Their reasoning was that we were going to high altitude to see a geyser field, and that dabbling in light narcotics can mitigate the effects of altitude sickness. There seems to be some truth to this. The native Indians chewed it as they crossed the Andes and opened the path between Bolivia and Chile, and there's plenty of coca tea available everywhere. We, however, required the hard stuff, so set out into San Pedro to see if we could score dried coca leaves.
Which we did, at the local corner shop, that stocks leaves in the same aisle as milk and breakfast cereal. The shop only has one aisle, to be honest, but the price of 500 pesos was right. Our tour bus arrives at 4.30am tomorrow morning, and we're meant to start chewing as soon as we get on board. We'd better finish it, as I think it's illegal in the USA, so we could soon be following another fine drug tradition of flushing anything left down the aeroplane toilet.
Hannah does the deal (recreated to look a lot more dramatic than it actually was).
Careful, it's strong stuff!
