Ever since I first saw a picture of the salt evaporation ponds at Maras, Perú I said to me: “I have to see that some day.”
I got my chance during a trip to Cuzco a few years later…
The ponds are located in the Inca Sacred Valley and are close to the small town of Maras. Warm, salty water flows from a small opening on the hillside and is directed trough a small, about 30 cm wide, channel into a complicated network of smaller feeder channels to the ponds. The ponds are built on a slope and the water slowly flows from the top pond to the next one through small openings on their sides.
As the water evaporates, crystals of salt slowly form and local people collect the reddish to brownish salt in a way that has not changed since Inca times.
Do you know of similar places elsewhere? I would love to see them too.
eduardo libby: photography blog 
Beautiful area!
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Like nothing else in the world! There is also a deep human component you feel in the Cusco region.
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