Peru - Cuzco

Before visiting Peru, I had never spent any considerable time at a high altitude, so I was really curious how I would react to it. I was prepared for one or two days of feeling tired and headachy, but I was hoping after that I would get back to feeling normal. Oh how wrong I was.
Altitude sickness starts occurring at 2400m above the sea level. Cuzco lies at 3399 meters, and Lima at 150-400 meters above the sea level. For some reason I thought it was a good idea to start my first high altitude experience by flying from Lima straight to Cuzco, thus racking up the altitude by 3385 meters in 1,5 hours.
Straight off the plane I felt lightheaded and tired, and the expected headache set in very shortly after. At the hostel, I proceeded promptly to having multiple coca leaf teas and chewing the dried leaves themselves, but this proved to provide no visible relief. Instead of getting better, my symptoms worsened the next day and I spent most of my time in Cuzco in bed, feeling absolutely miserable. I managed to walk around the town some (with great effort on any stairs), and unwillingly take part in a city-wide water/foam fight.

The hostel provided free coca leaves and coca tea.

The big water/foam fight in the main plaza

Nobody was being spared. I got hit with a few water balloons and a bunch of foam.

These ladies noticed that I was taking a picture and hurried towards me to demand payment :-P

I was not able to take part in any of my hostel's social events. The hostel I booked was a "party hostel" kind - with a program of social events and parties organised inside the building. I had good fun in one of those in Lima, so decided to book from the same chain in Cuzco - turned out this wasn't the best choice at 3400m. Thank God for ear stoppers.