Cocaine

So as a side excursion from the trek to Cuidad Perdida you can go and visit a cocaine factory.
Now I'm thinking ok its an old and busted factory no longer working. Wrong!!!
Its a real, live operational place they make cocaine.
Well but its not much of a factory, its really just a 15x20' hut in the jungle.
Every three months they make 3 kilos of coke.

What is really interesting is that Cocaine is a natural substance in the coco plant leaves but its a chemists wet dream to get it into your nose.

The coco leaves grow back every 3 months, so every 3 months they go out and strip the tree of its leaves. It takes like 10 kilos of leaves for 1 kilo of pure coke. The leaves are then laid on the floor where the locals come and stamp on them until they are a brown crushed powder.

This powder is then mixed with lime and salt and put in a barrell, where gasoline is added.
The gasoline is then drained and with it comes the cocaine. Now I don't really remember all the next steps but you mix it with different chemicals, each one designed to remove the last one.
Chemicals like Sulphuric acid, Caustic Soda, and some others that aren't as bad. There are some titration, mixing and draining steps.
When you are done you have a paste that you can smoke but not snort.
Now you mix that with Acetone and let it dry and you have cocaine in nose form.

Other pieces of interest:
The guy doing this is not allowed to use coke... if he does he gets shot.
If he sells coke to anyone that doesn't have the proper paperwork from the paramilitary then he gets shot as does the buyer.
The official police look for the cocaine factories from the air not on foot so he feels pretty safe and has been making coke for 18 years.

Oh and in case you are curious. My guess is cocain is the indians fault (just kidding). But they chew the leaves mixed with snail dust (calcium) to be able to hike for days without getting tired.

Well that is how they make cocaine
couple of pics from the tour

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