Coca leaves, I looove you!
I’m usually good up in the mountains – okay fine, there may be a bout or fifteen with HAF*, but nothing a few GasX won’t cure – but holy hell was I not prepared for what was about to happen in Peru or Chile.
High Altitude Sickness kicked in the first time for me in Peru. I was in Cusco at the market – not the big tourist one but the one waaaaay down the hill where the locals go – haggling my ass off over some alpaca skins when suddenly I wanted to die. As in crawl in the ground and call it a day. I got nauseous, light headed, dizzy and blacked out thinking, “THIS is how it’s gonna go down? Here?” I woke up to the guy I was haggling with standing over me and shoving what looked like bay leaves in my mouth.