The salt of the earth

Photographer

Thibault Gerbaldi

Category

Editorial Photography - Travel

Company

Submission Group

Amateur

Year

2026

Country / Region:

United States

For more than 500 years, the terraced salt ponds of Maras in Peru have been fed by a naturally saline spring emerging from the Andes. Each pool is carefully maintained by local families, who harvest the crystallized salt by hand using techniques passed down through generations. From above, this remarkable landscape reveals the enduring relationship between people, tradition, and one of the oldest continuously worked salt mines in the world.