Climate: Cusco features two well-defined seasons: the rainy season, from November to March, with average temperatures of 12 °C; and a dry season (the recommended time of year for visiting) from April to October, with cold nights, sunny days and average temperatures of 9 °C.
Access: Maras lies 48 km north of the city of Cusco (1 hour) and Moray lies 9 km from Maras.
Moray is famous for its sunken amphitheater, made up of four circular terraces which appear to disappear into the earth like an artificial crater. The site was apparently an Inca agricultural research station designed for experimenting with crops at various altitudes (some of which run down to depths of 100 meters).
It is believed that the terraces, built over containing walls filled with fertile earth and watered by complex irrigation systems, enabled the Incas to grow more than 250 plant species.
Moray is a very unique archaeological site in the region. It is possible to reach it by car through the dusty road and the path departing from the town. Those are enormous natural depressions or hollows in the ground surface that Incas used for constructing irrigated farming terraces around them. What is surprising is that the difference of average annual temperature between the top and the bottom reaches even about 15°C (59°F) in the main depression that is about 30 mts (100 feet) deep. In those natural formations, nature has created an environment, conditions or micro climates that in modern times people create in greenhouses or hothouses.
Moray, because of its climate conditions and many other characteristics, was a very important center of domestication, acclimatization and hybridization of wild vegetable species that were modified or adapted for human consumption. Therefore, it is a prototype of a greenhouse or experimental biological station, very advanced for its age that helped so that the ancient American Man could leave for mankind about 60% of the vegetable goods that are consumed; so that the Andean Man could consume three thousand different potato varieties, one and a half hundreds of maize, and many other rich goods.
Nevertheless, there are still many enigmas about this site, enigmas that rise because of the lack of serious scientific researches that could clear present doubts. Structures found over Moray are typically Inca, although, some authors suggest that they are earlier ones, at least in the lower terraces.
One of the enigmas is the way how drainage for water flowing through the aqueducts worked; it is suggested that there must be underground channels built by the depressions' bottom allowing water to drain. It is also argued that the bottom is over a very porous natural rock formation that enables water filtering toward the earth's interior; the truth is that even today, in the depressions' bottoms there are no floods neither inundation in the rainy season. It is indispensable to carry out serious palynology studies; that is, divers analysis of the pollen samples that are found in Moray, thus it will be possible to know the nature, species, quality and some other characteristics of the vegetables cultivated over here.
