Permission to keep walking.
On a cup of tea that does an honest day's work.
The leaves at the bottom of the cup look like a small green country.
Mate de coca is hot water poured over coca leaves — the same coca that, processed differently, is something else entirely. Here it is what they give you when you arrive at altitude and your face has gone the color of paper. It opens the lungs. It quiets the headache. It does, in fact, work. [^1]
At 3,600 meters, mate de coca is not a drink. It is permission to keep walking. The guesthouse owner brought me a second cup without my asking and went back to sweeping the courtyard. The altitude went, slowly, from a fact to a circumstance.
I climbed the stairs to my room. I made it without stopping.
[^1]: Outside the Andes it is illegal in most countries. Inside the Andes it is what you have with breakfast.
- Find it
- Every guesthouse, café, and corner store in the city.
- Order
- Mate de coca. They will already have made it.
- Pay
- 3-8 bolivianos.
- When
- The first morning. Then every morning.