Quote:
Originally Posted by zenor77
I believe in Peru they drink tea made from Coca leaves (not that I'm recommending this by any means.)
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Why not? It's not like you're asking her to snort cocaine, the alkaloids in the coca leaves have to be processed several times plus huge amounts of chemicals have to be added to get more than a minuscule amount of cocaine from the leaf.
That being said, when I was doing archaeological survey though the Andes 9,000 - 16,000 feet I chewed enough coca leaves to make a llama cry. When all tourists get to Cuzco the first thing they give them is coca leaf tea since it keeps them from puking and helps with lightheadedness.
But, coca isn't helpful since I doubt they sell it in Nepal. Anyway, here are my two cents, based on two fieldschools I taught in the Andes.
Unless you're flying into high altitude you should be okay for the most part. If you're flying into more than 8,000 feet, then
REST. Don't go out of your hotel to look around, don't run around,
REST, take it easy, sleep. Don't eat a heavy meal right away. Trust me, digestion at altitude slows down. Eat something light.
Hopefully, they'll give you a couple of days before hiking in altitude. For the field school I taught in the Andes I asked everyone to be there at least 4 days before I made them run up and down the mountains. That said, don't exercise at all for a couple of days.
If this is for school, then I'm sure that your school has to have portable oxygen for the highest climbs, I know I had to for the field school for anything above 10,000 feet when hiking was involved.
Drink about twice as much water as you normally would. The air is super dry so you'll dehydrate easily.
Don't drink any alcohol at all at first.
Lemon candies. When hiking in really dry air it's hard to keep your throat from going dry, so when I wasn't chewing coca, I was sucking on lemon hard candy. My students would buy them from the market in the 20 pound bags and that would last through all 10 of us maybe a week.
SUNSCREEN! And not the 15 spf kind, get the industrial strength stuff. I'm not sure if it's as bad in Himalayas because they're so far north and the Andes are right at the equator, but, less oxygen means less atmosphere to keep the worst of the sun's rays off of you. I mean it, take a lot of sunscreen.
You will get a headache at first, it's going to be bad, but don't take tylenol or anything with acetominophen, especially within the first week. Don't know why, but absolutely every high altitude guide says that in Peru. I would trust them, just in case.
While it's a really good idea to get your cardio fitness up before going, you shouldn't feel bad you get sick. It happens to everyone of all sizes and of all fitness levels. I tend to acclimate fairly quickly, but many people don't. The only time I've ever beaten a 20-year old guy in a race up a flight of stairs was when I was at around 12,000 feet. I weighed over 200 pounds, he ran for fun. It wasn't even close, I kicked his ace!
GOOD LUCK!