Indulgences

1. Kuka

   Coca leaf

   Usage

   🔴 Legal there, illegal to bring home. In Peru and Bolivia bags of leaves are sold openly in markets, tea sits in hotel lobbies, and it is used every day against altitude sickness (soroche), hunger and fatigue. But the 1961 Single Convention lists coca leaf on Schedule I alongside cocaine and heroin, and outside South America most laws make no distinction between the leaf and cocaine. Do not take leaves or tea bags home — the fact that an airport shop sells them changes nothing

   Grammar Note

   Coca is a shrub whose leaves hold the psychoactive kukayna (cocaine), which people chew mixed with llipt'a to stave off hunger and work well. It was a plant the Inca revered, and it is still offered to Pachamama

2. Kuka akulliy

   Kuka akulliy (chewing coca leaves)

   Usage

   Ten to twenty leaves are tucked into the cheek and left to release slowly with saliva rather than chewed hard; you do not swallow them, and a little ash (llipt'a) goes in with them. If you are offered some and would rather not, taking the leaves and simply holding them is not rude. ⚠ Afterwards a urine test can come back positive for cocaine metabolites — worth knowing before a medical or if your job tests you

   Grammar Note

   Related forms: "Kuka akulliy, kuka chaqchay, kuka qatpay". ⚠ The verb varies by region: chaqchay and qatpay lean central and northern. akulliy is the Cusco-Collao form. The -y is the infinitive, as in ruway and yanuy

3. Llipt'a

   Llipt'a (alkaline ash chewed with coca)

   Usage

   A dark block of ash — burnt quinoa stalks and the like — pressed into shape. A small piece taken with the leaves makes the alkaloid easier to absorb; markets sell it next to the coca. ⚠ Strongly alkaline: too much burns the mouth and gums. Start with a grain-sized piece. Like the leaves, it can fall under the same export restrictions

   Grammar Note

   Plant ash mixed with coca so that the alkaloid dissolves better in saliva and is absorbed. ⚠ Plain Llipt'a also has the chemistry sense (a base), so it is also called Akullina llipt'a. The ejective t' is obligatory

4. Sayri

   Sayri (tobacco)

   Usage

   The tobacco plant itself. In the highlands you are more likely to meet it burnt as a ritual offering than as a pleasure. ⚠ Above 3,500 m smoking worsens the symptoms of altitude sickness — headache and breathlessness — so it is better left alone for the first few days

   Grammar Note

   A cultivated plant carrying the psychoactive nicotine, whose dried leaves are made into siyaru for smoking

5. Siyaru

   Siyaru (cigarette; cigar)

   Usage

   Often sold one stick at a time from a kiosk. ⚠ Both Peru and Bolivia ban smoking in enclosed public places and on public transport — not in restaurants, not on buses. Assume an ashtray means an outdoor table

   Grammar Note

   From Spanish cigarro / cigarrillo. Tobacco leaf rolled in paper for smoking, while a hatun siyaru (cigar) is leaf alone with no paper wrapper. The cigarette/cigar distinction rides on hatun ("big"). Ending the loan in a vowel is the same pattern as sirwisa from cerveza

6. Pitay

   To smoke

   Usage

   The word you need to ask whether smoking is allowed, and to read a no-smoking notice. Signs in lodgings, eateries and long-distance buses are normally in Spanish (Prohibido fumar), so this one is for speaking

   Grammar Note

   Drawing the smoke of burning tobacco from a cigarette or pipe through the mouth into the lungs. Example: "Pitayqa runap allin kayninpaq millaymi" (smoking is bad for health). The -y is the infinitive

7. Waqtu

   Waqtu (alcoholic drink)

   Usage

   The cover term for chicha, beer, wine and spirits — useful for asking whether something has alcohol in it. ⚠ Both Peru and Bolivia impose a total ban on alcohol sales around election days (ley seca); if your dates coincide, nothing is sold anywhere

   Grammar Note

   A drink containing ethanol, for getting drunk, with Aqha, Sirwisa, Winu and Tragu as examples. It is also used as a superordinate term

8. Machay

   To get drunk; drunkenness

   Usage

   ⚠ At altitude the same amount goes to your head far faster, and the symptoms — headache, nausea, unsteadiness — are almost indistinguishable from altitude sickness, which makes the confusion dangerous. This is the word for saying you have had enough when the drink comes round at a festival

   Grammar Note

   It has both a noun sense ("drunkenness, alcohol intoxication") and an intransitive verb sense ("to get drunk"); the transitive sense "to water, irrigate" is separate. Examples: "Aqhata upyaspaqa machanchik", "Sirwisata upyaspaqa machanchik", and "Kañasuta upyaspaqa ancha utqayllam machanchik" (cane spirit gets you drunk very fast)

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