Coca - the Real Thing

I just said no to drugs the other day but I've been drinking coca tea like it's going out of style, which of course it will once I get back to Canada. It's perfectly legal here, and has no psychoactive effects. It tastes something like green tea and I like to add sugar to it. A bowl of leaves was on the breakfast table at my hostal this morning.


It's said to help with the effects of altitude. Since Cusco is at 3300m, that can't be a bad thing, even though I haven't had any problems other than feeling a bit winded walking up the steep hill to where I'm staying.

Coca has been a part of everyday Andean life for millennia. Chewing the leaves is said to produce a pleasant sensation in the mouth, and if you chew it with the burnt bark of a lime tree in paste form (so my Peru expert tells me) you get a buzz.

I'd like to bring some back to Canada with me (you can also get it in teabag form) but I'm sure that's illegal and Mr Harper's goondas would have no mercy if I were caught. Guess I'll have to come back to the Andes.