Consume the Coca

Coca Tea (Tuesday June 16, 2015)

TUESDAY:

With the help of coca tea and candies, we arrived in Cusco mid-morning yesterday. First hearing of coca tea may make one feel a bit ambivalent of trying it, as the coca leaves are the same leaves made to produce cocaine. Worry not though (mother if you're reading this I am referring to you!), the tea merely relieves altitude sickness. At the very most, Dr. Brown told us it would take a fair amount of servings to make one's mouth numb, but never any sort of "high".

Cusco, Peru (Tuesday June 16, 2015)

The flight to Cusco was quick (an hour, tops), and it wasn't nearly enough time for our feeble human bodies to get acclimated to the elevation of the Andes. Though I travel to the Colorado mountains every winter and am somewhat used to the feeling of not being able to properly breathe, I have never stayed at an elevation of 11,200 ft for this long. Even at Breckenridge--which has a top elevation of 12,998 ft--was only a half-day skiing trip then we returned to a bearable 8202 ft. The city of Cusco is a whole new altitude experience.

Street of Cusco (Wednesday June 17, 2015)

The streets of Cusco are much different than the ones in Lima. Here, the car lanes are much more narrow and the sidewalks are always bustling with tourists, school children, and merchants. Due to the mass amount of tourists passing through this city, one may find people from restaurants and tour guides promoting their companies by nudging their fliers into their line of sight while walking down the narrow streets. I could never find this bothersome, however, because a simple "no, gracias" will move them onto the next passerby-er.

In the small town of Cusco, one will find a blend of good smells (such as those from the local bakeries to fresh produce) and rather crummy smells (from the dead animals sold on the streets to stray dogs found throughout the city) as well as many traditional Quechua attire and cuisine catering mainly to the visitors of this fascinating city. To future travelers: beware of the liquids that flow down the streets, try to avoid the stonier paths of streets and sidewalks (I've tripped about 4 times already), leave tips in every restaurant, and consume the coca.

Tastes Kinda Like Sweet Spinach (Tuesday June 16, 2015)