Glad I brought my Walmart rain suit! I enjoyed a light breakfast of some fresh fruits, breads, coffee and, of course, cocoa tea. I learned to chew the leaves after you make the tea. They are much easier to make a proper mush and they taste far better when boiled, rather than stuffed dry in your mouth.

Today we began with an optional tour of a local salt production collective that had been operating since the days of the Inca rulers. We drove high into the mountains and entered the salt mine area. We learned this was a collective with 400 families participating in the process. The process was labor intensive and had not changed much sine the Inca days.

Millions of years ago this area was a salty sea. Over the millennia the mountains rose and the sea was drained into the underground caverns due to tectonic movement and cracks in the earth swallowing up the sea. Over still more millennia the water dried up leaving the salt buried far inside the mountain. Tectonic plates moved and opened fissures to water from far under ground. This water dissolved the salt and brought it up to the surface.

The Inca developed a canal system to send the water into a series of very shallow pools, each about 15 - 30 centimeters deep. The water was diverted into these pools and allowed to settle. First the dirt fell to the bottom of the pool. The added bamboo over the dirt, now they use plastic, to keep the dirt from mixing in with the salt. The shallow pool is subject to intense sunlight due to the high altitude evaporating the water and leaving the salt behind. Depending on several factors of cleanliness there are several grades of salt from fine gourmet salt, to medicinal salts, to cooking salts and finally to animal feed quality. The salt is rich in Calcium, Iron, Manganese, and Zinc.There are pink versions, some with added herbs and flavors and some designed for soaking you feet and body. Of course at the end of the tour you can buy some salt.

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