Yesterday we went on a full-day journey from Pisac, to Chinchero, to Moray, to the Maras salt mines. This journey was far longer than any of us expected, I suspect it was far longer than our drivers expected as well, bless their souls (rest assured they were tipped well). I went into this whole thing blind, in the sense that I did not look into any of these sites in any real detail. I more or less learned what each site was when I arrived. Moray was the most fascinating to me, even just visually, it is absolutely mindbending to look at. The Sheer scale and depth of this site was hard to compute in my funny little head.

Naturally, my mind was even more bent when I learned that Moray is widely accepted to have been an agricultural science lab of sorts. At first, I didn’t quite understand what was meant by this, but after looking into exactly what researchers came to this conclusion, I was fascinated. Essentially, the different levels of terraces create totally distinct microclimates, with the temperature varying up to 15 degrees from the highest terrace to the lowest terrace. It is thought that this would have allowed the Inca to experiment with different crops and farming techniques, but most importantly, adapting plants to grow at various altitudes. Using this site, the Inca, whose empire spanned many ecological zones, could optimize agricultural production on an empire-widescale in one place. Learning this made me think about how colonial narratives paint the knowledge systems of Indigenous cultures to be dismissed as unscientific or inferior, or the notion that Indigenous peoples were living in a “state of nature” so to speak, without intentional environmental management. Moray is a testamentt to how the Inca were actively and intentionally modifying their environment to optimize agricultural productivity and sustainability in a highly scientific way, long before European contact. I feel like this made me have a deeper understanding of the importance of the preservation of these ruins in countering colonial narratives that are harmful to understanding indigenous cultures.

This photo was taken by a woman on her husband’s shoulders so as to capture the depth of moray in the background, a jaw-dropping acrobatic endeavour. We certainly weren’t expecting this but it was appreciated. At this point, the bar had been set. Orla hoisted Morgan onto her shoulders with ease, the tables had turned and the favour was returned.