Das Salz der Inka

The salt flats of Maras are located in the highlands of the Peruvian Andes at an altitude of over 3000 meters. They form a widely ramified salt labyrinth, built by human hands. Thousands of terraced basins catch the warm salt water from the mountain. As the water evaporates in the sun, a precious white crust remains on the edges and bottom of the basins: Maras salt. Even today, the descendants of the Incas still extract their "white gold" of the Andes in this traditional way. 360°- GEO Reportage has succeeded in getting close to the salt farmers in the mountains of Peru. The film shows the hard everyday life of the Salineros in the midst of the breathtakingly beautiful mountain landscape of South America. Now, at the beginning of May, the rainy season is gradually ending in Peru's highlands. For seven months, the salt flats lay fallow. Now Emilia Atapaucar's family can finally start cleaning up the eight family-owned salt ponds. She urgently needs the income from the sale of salt. Because Mariella, the 23-year-old daughter, is about to give birth, and a stay in the hospital is expensive. The salt pans of Maras were already used as a rich source of salt during the time of the Incas. In the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors plundered Peru's silver and salt deposits. Today, Maras is a poor mountain village whose inhabitants farm the salt flats independently. Each farming family owns between five and ten terraced basins clinging to the steep Andean slopes. Most of the farmers have joined together to form a collective, but no one really earns enough money here. The big business with the salt is done by others: Exporters who deliver the "White Gold of the Andes" at high prices to the industrialized countries. For some years now, Andean salt has been finding more and more lovers in Europe and America. The documentary accompanies a family of salt farmers as they laboriously harvest the precious salt. Emilia Atapaucar fervently hopes that her grandchild will not be born too early, so that she can earn enough money during the first weeks of the salt harvest to ensure its safe birth.