Underground Hot Stone Barbecue & Salt Mine Ponds

Underground Hot Stone Barbecue & Salt Mine Ponds
190 USD Per person
This 1-day experiential tour to prepare an underground hot stone barbecue, visit the town of Misminay and explore the salt mine ponds of Maras, will be magical to awake all your senses. In Misminay, a sacred valley town you will learn and participate in their agricultural works. According the season you will sow or harvesting potatoes, corn, quinoa or fava beans, using their ancient tools. They will teach you all about their textile techniques, you will learn to spin Alpaca wool, dye it with natural dyes and use their weaving machines to make pretty clothes. You will see Moray a beautiful Inca amphitheater and you will walk around the almost 4000 salt ponds perched in the slope of a mountain.
In the shadow of the popularity achieved by Ceviche, Lomo Saltado or Pollo a la Brasa; Peruvian cuisine still keeps millenarian dishes such as, Chiriuchu, Cuy chactado or Pachamanca, which is an Andean underground barbecue. Pachamanca is a strong culinary expression of the Andes and is a dish that mixes meats, tubers and legumes cooked underground in an oven buried with hot stones. Pachamanca is a very traditional dish, which is eaten with a large number of people in important dates in the Peruvian Andes. It is something very nice because people gathers together to prepare it and then it is shared with everyone.
If you are looking for a cheaper option with the same activities but in a different town see the following link: Experiential Tourism Tour Patabamba
You will start this gastronomic, folkloric and cultural tour in Misminay and around stunning places in the sacred valley of the Incas, with the pickup from your hotel at 7:30 in the morning. Then you will be driven for 1-hour to the community of Misminay. Upon arrival to Misminay, the villagers will receive you with a show of Andean music and dances. You will be also dance some classic Andean songs with the villagers and you will be dressed up like Misminay villagers. Then you will head to their farm crops to collect some of them and learn interesting details about their nutritional values and importance in the Andean economy. The food products you will harvest will be according the production season in which you will visit Misminay. As a second activity we have the demonstration of Textiles: In this activity you will have the opportunity to learn the traditional sacred valley techniques used in the preparation of their materials, the extraction of wool and the use of natural dyes.
Around 10 in the morning you will start with the elaboration of the underground Andean barbecue Pachamanca, which is a traditional Peruvian dish based on the cuisine technique of cooking food underground with preheated rocks covered with Andean grass and alpaca mantles. The central idea is to cook the food products with the internal heat using plant leaves or Andean grass to separate them from the stones and the earth. The ingredients that are cooked in a traditional Pachamanca are: lamb, chicken, pork and guinea pig marinated with Peruvian spices and accompanied by native potatoes, corn, fava beans and aromatic herbs that give this exotic Peruvian dish a unique flavor.
While our tasty Pachamanca is cooking itself, you will walk 25 minutes to a viewpoint, from where you will see a spectacular circular Inca amphitheater, Moray is an impressive Inca ruin built in ground holes. Your guide will share interesting facts about the function of Moray in Inca times. Afterward you will come back to Misminay to have a delicious underground Andean barbecue. The last visit of the day, will be to the salt mines of Maras, there you will be marveled by the 4000 salt ponds perched in the mountain. This salt mine has been extracted since millennia times by Cusco’s civilizations and nowadays is competing hand by hand with the salt of the Himalayas to be considered the best salt on the planet. Finally, you will be driven for 1 hour back to your hotel in Cusco. You will reach Cusco around 5 pm.
** Visit, explore and taste the best of the Cusco Andean gastronomy, its traditions and fabulous destinations.
Professional local english speaker Guides: all our super leaders grew up in cusco region and studied tourism for five years at cusco’s university, they are friendly, funny charming, knowledgeable, professional and will care your safety into our Pachamanca Experiential Tourism Tour.
Permits: As soon as we get your details and deposit, we will purchase your permits for the salt mine ponds located into the sacred valley of the incas.
Briefing: you should come to our office at least one day prior to your tour to pay the balance, provide exact information about your accommodation and receive some details for the tour.
Transportation: IncaGo Expeditions will be providing all transportation for this Pachamanca Experiential tour. You will be picked up from your hotel at 8 am, and brought into all the described places in the itinerary
Food: During the Pachamanca Experiential Tour, only lunch is included
Details: We profess that it is the attention to small details that separates us from other travel agencies. Each tourist will recieve an umbrella for rain that you can also use for protection against the sun, due the solar radiation is very high in places located near the equator.
First Aid: Every guide has got training in first aid from a clinic and firemen. We elaborate mandatory training sessions every February on our tours, which every Incas Path tour guide must attend. Your tour leader is going to have always a first-aid kit for basic medical problems.
Gratuities for our staff: Incas Path ensures all staff are fairly paid and therefore gratuities are optional and at your own discretion
Travel Insurance: Highly recommended for all tourist
Daypack: We suggest you to use a daypack that not exceed 25L to carry passport, water, sunhat, sunglasses, suncream, bug spray, rain jacket and a warm jacket
Water bottle
Flight tickets
Hotel in Cusco
We would love to tour the incredible folkloric tour in the sacred valley with you and your loved ones and take care of immortalizing your visit to the lost city of the Incas.
We can leave any day of the year as long as we meet at least two people, our train tours can leave any day of the week, twelve months a year.
Please send everything to: info@incagoexpeditions.com
We suggest you to carry lightweight backpack that the is key to feeling good during this Pachamanca Experiential Tourism Tour
Daypacks can be any size for walking, but we always recommend the smaller, the better. Some items are listed below
The airport in Cusco at the present time is only for domestic flights, so all international travelers by plane must disembark in Lima and go through Customs. Even if your flight to Cusco is the same day by the same airline carrier, you must grab your bags in Lima and then check them back in.
The best way to arrive to Cusco is by air and there are several options in airlines. LATAM tends to be the most expensive, but has the most options and flights.
Expect delays or flight cancellations; due to the high altitude of Cusco, it tends to be difficult to land and any weather inconvenience will stop air traffic.
Bus travel is always available and while the trip can be long, especially from Lima, the buses company such as Oltursa, Cruz del Sur, etc, are very well maintained and comfortable; this option is strongly encouraged if coming from a city closer to Cusco, like Puno or Arequipa.
Even though this is an overnight tour by train to Machu Picchu, your luggage allowance is still limited due to restrictions on the train; all bags brought to Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu) need to be carry on size.
Any extra luggage you have with you, can be left safely in Cusco at either your hotel or with us at the Incas Path deposit while you enjoy your tour: We will grab the extra luggage from you the morning of your tour and return once you are back in Cusco.
Make sure your suitcase have some kind of identification on them so they are easy to locate.
As soon as people book their trip to Peru, specifically Cusco, they start wondering about altitude sickness. The air at high altitudes contains less oxygen than at sea level and forces your body to work harder to get the oxygen it needs. Over several days at high altitude, your body adjusts to the lower amount of oxygen in the air; that is why we advice you to arrive in Cusco three days prior your trek begin or taking a tour of easy physical demand.
With altitude sickness, you may first feel like you have the flu or a hangover. You may have a headache, tiredness, loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting, dizziness, trouble sleeping, trouble breathing during exercise. If any of these effects become severe, please contact our representatives and we will help you get to a physician.
Most of the time, these symptoms will be mild. We always recommend easing into activity slowly, allowing your body to adjust, drink plenty of fluids such as water, electrolites or coca tea: coca tea has been used since ancient times to help prevent altitude sickness, leaves from the coca plant contain alkaloids like the globulin alkaloid which helps creating red cells in your body that captures the oxygen faster, so helping your body avoid the effects of altitude sickness.
Avoid drinking a lot of alcohol it will cause you to urinate more often and become dehydrated, avoid smoking due it will make more difficult for your body to get oxygen and also avoid sleeping pills because it may cause shallow breathing at night, making it more difficult for your body to absorb oxygen while you sleep.
Your healthcare provider may prescribe medicines, such as acetazolamide better know as the brand Diamox and dexamethasone, to help prevent altitude sickness; start medication two days prior you get to a high altitude and continue to take it while you are at high altitude.
Of course weather is unpredictable. Typically the dry season in Cusco is from April through October, but this does not stop rain from falling in June or the sun from coming out in December, just be prepared; no matter what month you are doing the trek or tour, please make sure that you have rain gear that includes a waterproof jacket, pants, poncho and waterproof gloves.
To protect your journey investment, we highly recommend the purchase of travel insurance; acquiring travel insurance before you leave home, is strongly encouraged and very easy.
The body’s immune system helps protect against pathogens that cause infection; most of the time, it’s an efficient system, it either keeps microorganisms out or tracks them down and gets rid of them.
However, some pathogens can overwhelm the immune system; when this happens, it can cause serious illness.
The pathogens most likely to cause problems are the ones the body doesn’t recognize: vaccination is a way to “teach” the immune system how to recognize and eliminate an organism; that way, your body is prepared if you’re ever exposed.
Vaccinations are an important form of primary prevention; that means they can protect people from getting sick, vaccinations have allowed us to control diseases that once threatened many lives, such as: measles, poliotetanus, and whooping cough.
You may require some additional vaccinations before traveling to Peru; it is adviced you consult to your physician specially if your are taking any trip to the jungle.