Insight Guides Peru (Travel Guide eBook) by Insight Guides

Author:Insight Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Peru
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2022-11-18T00:00:00+00:00

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HUALLAGA, VALLEY OF COCA

The battle against the cultivation of coca for cocaine has made the fertile Huallaga Valley something of a no man’s land, though the ubiquitous coca leaf is innocent enough.

In la ceja de la selva (the eyebrow of the jungle), where the mountain flanks meet the Amazon basin, lies the broad tropical valley of the Río Huallaga. Maize and rice are grown on a large scale in the fertile valley, but it is known for another product – coca.

In the Andean highlands of both Peru and Bolivia, coca has been a part of the traditional culture for more than 4,000 years. The leaves are to be found for sale in any mountain market. Ask at a café for mate de coca and you will get a cup of coca-leaf tea, a drink that is the best prevention and treatment of the symptoms of soroche – altitude sickness.

Coca gives energy, and dulls the senses against cold, hunger, and exhaustion. The biggest consumers have always been miners, who use up to half a kilo a day each, but it is used at many other times. Before giving birth, a woman chews the leaves to hasten labor and ease the pain. When a young man wants to marry a girl, he offers coca to her father. And when somebody dies, mate de coca is drunk at the wake and a small pile of leaves placed in the coffin.

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