The pink salt of Maras, in Peru's Sacred Valley
An A2 Spanish reading about the salt pans of Maras, near Cusco: more than three thousand shallow pools on a hillside, a salty mountain spring, and the families who gather the salt by hand.
La sal rosada de Maras
Reading for practice
Read for free. Create an account to translate words, save progress, and practise.
The narrator visits an aunt in Maras, in the Sacred Valley, and describes more than three thousand shallow pools on a hillside, filled from a salty spring inside the mountain. The sun dries the water and salt is left at the bottom, which the family gathers by hand. Many families in the community look after a few pools, passed down from parents to children. Between May and October it rains little and those months yield a lot of salt, while the rainy season brings little work. The salt can be white or pink, and that pink colour comes from the minerals in the spring water.
Desde el camino se ven muchas pozas blancas en la ladera del cerro. Son más de tres mil, pequeñas y poco profundas, una al lado de la otra. De lejos parecen escalones.
El agua no viene de la lluvia ni de ningún río. Sale de un manantial salado, dentro de la montaña, y la gente la lleva hasta las pozas por canales muy angostos. Si pruebas un poco, no vas a querer más.
Después trabaja el sol. El agua se seca poco a poco y en el fondo queda la sal. Cuando la poza está lista, la familia recoge la sal a mano.
Muchas familias de la comunidad tienen algunas pozas y las cuidan todo el año. Las pozas pasan de padres a hijos. Mi tía tiene cuatro y las limpia antes de cada temporada.
Hay una época buena y una época mala. Entre mayo y octubre llueve poco, y esos meses dan mucha sal. En la temporada de lluvias hay poco trabajo, y las familias tienen que esperar.
La sal de Maras puede ser blanca o rosada, y la rosada es la más conocida. Ese color rosado viene de los minerales del agua del manantial. Hoy se vende también fuera del Perú, con el nombre de sal rosada de Maras, y es más cara que la sal común del supermercado. Mi tía dice que ninguna sal de tienda sabe igual.
Ahora llegan turistas a ver la ladera blanca. El próximo año volveré con mi hermano. Mi tía insiste en que tenemos que ir en junio, cuando el cerro está más blanco.
¿Y tú? ¿Qué sal usas en tu cocina? ¿Conoces algún producto de tu país que las familias todavía hacen a mano? ¿Te gustaría subir hasta las pozas de Maras?
About this article
What you'll learn
The quantifiers alguno, ninguno, mucho and poco with countable and uncountable nouns, plus vocabulary for salt, hillside and family work.
The narrator visits an aunt in Maras, in the Sacred Valley, and describes more than three thousand shallow pools on a hillside, filled from a salty spring inside the mountain. The sun dries the water and salt is left at the bottom, which the family gathers by hand. Many families in the community look after a few pools, passed down from parents to children. Between May and October it rains little and those months yield a lot of salt, while the rainy season brings little work. The salt can be white or pink, and that pink colour comes from the minerals in the spring water.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
a mano
newby hand
«Mano» means hand, and «a mano» says the work is done with the hands rather than by machine. In the text: «la familia recoge la sal a mano».
Very common when talking about crafts and food: «hecho a mano», «lavar a mano».
poco a poco
newlittle by little
The phrase describes a slow change in small steps. In the text the water in the pool does not dry all at once: «El agua se seca poco a poco».
A handy way to say a process is gradual without reaching for harder grammar.
De lejos
newfrom a distance
«Lejos» means far, and «de lejos» marks the point you are looking from. In the text: «De lejos parecen escalones».
It pairs with «de cerca» (from close up), so you can describe the same thing from two distances.
pasan de padres a hijos
newto be passed down from parents to children
A set formula for inheritance and tradition. In the text the salt pools stay in the family and pass from one generation to the next: «Las pozas pasan de padres a hijos».
A ready-made phrase for talking about a family trade, a recipe or a house.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
la poza
pozas
a shallow pool or puddle; here: a salt evaporation pan
«Poza» is a hollow holding water. At Maras it is the name of each small basin where the water dries and the salt stays behind.
It looks like nothing in English and the whole text depends on it.
la ladera
la ladera
hillside, mountain slope
It is the sloping side of a hill or mountain, not the top and not the foot. The Maras pools sit on such a slope, one below another.
A basic word for describing mountains and mountain villages, very frequent in texts about the Andes.
el manantial
un manantial salado
a spring, where water comes out of the ground
«Manantial» is a place where water rises out of the ground by itself. «Salado» means salty, from «sal». Together: the salty spring that feeds the pools.
It explains what makes Maras unusual: the salt comes from a mountain, not from the sea.
angosto
angostos
narrow
«Angosto» is the opposite of «ancho» (wide). In Peru and much of Spanish America it is the everyday word; in Spain «estrecho» is more usual, though «angosto» is understood there too.
A clear example of the same idea having a different everyday word depending on the country.
el cerro
el cerro
hill, low mountain
A «cerro» is smaller than a «montaña». The word is very common in the Spanish of the Americas and turns up in countless place names.
It appears constantly in texts about Peru, Mexico and Chile, and on the map as well.
recoger
recoge
to gather, to pick up
A verb for harvests and for things lifted off the ground: «recoger la sal», «recoger la ropa». Watch the spelling: the «yo» form is «recojo», with «j».
One of the most useful verbs for food, harvest and housework topics.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
muchas pozas / mucha sal
muchas pozas
many pools / a lot of salt
«Mucho» agrees with its noun in gender and number. With things you can count it goes plural: «muchas pozas». With a substance measured as an amount rather than in units it stays singular: «mucha sal».
The same idea of «a lot» needs different forms, and this is where learners slip most often.
algunas pozas
algunas pozas
some pools, a few pools
In the plural «alguno» means a small unspecified number: more than one, but not all of them. The form agrees with the noun: «algunas pozas» (feminine), «algunos días» (masculine).
It lets you say «a few» without naming a number, which is how people actually speak.
ningún río
ningún río
no river at all
Before a masculine singular noun «ninguno» shortens to «ningún», just as «uno» gives «un» and «alguno» gives «algún». Nothing is dropped in the feminine: «ninguna sal». It is used in the singular almost always.
«Ninguno río» sounds wrong to a native ear, and it is exactly what learners tend to write.
un poco / poco
un poco
a bit / little, not much
Both point to a small quantity, but they frame it differently. «Un poco» presents it as a fair portion: «prueba un poco». Bare «poco» before a noun stresses the shortage: in the text «hay poco trabajo» means work is scarce.
Learners swap the two, and the sentence flips its mood.
el agua
El agua se seca
water (a feminine noun that takes «el»)
«Agua» is feminine, yet in the singular it takes «el» because the word starts with a stressed «a». This applies to the article standing right in front of the noun: compare «la misma agua». Adjectives and pronouns stay feminine, so the text has «la gente la lleva».
The same pattern covers «el aula», «el hambre», «el águila», and without it you end up writing «la agua» or «el agua fresco».
se vende
se vende
it is sold
The «se» construction lets you leave the doer unnamed: what matters is that the salt is sold, not who sells it. The verb agrees with the thing involved: «se vende la sal», but «se venden las bolsas».
You meet this everywhere: on «Se vende» signs, in product descriptions and in recipes.
Comments
Log in to leave a comment
LoginNo comments yet. Be the first!
