Foglie di Coca | 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

ALL THE COCA LEAVES ARE EQUAL
THE PROBLEM LIES IN THE USE

The natural use is beneficial to the human body:
the whole leaf is introduced by oral way,
without any artificial chemical manipulation.

The artificial use is harmful to the human body:
the natural alkaloid cocaine is extracted from the Coca leaves, manipulated with chemicals additives
and introduced by respiratory or intravenous way.

The ANCESTRAL COCA

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 - Foglie di Coca

A DECALOGUE to PREVENT SOROCHE, the ANDEAN ALTITUDE SICKNESS

The USES of COCA

The ANCESTRAL COCA

An ANDEAN LEGEND