Or Montserrat as the locals call it.

Cerro De Montserrat is a 10,000 feet (lots of steps) mountain. It’s a popular spot for locals and tourist who want a spectacular view of Bogota.

From almost anywhere in the city you can see Montserrat in it’s full glory. At the peak is a church. It looked like a perfect touristy thing to do. Big B, LatinStylez and I went to the base of the mountain. In front of us were two roads, one leading to stairs and the other to the cable carts. Tickets were 7,000 pesos one way. Decisions decisions…cable carts.

The view going up was beautiful. We passed by little rivers, indigenous flowers, and some train tracks leading into the mountain. Once outside, I saw a few restaurants, snack shops, and the church. Also at the top were lots of shops selling church souvenirs. want a frame picture of Christ bleeding? Leather shot glass covers with the Colombian flag on them? This is the place to go.

Sigh…just another shitty tourist trap…Hello. What’s this?

Oh shit! Coca leaves! I’ve been looking for these ever since I got to Colombia! Apparently these are harder to find then expected. Some Colombians I asked said that Coca leaves are regulated and only to be used for it’s native purposes.

For those who don’t know, Coca leaves are a traditional plant used by many people in Latin America for consumption. It was used traditionally for altitude sickness (Bogota is 8,500 feet above sea level.), hunger, fatigue, headache, broken bones, toothache(chew it and it numbs the mouth), ease labor pains and a ton more.

It’s also what’s used to make cocaine, so don’t expect to find these babies at your local Whole Foods.

The coca leaves came with a little booklet that described all the benefits of this miracle leaf. Although I’m not sure what to make of claims such as these:

Homemades Remedys with Leaf of Coca
*Antirheumatic. To consum 2 grammes of leefs by day (relief almost inmediatly of pains in articulations and or muscles).
*Burns.Fatigued leefs in plaster(1)
*Hemorrhages. To apply one compress (2) to saturated in the infusion of coca upon the woundeds that delay in to cicatrize or the varcoses ulcers.
*Antidepressive. Infusion or to chew the leafs to act in little minutes.

I took a pinch and put it in my mouth and chewed. Man, this stuff taste like shit! It was literally like taking leaves off a tree and eating them. But after a few minutes I could feel myself feeling a little more energetic and giddy. Looks like those health claims were true after all.

Big B took some Coca leaves and claimed that it cleared his sinuses up and made him feel chill. And LatinStylez was bouncing off the walls after he took them.

B suggested that we hike down the mountain. LatinStylez was nervous because he had heard that this mountain may have robbers. After chastising LS for being a weeny we took the trail down. On our way down the mountain we saw many others going down: people walkintg dogs, families with young children,stalls selling food and drinks, horses, donkeys, horse and donkey shit and police officers standing patrol.

Doesn’t look like we have anything to worry about. Except for maybe the turds lying around.

As we went along B and LS chewed our coca leaves whenever they got tired. I kept my leaves stuck in my cheek like chewing tobacco. My mouth was getting numb We would get tired, chew some leaves, and get a surge of energy to run down the mountain.

The next day, B and i felt a need to climb up the mountain. we took some coca leaves and water and were off. It took about 2 hours but we made it up. I chewed on some coca leaves in celebration then insisted that we take the tram down.

Now I’m wishing these coca leaves could also cure soreness.