Ande | Sagrada Coca Verde

A DECALOGUE to PREVENT SOROCHE, the ANDEAN ALTITUDE SICKNESS

Jan 29 2017

01. Progressive approach to high altitude, with regular stops of adaptation, particularly sleeping at intermediate elevations.

02. Arriving by air from sea level to high altitude, one must avoid, since the beginning of the journey, to take heavy and/or abundant meals, carbonated drinks, Coca Cola, coffee, cigarettes; it’s advisable to drink one or two cups of infusion of Coca, the mate de Coca, very hot and concentrated, with a few drops of lemon juice; It’s good to eat some candies or toffees with Coca, when available.

03. Arriving to the altitude the first day, one must rest and sleep as much as possible.

Jan 29 2017

The altitude sickness is a hypoxic syndrome, due to oxygen decrease, resulting in inadequate blood’s oxygenation in the human body, in subjects reaching high levels of altitude.

Not all individuals exposed to high altitude show the corresponding clinical symptoms; with certainty we only know that the majority of symptomatic cases occur during the first few days at altitude: the only safe treatment is the descent to a lower altitude.

Jan 29 2017

The paths of Destiny showed me the way towards the Cultural Nations and not the geographic-political ones, artificially designed on the maps: so there I got … just a few steps from the Bolivian border, impassable to me, in the heart of the Peruvian Andean world, feeling the mysterious auras of the Inca Empire, in Cusco … the same quechua population, the same issues, the same traditions, the same sacred green Coca … I had been separated from …

Jan 29 2017

The time after my expulsion from Bolivia was not easy nor peaceful, but the fact to be safe and fine encouraged me to stay firm, albeit unquietly, on my ideals and commitments in and towards Life, under the blessing look of the sacred green Coca, suggesting new paths to explore.

The traditional use of Coca, except some pockets of inveterate prejudice, is recognized as a founding element of the Andean culture, so calling for a moral engagement to protect and enhance the sense of ritual and community aggregation.

Jan 29 2017

The global situation I found myself immersed in the jungle of Bolivian Chapare bore the indelible mark the History had imprinted over the centuries; the following comments reflect my own experience, by the time of my journey through that region, at the beginning of the 90ties.

The rural population mostly indigenous has historical and cultural roots in the heart of the ancient Inca Empire of Tawantinsuyu, meaning in quechua language Empire of the four corners or cardinal points; it stretches along the spine of the Andes from Venezuela to Chile and its fate was the annihilation during the Spanish conquest.

Jan 29 2017

An historical evidence of the good effects of Coca, the sacred plant of the Andes, comes up from the very past, from the mysterious sceneries of Himalaya.

Here it goes.

In April 1953 a German-Austrian climbing team left Munich (Germany), led by doctor Karl Herrligkoffer, and directed to the magic setting of Himalaya, aiming to get the top of Nanga Parbat (8125 meters), one of the 14 mountains above 8000 meters, not yet reached by human being; in the team the climbers Hermann Buhl and Hans Hertl, who had delayed his climbing plans in the Andes to catch the challenge.

Jan 29 2017

For at least 5000 years Coca represents a privileged emblem of the Andean culture: it’s considered a prodigious sacred plant, rich in many beneficial properties.

The Andean communities are strongly tied to cultural traditions and Coca is a protagonist in ancient ceremonies and rituals; many signs of reverence can be found everywhere; also important it’s the economical role Coca plays, binding the different climate zones from the Andes to the Amazon, through the dynamics of production and marketing, even in terms of exchange of raw material, on the basis of Andean cultural reciprocity, in benefit of all the population, without any unfavorable mediations.

Jan 20 2017

On the waves of memory a prophetical story I heard sometimes in the Andes: here it goes.

“An elderly Andean priest, Kyana Chuyma, while the Spanish invaders were approaching, fled with the treasure of the Temple of Taytacha Inti, the Father Sun, and threw it into the sacred Lake Titijaja, on the Peruvian-Bolivian border, between the islands of the Sun and the Moon, to put it safe before being captured and subjected to ill-treatment and torture that left him half dead.

Tag - Ande

A DECALOGUE to PREVENT SOROCHE, the ANDEAN ALTITUDE SICKNESS

COCA in SOROCHE, the ANDEAN ALTITUDE SICKNESS

The GREEN PRODUCTS

DESANDINIZATION of COCA

The ANDEAN-AMAZONIAN SOCIO-POLITICAL REALITY

COCA from the ANDES to the HIMALAYAN 8000

The ANCESTRAL COCA

An ANDEAN LEGEND