Mate de Coca

J and I recently returned from ten days in Peru, from a base altitude of 7,000 feet above sea level in Arequipa to the dizzying heights of Lake Titicaca, around 13,000 feet above sea level. We didn't realize that our first stop would already be almost two miles high, and as such, discovered we needed to treat or prevent any feelings of altitude sickness immediately.

Mild symptoms of soroche, or altitude sickness, are locally treated or prevented by the pre-Columbian homeopathic remedy of coca leaves.

If I hadn't read this article in the Times earlier this year, I would have approached the ubiquity of the coca leaf in Peru with trepidation and wouldn't have dreamed of using it to adapt to the climate.

I arrived in Peru armed with Diamox, a prescription drug that aids absorption of oxygen in the thin air of high places, but this needs to be taken a few days in advance for maximum effectiveness. Um. No irony, of course, in being happy to take prescription drugs but initially wary of the plant that puts the "coca" in cocaine.

With the Times article fresh in my mind, though, we also combated altitude sickness with coca the minute we got there.

Hotels serve it brewing in samovars in the lobby, and provide both coca tea bags and loose leaves at the breakfast buffet. Coca is also available in food - cookies, toffees, caramels.

Between the coca and the diamox, we both felt as fit as a fiddle. We'll never know, of course, which one, if either, had any effect on us. But, you know, I get to feel like a little bit of a badass saying I've had coca tea. Even if it's about as edgy as this picture: