Salinas salt pans, just outside Maras were every bit as wonderful as the photo on the restaurant wall had suggested they may be. Travelling for 45 minutes brought us to a fantastic reveal, turning a dusty track corner to reveal the salt pans below us, covering half a hillside.

Amazingly salty hot water enters at the top of the site and channels are opened or closed, diverting water into each salt rimmed pan to evaporate and leave a thick salt layer to be dug out. There was a range of salt colours from pale pink-beige to near white. Each bag of salt carried up from the pans must weigh 40 kilos or more - hard hot work!

We then travelled on to Moray, and the inca agricultural 'biodome' - an open air Eden Project with terraces at different heights to assess crop suitability for cultivation and optimal condition determination.

They were akin to vastly scaled up Nazca aqueducts, with swooping lines and concentric circular terraces reminiscent of crop circles!

Time for a quick lunch and off to the train to Machu Picchu pueblo ... The fun never stops!