“Here in the Andes we believe in reciprocity,” my guide Isao tells me, handing out coca leaves and instructing me to hold the dry stalks together, creating a fan of brittle green from my fingertips. Until this moment, I’ve chewed them and infused them in tea for soroche – altitude sickness. Now at the Salkantay Pass, we’re a heady 4,620 metres above sea level, just 200 metres shy of the summit of Mont Blanc.
To ask for safe passage on this trek, I place the coca leaves on the rocks at my feet. It’s an offering to the gods (known as Apus) who, according to Andean beliefs, inhabit these mountains, including the snow-clothed 6,271-metre Nevado Salkantay, in whose long shadow I stand.
