Working in the salt mines, going down down...

My travel postings are all out of order.  I never finished the tales of Italy and Switzerland, nor California.  Why not through Peru into the mix now?  This was the tail end of a trip/conference our entire team conducted in Peru.  By entire team, I mean our colleagues in Latin America joined us as well. 

Just hours before we left for the airport to head home, we visited a salt mine in Salinas, Peru.  As an aside, I had just visited Salinas California (home of John Steinbeck) barely three weeks before this.  What a coinky-dink.  

Putting it on a map?  Well, it's near the village of Maras, and just north of the mines the River Vilcanota runs east to west.  We are still in the Sacred Valley, and apparently the Incans also mined salt here.  Yes, I did bring some salt home with me. 

I had never heard of Peruvian pink salt, but this is where is comes from.  I don't think all of the salt is pink, however.  The sun was relentless this day! I am glad I carried my umbrella, as dorky as it looked.

Canon 7D.

Where am I?

Test your world knowledge.  Where did I take these?

I couldn't decide which one to post so I posted both.  Which one do you think is better? 

I am really impressed, these photos were hardly a clue at all - yes, they are Machu Picchu.  Same scene, different camera settings.  I also cropped in tightly.  The photos I took are below.