Chewing Coca in Colca Canyon
Colca Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the world, at some points the drop is well over 5000 metres. At this sort of altitude it's really easy to lose your breath and start to get altitude sickness and I think this was one of the reasons why our bus stopped on route to give us a taste of Coca tea, which is supposed to cure anything from altitude sickness to the common cold and even osteoprosis (if you believed our guide Pedro - who chewed Coca leaves most of the time). We really enjoyed the tea, bought some coca leaves to chew as well as some strange coca sweets and then continued going further up into the Andes. Although we did not go to the very tip of the mountains we were around 4800 metres for a short while to see the site where the local population come to make wishes. The area is desolate as hardly anything grows at this altitude. It's just rocky, really cold and harsh. It's also full of stones laid on top of one another in little minarets, which are the wishes of people. We each made our own little rock towers and I whole heartedly wished for Mark to get better. He's now been ill for over a week now and the 2 sets of antibiotics he's taken seemed to have no effect. He's completely stopped eating 3 days ago, which is how I know he's really really ill as nothing puts him off food.
As soon as our bus arrived in the little town of Chivay, Mark said he would like to see the doctor. I think the combination of high altitude and illness just left him feeling completed depleted. Our guide Alim came with us to the ramshackle health centre and arranged for a doctor to see him. They quickly put him on an IV with drugs and took blood samples for analysis and then placed him on oxygen, as he also suffering from some altitude sickness. It was good to know he was being looked after and within a few minutes you could see the colour returning to him for the first time in days and he immediately fell asleep. Alim and I sat aound waiting for the results of the analysis, which returned within a few hours. Mark had an intestinal parasite called Amoeba and that's why the antibiotics had had no effect. The doctor prescribed him a huge list of drugs and we left feeling much more positive that Mark might actually get better before we start the Inca Trail, which would be starting in 6 days time.
Mark spent the next few days locked up in our hotel room, getting plenty of sleep. I left him resting and went out to see the Canyon and in search of Condors that glide through the thermals at certain times of the day. We spotted a few from afar, but the highlight of the tour was the breathtaking views of the snow-capped mountains. It was truly awesome, just such a shame that Mark wasn't there to share it with us.
Around the Canyon most of the locals makes their living from farming and at this altitude they can only grow a few vegetables and grains like quinoa (which incidentally is lovely in soups). 95% still wear traditional outfits, with ladies wearing long, frilly, colourful skirts and beautifully knitted shawls. Their hair is always platted and long and they have strange multicoloured hats with wide brims at the front, which they use to shade their faces from the burning sun. They are also built differently to the coastal people. They are thicker set and shorter and it's really strange to see a lady walking on the street who is not carrying a massive load (a child, wood, crops, etc) strapped to her back with a simple cloth.
Tourism is definitely picking up around this area. In all the places we stopped we had a number of local ladies selling handmade crafts, most of which was made of alpaca wool. Lamas and Alpacas seem to be the most popular animal up here. They use them for their soft wool and also they seem to feature heavily on the local menus. Many of the ladies had tiny baby alpacas with them, which were a good way of drawing in the crowd. When you see a week old Alpaca its near on impossible to stop yourself from wanting to pet it. After chatting to the ladies, playing with the pet alpacas, its inevitable that you end up buying some soft alpaca wool hat, scarf or gloves… Well, it is rather cold up at that level and it was reasonably cheap for gorgeous handmade goods.
On our last night in the Coca Valley Mark was feeling a little better so we joined the rest of our group to go a traditional restaurant and enjoyed some local cuisine. There was also a full compliment of Peruvian live music group complete with huge pipes and we had a couple of local dancers in their traditional costumes. It was an enjoyable and somewhat funny evening as different members of our group were asked to go up and join the dancers and some even had to do some dressing up of their own. It was so nice to see Mark out once again and enjoying himself. We're off to Cuzco now and I really hope he continues to make a swift recovery in time for the 4-day hike of Inca Trail.
