Chewing a wad of Coca leaves is a great way to suppress hinger, cope with altitude sickness, relieve stomach aches and reduce pain. Inca messengers chewing Coca leaves are said to have run 150 miles a day!
No one knows what the significance of Machu Picchu was. At first it was thought to be the lost city of Vilcabamba but now it is thought that city is further east. The only clue as to what this isolated city was is the identification of 150 of the 173 skeletons found at the site to be women, suggesting it was a nunnery or the house of ‘priestly concubines’.
The countries of South America are named after the conquerers not the natives: Colombia is named after Columbus (an Italian who never set foot on Colombian soil). Bolivia is named after Simón Bolivár (who spent 2 weeks in Bolivia). Ecuador is named after an invisible line (the Equator). The Amazon River was named after a Greek legend about a tribe of women living in Bulgaria. Peru is the only country to have any reference to the native people, even if it was a spelling mistake (a group of people who once lived on the Colombian coast town as Biru). Even the Americas as two continents was named after Amerigo Vespucci, an obscure member of a few expedition to Northern America.
The search for El Dorado…