Day in the countryside on ATV

We had arranged for a tour each for today: Maras & Moray by ATV (quad bike) for Kim and the same sites by van for me. His pickup was 0800 and mine 0845.

At breakfast around 0730, his pickup arrived. As he wasn’t ready, they offered to return in 10 mins and Kim would wait outside.

I finished my breakfast and returned to my room to get ready. The hotel receptionist knocked and said my pickup had arrived. I was in the middle of putting my shoes on, so it seemed perfect timing. I met the tour rep at reception, offered him my voucher which he declined to take, and went to a street corner to await the van.

It was rush hour and traffic made it impossible for the van to wait so they circle while the tour reps gather the clients.We were near Poroy, outside Cusco, when the rep asked if I was Kimball. I said “No, he has already been picked up”.

They I asked the others (including some old women) if they were doing an ATV tour. Yep, they all were.

Some phone calls ensued and it appeared that Kim hadn’t been picked up after all, and they had collected me instead. Apparently the guide had walked out with me from the hotel without us running into each other.

They put Kim in a taxi and he arrived at the ATV base around 1000 just after briefing had finished. I would ride pillion on his ATV even though the warning says never to carry any extra passengers!

After a practice run on the public road, we were ready to start the tour. We went on to a dusty track which led to Moray and within minutes, one Argentine had gone off the road, rolled the vehicle and had to be taken to hospital. Despite very good briefing, it cannot be over-emphasise that one needs to hold on and control the steering rather than let the terrain/vehicle control you.

Moray is an Inca ruin of concentric circles that descend amphitheatre style. Supposedly, it was used to test agricultural conditions with differing temperature, sunshine etc. It wasn’t possible to buy a ticket to just this site and I would have to buy an expensive combo ticket for sights that I wouldn’t visit. We sat this one out, but in his wanderings, Kim got into the site accidentally.

What surprised us was the number of big buses taking the same dirt track to get to Moray. We were covered in dust riding behind the guide’s ATV. The buses didn’t really it any worse but it seemed strange that such a busy road wasn’t sealed.

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From Moray, we went to the Maras salt mine. This was the only thing I came for. It was a descend on an unbarrcaded road to the salt mine. It was good that we were more experienced now and there was less chance of anyone going offroad as one would just roll off into the abyss. If the tour had been conducted in reverse, the Argentine would be a goner.

After parking, we walked past some stalls, selling locally-salted products (nuts and chips) before descending into the viewing area. The guide explained to us how the salt was made from chanelling the water into the ponds and letting the water evaporate. The bottom layer is bath salts, middle is pink salt for seasonings and top is white table salt.

It was quite an impressive sight to see the ponds stretch out over a large expanse of the hillside. Before too long, we had to go back to the ATV base on more dusty roads.

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As we were running late, we were quickly herded back into the van for the transfer back to the city. At the square where we wanted to get off (for some empanadas), we were intercepted by the tour company who sold us the tours.

The boy who sold us the tours appeared to have been crying. The boss wanted to know what had gone wrong. The runner that was collecting people for the minivan pickups had given a slightly different account. It was a misunderstanding due to inaccurate pickup times and not checking the vouchers. She wanted to collect additional money for me as a pillion but when we explained that I did the pillion ride as there was no other option, she relented.  They were clearly taking a loss on this one as they had put Kim in a taxi to the ATV base.

We had a late lunch around 1530 nearby (as opposed to the 1300 return back to the city which we had been told). Last night’s dinner place was too good and we had to do it again with another set meal each.

By the way, in the countryside, there is often a pole with a red plastic bag wrapped around the end.  That signifies that chicha (a beverage) is available for sale.  Amongst Christian villagers in Indonesia, it means dog meat is available for sale!   This could make one of those HSBC adverts often seen at airports.