---

Psychotropics in the Tropics

One of the guides, Luis, Peter, and I get into one of the longer canoes - this one equipped with a small motor. We cruise up the narrow river away from the Amazon.

Half an hour later, we tether to a small wooden dock and climb out. In front of us on the bank of the river is another small village. This one has a large clearing in the center - a sort of grassy village square where some children are kicking a soccer ball back and forth.

Extending from either side of the clearing along the bank of the river are two sidewalks. We walk down the one to the left. Halfway down the shady path, we stop at a small house with a spacious porch. A man in his mid-forties sits at a table smoking a cigarette. This is the shaman.

He stands and introductions are made. He is dressed in an ordinary pair of faded blue jeans and a plain white shirt tucked in at the waist. The sleeves are rolled halfway up and reveal dark, sun-baked forearms. His eyes are creased with heavy crow's feet. Deep laugh lines extend from the corners of his mouth.

He gestures for us to take a seat and walks into the house. He comes back with a plate of bananas and sets it on the table.

"Please, help yourself," he says and takes a seat across from us.

The bananas are tiny - no more than four inches in length. These are common in all Amazon regions. I used to eat them a lot in Brazil. They are much sweeter and less chalky than the type that is normally imported into Europe and the States.

We take a few from the plate and eat while the man talks.

He comes from a long line of shamans. When he was seventeen, he began his training with his grandfather. This consisted of years of learning, meditation, and abstinence from sex.

There are two kinds of shamans - good and bad. Bad shamans use their skills to do harm to people. People will come to the shaman and ask them to cast spells on their enemies that can cause misfortune, sickness, or even death. This man is a good shaman. It is forbidden for him to use his power to cause any kind of harm. He will only help.

'Helping' means any number of things. One of the more common tasks of a good shaman is to cure disease and sickness. They are actually known throughout the world for this. Iquitos is a city consistently inhabited by a small population of people from all over the planet seeking help with terminal diseases - a last-ditch effort.

He can also help identify and block evil spells cast by bad shamans.

Another form of service the good shaman offers is to help people resolve doubts and make decisions about their lives. The main tool in this endeavor is Ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca is a sort of herbal tea that has been used in shamanistic rituals for thousands of years. The chief ingredient is taken from a vine of the same name. It is then usually mixed with leaves of the Psychotria bush. Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) - an alkaloid found in the Ayahuasca vine - is a powerful hallucinogen.

But shamans don't use terms like 'psychoactive' or 'neurotransmitter'. They refer to Ayahuasca as a medicine.

"First and foremost," he explains, "It cleanses the body. Many people will vomit soon after taking it. This is a good thing. It cleans impurities from the body and kills parasites."

The shaman goes on to describe the ritual.

The ceremony must only be held at night - in the dark. First, the shaman performs some actions to protect the room from evil spirits. He then prepares the drink for the subject. Before drinking, the subject must think of a question or problem they want resolved in their life. They then drink. The Ayahuasca acts as a link between the person and the spirit world. For the next three hours or so, they experience visions that will hopefully help them solve their problem.

People seek this help for all sorts of issues. Career decisions, depression, drug addiction - even writer's block.

The shaman oversees the ritual as a guide and protector.

"Although," he says, "There are some people that are not affected. There are those whose mind's are too strong and tied to this world to travel outside. It is rare, but it happens."
"How much of it do you have to drink normally for it to take effect ?" I ask.
"Not very much," he says. "Well, wait."

The shaman gets up and goes back into the house. A moment later, he returns with a decanter-style glass bottle and a shot glass. The bottle is full of a purplish-brown liquid. He pours a bit into the shot glass and offers it to Luis.

"Here, try it. This is a very small amount, and won't affect you in any way."

Luis looks at the stuff, hesitates, and drinks it in one gulp.

"Blech!" he says and makes a face.
The shaman chuckles softly. "No, not exactly delicious."

He pours a bit more into the glass and hands it to me. I toss it back and swallow.

At first, it tastes strangely similar to Guinness or some dark, sweet Austrian beers I've had.

But then the aftertaste hits, which is entirely different. Bitter and complex. I've never tasted anything like it.

The best word I can think of to describe the taste is 'mulch'. I don't mean to say that it tastes like mulch - I have no idea what that tastes like. But it tastes the way the word 'mulch' sounds. Organic. Decay. The certainty of Death. Mixed with the promise of Life - but not your own.

"Uf," I say and put the glass down.

Peter tries it next with a similar reaction.

The shaman spends another twenty minutes explaining various aspects of his craft. He then takes us across the way into the trees to show us an Ayahuasca vine - an alien and scraggly trunk that twists up out of the ground in a subtle helix.

On our way back to the boat, the guide stops and turns to the three of us.

"Guys, just to let you know. A lot of people come to the Amazon from around the world to participate in a shamanistic ceremony. And a lot of people aren't interested. But if you are, let me know now and I can ask the shaman to come to the lodge later tonight. He charges 100 soles per person."

Luis and I look at each other with wide-eyed surprise. We honestly hadn't even thought about this. Shaman ritual in the jungle? Ayahuasca? What?

Luis and I now know each other well enough that the ensuing conversation makes perfect sense only to us.

"I..."
"Bwa..um..."
"Er.."
"Well..."
"I mean..."
"Yeah?"
"Sure...I guess.."

When in Rome.

We look at Peter.

He chuckles and shakes his head, "No thanks, not for me."

We get into the boat and the guide jogs back to the shaman's house to make arrangements.

He comes back to the boat, climbs in, and pushes off.

"Ok, he will be at the lodge at 8 o'clock. Technically, you're supposed to fast for a full day before the ceremony. But he says its ok as long as you don't eat anything for dinner."
"Joder," mutters Luis.

-

When we arrive back at the lodge, we meet a new group of tourists who have just arrived. A small Italian family, a young American couple, and an Englishman are all in the dining hall preparing for their trek into the jungle.

With little else to do, Luis and I spend the late afternoon and evening in the cabin - lying on our backs, looking up at the ceiling, and smoking crappy Colombian cigarettes in nervous anticipation of whatever it is we've gotten ourselves into.

"So what question are you going to ask?" asks Luis.
"Well," I say. "I've effectively been wandering for a year. I don't know where I'm going to end up. I don't know if I'll be able to get a job. So I guess my question will be 'Now what?'"
"So you're worried about finding a job? With the economy I mean."

I lift my head to reach back and flip the pillow over to the cool side.

"No," I say. "I don't really worry about things like that anymore."
"Very Buddha."
"Buddhists avoid suffering. I use it. Still, would be nice to find something with good pay in a cool place. Daddy need some new shoes."
"Yeah."
"What about you? What's your question?"

Luis takes a drag from his cigarette and slowly exhales it up to the ceiling as a sigh.

"Same question."
"Yeah? Not going back to Ireland?"
"Well, maybe. Spain? Probably not. The U.S? I've actually been thinking about going to China."
"China? Really?"
"Yeah."
"Wow. Cool."
"Well...I would have to learn Chinese."

The smell of dinner cooking drifts in through the window.

Luis sighs. "Man, I'm really hungry."

Dimethyltryptamine Triangles and the Clockwork Plantigrade

"The lines converging where you stand
They must have moved the picture plane
The leaves are heavy around your feet
You hear the thunder of the train"
- Pink Floyd - "Cymbaline"

"Quaking leaves and broken light
Shifting skin, the coming night
The bearers of all good things arrive
Climb inside us, twist and cry
A kiss on your molten eyes"
- The Shins - "Those to Come"

"People assume that Time is a strict progression of cause to effect. But actually, from a non-linear non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly...timey-wimey......stuff."
The Doctor

At just past 8 in the evening, one of the guides knocks on our door.

"Guys, the shaman is here. Bring your flashlights and a long-sleeved shirt if you have one. A lot of people get cold during the ceremony."

I get up and grab my light, a shirt, and a pair of socks. We follow him out the door, and he leads us down one of the boardwalks to a small, isolated cabin far removed from the others.

"You'll have more privacy here," he says. "Plus it's darker."

The walls of the one-room cabin are wood all the way up - unlike the others which have large, open windows covered in mosquito nets that wrap all the way around. This one has only a few narrow openings at the top of each wall near the ceiling.

He opens the door and we step inside. The shaman is bent over a bag - a headlamp shining from his forehead. A short woman at least ten years his senior stands in the corner and is rummaging through another bag. I assume this is his wife and assistant.

"Buenas " he says in his gentle voice.

The woman smiles and greets us.

The shaman takes a seat on a short stool next to the door and continues to make preparations. The guide invites us to sit on some padded mats on the floor. Luis takes one next to one wall, and I take the other along the far wall of the cabin. We face the shaman and form a triangle. The woman sits in a chair in the corner behind the shaman.

The guide leaves and shuts the door behind him. Luis and I switch on our flashlights and set them on the floor so that they point toward the shaman. This way he has more light.

While he works (I can't quite tell what he is doing), he talks to us.

"Now this will take about three hours. It is important that you not talk until it is over. I suggest you sit cross-legged, just as you are now. It will help you maintain focus."

He turns and murmurs to the woman, and she hands him something.

"I am here and I will protect you. There is no danger. However, if you see something you do not like or something that frightens you, just blow it away."

To demonstrate this, he puckers his lips into a small ring and exhales a short, sharp breath. Like a child blowing the seeds off a dandelion to make a wish.

"Just like that. Whatever it is will go away and be replaced by something else."
"Ok," we say.
"Now when I give you the tea, don't take it right away. You must first say "Te tomo con fue."

This makes no sense. 'Fue' is the third-person simple past tense of 'ser' - the verb 'to be'. So it literally translates to something like 'I take you with was'.

"Con fue?" asks Luis for confirmation.
"Sí."
"O con fé?" With faith?
"No, con fue." says the shaman.
"Oh, ok."
"Once you have said this," the shaman goes on, "you must then ask the question you need answered. Do not ask out loud, but in your mind. Then drink."
"Ok," we say.
"In the morning, I want you to eat a good breakfast. Have it with some lime juice. It will help settle your stomach."
"No problem," says Luis. "I'm already starving."

The shaman works a few minutes more in silence. He then begins to whistle. It isn't the kind of whistle where you put your lips together and blow out the theme music from the Andy Griffith Show while you clean house. I think it would be hard to take him seriously if he did that. It is the kind where you slightly curl your tongue at the back of the top row of teeth and gently push air through. The melody of the tune he is whistling lasts around fifteen seconds. He then repeats it over and over.

He stands up and walks over to me with a bottle and a hand-rolled cigarette.

He pours a bit of liquid from the bottle into his hand and gently pats the top of my head so that it seeps into my hair. It smells like musk.

He then lights the cigarette and places it in his mouth. In rapid succession, he takes three short drags of the cigarette and blows each of them down toward me. The colloid haze slowly drifts down around my head. It isn't tobacco, but smells of cloves and aromatic spices.

He then walks over to Luis and does the same.

Afterward, he turns to each corner of the cabin and repeats the brisk inhale and exhale exercise - three times for each corner.

With the room protected, he returns to the stool and begins to prepare the Ayahuasca. A minute later, he offers me a small glass of the liquid. There isn't very much - a little over a shot. What he gave us this afternoon to taste was maybe a third of a shot, and didn't have any affect on us at all. How can such a small amount make a difference?

Out of habit, I hold the glass up to examine the color against the light of the shaman's headlamp. No sangiovese or merlot grapes here - but it's homemade and 100% natural.

Out loud, I repeat the incantation as instructed. In my mind, I ask the question.

"Where will I go and what will I do?"

I drink.

I hand the glass back to the shaman and turn off my flashlight. He prepares it again for Luis.

Luis recites the strange phrase. He then falls silent for three seconds as he asks the question - our question.

He drinks.

He hands the glass back to the shaman and turns off his flashlight.

The shaman removes the headlamp and switches it off.

He resumes the whistling while we sit and look into the darkness.

A few minutes later, it begins to rain outside. Finally. It rains almost every day in Iquitos - I was wondering when we would get some here in the rain forest.

Fifteen minutes go by and nothing has changed. Through the narrow slits of windows near the ceiling, I see the cloudy sky momentarily glow with lightning. A few seconds later, soft, low thunder rolls over the lodge. The rain comes down a little harder on the roof - but it is still gentle.

Another twenty minutes go by. All that is heard is the rain and the continual loop of the shaman's whistle. All that is seen is the darkness.

The shaman clears his throat and stops for a moment. We hear him reaching back for something.

Luis takes the opportunity to break his vow of silence.

"You feel anything?" he whispers in English.
"Not a thing," I answer.
"Yeah, me neither," he says.
"Timothy Leary was full of shit, man."

Great. We are both immune to the effects of Ayahuasca. The shaman said some minds were too strong. Tonight he managed to get a few heavy-weights. No girly-men in this cabin.

Now we have to sit here in the dark for the next three hours out of politeness, if nothing else.

The shaman is whistling the melody again. He is now holding something in front of him. My eyes have adjusted slightly to the dark, and it appears to be a wide rectangle - like some sort of washboard. There are beads inside of it or dozens of little wooden rods attached to it by string. I can't see this, but they make a sound as he adjusts himself on the stool. It sounds like those rain sticks you always see for sale in tourist gift shops around the world.

A minute later, the shaman begins to shake the object back and forth. The sound of the rattle fills the room.

In the instant he begins this, the room shudders. It vibrates and is momentarily illuminated by blue light. But my body seems to be moving with it.

I realize that it is not the room or my body shuddering back and forth - but my senses. It is as if I have been partially dislodged from physical reality.

A strange sensation washes over me. It's an emotion actually, but not one I am able to define. An extra perception is starting to well up in my mind - one that is not terribly concerned with the rules and patterns experienced in every day reality.

This doesn't really come as a surprise. I am tripping, after all.

But what is surprising is that I can still think clearly. Part of me perceives the flashes of light and vibration to be of some universal significance. But another part of me - the normal, everyday me - knows they are nothing more than a byproduct of exotic neurotransmitters binding to receptors in the brain.

But how is it possible that all this starts exactly when the shaman begins shaking the rain rattle? I know he has experience with this and has a good feel for how much time usually passes for the Ayahuasca to take effect. But down to the second? There are too many variables to account for - an individual's metabolism, blood-brain barrier thresholds, hydration levels, and all sorts of things. It's like he flipped a switch in my mind.

For the moment, I'll call it sheer coincidence. What I don't know now is that Luis will confirm the exact same experience tomorrow morning.

The vibration crescendos once again. I take a nervous breath.

It begins. Here we go.

The resonance soon dies down and I feel my body come back. My limbs are wobbly and heavy.

I lean back against the wall of the cabin and listen to the rain and the rain rattle. At the small of my back where the shirt has been lifted, I feel an insect drop onto the skin and scurry down the back of my jeans.

Ugh. What was that?

A moth then flutters across my cheek and lands on my shoulder. Something else crawls over one of my bare feet. I shake it off.

I can't see it in the dark, but a centipede then crawls up my left thigh, to my elbow, and down the length of my forearm.

This crosses the line. I hate centipedes.

But I don't react. They aren't real. They feel just as real as anything I have ever felt. The fact that my mind is so clear and my ability to think is so unaffected makes it all the more real. But it's not. So why freak out?

Then it occurs to me that I am in the jungle. Maybe they are real and are squeezing through cracks in the wall to escape the rain.

So I concentrate on the centipede. I slowly reach down to where it is to pick it up and throw it off. My fingers land and touch nothing but my own skin.

"Ok," I think. "Not real. So knock it off."

With that, the bugs go away and don't return.

Ok, enough parlor games. Sit up straight. Concentrate.

The shivering vibration courses up my being again and this time fully severs the connection between intellect and anti-intellect. They sit cross-legged next to each other - equal in clarity but separate in perception.

The shaman has risen and is now standing tall in the center of the triangle and shakes the rain rattle. But my intellect knows he is still seated on the small stool . I can see the shadow of his form near the wall. An assessment of the acoustics of the rattle and his whistle confirms this position.

But the anti-intellect insists he his standing just before me. The two sets of senses contradict each other - but without conflict or friction.

The shaman is not alone. Standing behind him on either side are two more shamans. They are much taller and huskier men. Their hair is long and flows down to the tops of their shoulders - two seemingly Nordic silhouettes towering silently behind the shaman to complete a smaller triangle within the larger.

Thunder rolls again across the sky and the rain continues to massage the roof of the cabin.

A new sound comes into the room. It sounds like rustling leaves. I can't see anything, but I can sense movement to my left.

In the corner, the woman lights a cigarette. She places it between her lips and takes a slow drag. The tip of the cigarette glows a bright orange and illuminates part of the room.

The sound to my left turns out to be an animal. It has the long, elegant body of a puma. The fur is white. It is nosing through some leaves on the floor and looks up at me. The head is disproportionately large - but still feline. It has big, perky ears and long whiskers. But the eyes are human. The pupils are round and set into bright blue irises. They are kind, gentle eyes.

One of the ears twitches and the puma blinks - its white lids slowly closing and opening. It regards me with its gaze for another moment and lowers its nose again to the leaves.

Seated at the door just beyond the trio of shamans is a dog. Like the puma, its coat is white and its almond eyes shine blue. It also has the same pointy ears, and looks a bit like an Alaskan Husky.

The glow of the cigarette fades and the room goes dark again. I can hear a few more creatures slowly ambling around the room. Their presence is peaceful and comforting.

The shaman stops whistling.

He takes a breath and begins to chant. It sounds similar to the singing I would normally associate with medicine men of North American tribes like the Cherokee or Delaware. The words - if they are indeed words - are indecipherable to me. Aymara? Quechua? No idea.

A small rectangle of light appears in front of me in the center of the triangle. It hovers in space and begins to slowly move toward me.

As it draws closer, I realize that the light from the rectangle is a series of pictures. It stops a few feet from my eyes. Images shuffle back and forth in the space, but I can't quite focus on any of them. It is like there is a widescreen plasma monitor floating in front of me.

Oh hell yes. I hallucinate in High Definition.

The flicker of pictures begins to slow and finally stops on an image of a white triangle on a blue background. The floating screen then moves toward me again - this time at high speed. It overtakes my field of vision.

I can still hear the rain, the rattle, and the shaman's chant. But my view of the inside of the cabin has been completely replaced by the screen. I squint my eyes against the intensity of bright light that doesn't actually exist and wait for my pupils to adjust.

The triangle turns out to be the roof of a house set against a deep blue sky.

It is a simple estate surrounded by a low and immaculately whitewashed wall with a beautiful mahogany door at its center.

Also whitewashed, the house has two stories with a tall gabled roof. Behind the surrounding wall, I can just see the top edge of the front door to the right. A single, square window is placed on the second floor, left of center.

There are also flowers - hundreds of them. All along the top of the wall, down the slopes of the roof, and around the edge of the window are stemless flowers that seem to just grow from the stone itself. Roses, tulips, and irises of all different colors adorn the home.

While I sit and look up at the house, one of the roses on the top of the wall gradually angles down to point in my direction - like a satellite dish seeking a signal. It then begins to slowly rotate around its stamen. A tulip on the slope of the roof begins to behave in the same way. Before long, all of the flowers on the house are all gracefully rotating and changing their angles - an organic kaleidoscope of gyroscopes.

After a minute or so of being transfixed by this lovely scene, my intellect shakes it off.

"This is all very nice," it says. "But look, the architecture is wrong."

The house makes no sense. It belongs nowhere in the world. The wall and solid white structure is a dead ringer for the classical Carmen-style houses found in Spain. But such a house should have a relatively flat top covered in red tiles - not the triangular roof of a house found in any town or city in the United States.

In that way, the house is very North American. Along with the roof, the quaint, off-centered positions of the front door and the window are identical to countless cottages I have seen throughout my life.

But the triangular roof? It's American enough, yes. But its pitch is too high - making it far too tall and narrow. Protruding from the face of the gable down the length of the slopes are studs or the ends of logs. They look like the beams the Incas used to build the sides of their roofs for laying dried grasses. So it could also be the house of a vassal in Machu Picchu.

"Perhaps that is the point," says my anti-intellect.

A triangle of three distinct locations. Spain. North America. South America. The house is a flux point connecting them.

"Fair enough," responds the intellect. "But it hardly answers the question 'Where am I going?' This is a fun little experiment, but it kind of loses its already dwindling credibility if I ask a question and get nothing but options."

"They aren't options. They're components. You live in a multi-dimensional mesh that is curved and interconnected with wormholes and chakras. Did you really think your path through that very space-time was linear and one-dimensional?"

Ok, so what is the connection?

The house disappears in a flash of blinding light.

The light fades and I am now sitting on the floor of an immense airport terminal. The ceiling and polished floor are white. Dozens of people are walking around dragging wheeled carry-on luggage behind them. Some are wandering around a posh duty free shop filled with liquors, boxes of chocolate, and Ray-Ban display cases. The automated PA system is making announcements overhead, but I can't quite make them out.

I don't recognize the terminal. Heathrow? JFK? Charles de Gaulle? Newark?

Whichever airport it is, I can tell it is a major one in a big city - an international hub.

God I hope it's not Newark.

The image is washed away again by the light. It fades and now I am in the gate area. People are lined up at the entrance of a jet way with boarding passes in hand.

After a few seconds, the image starts shuffling again like before. Each scene is of various parts of the airport. The images begin to change faster and faster.

I still cannot see anything inside the cabin, but I can hear it as the airport visuals flash across my retinas. The shaman chants. The rattle rattles. The rain outside has stopped.

There are new sounds. To my left, I can hear someone breathing. At first I think it is Luis and that it only sounds closer due to the Ayahuasca. But Luis then clears his throat. It isn't him. It could be the puma, but it sounds human.

To my right, there is a deep, garbled voice. It sounds like the voice of a man that has been scrambled by some sort of encoding device - completely unintelligible.

The images of Ayahuasca Interdimensional Airport are now flying so fast that I can't make anything out.

Then the slideshow stops abruptly. I am standing in the cockpit of an airliner. Digital readouts. Small computer screens. A myriad of switches and buttons. For the first time, I can't hear the shaman's chant or the rattle. They are drowned out by the sound of the cabin pressurization system and the whine of jet engines.

An instant later, it is all gone. Someone has pulled the plug on the floating flat panel display. I'm back in the cabin - looking into the darkness and hearing the shaman.

What the hell was that all about?

I rub at my eyes. To my left, I hear the deep breathing again. I look and see nothing. It definitely isn't Luis, because I can hear his breath, too. It is much more shallow and slow.

I then hear the garbled bass of the voice to my right. I look and see nothing. But the sound persists.

Back to my left, Luis takes a breath and blows out - the sound of a dandelion being sacrificed for a child's wish. He must have seen something he didn't like.

I reach down to my bare foot to crack the toes. They are cold and stiff. I remember what the guide said and realize that I'm pretty cold.

Still very shaky, I reach down for the socks and put them on. The long-sleeved jersey is several feet away to my left. I carefully lower myself onto the floor and stretch over to get it. Just beyond the shirt, the puma is curled up in the corner asleep.

Luis exhales sharply again. I look up at him from the floor. He must be fighting off some demons. Good luck.

I slowly return to a seated position. Coordinated movement is difficult. I finally get my arms through the sleeves of the shirt and lift it up to my head. I pull the shirt down around my torso. As my head comes through the neck hole, I see two new figures sitting in front of me.

Another triangle.

The old woman in the corner lights another cigarette. Good timing, I need some light over here. I stare at the orange ember of the tip as she draws air through it. My sun.

The figure to the left is a young woman wrapped in a thick shawl.

She sits cross-legged with her hands folded in her lap. The glow of the cigarette casts golden light on her skin, but there is not enough light to make out her facial features. Her large, dark eyes shine with a brighter light - not from the dim cigarette, but from somewhere else. A small, square window, perhaps.

The figure on the right is a small bear. Unlike the puma and the dog, the bear is covered in brown fur. His eyes are large, convex windows of aging glass. Behind the glass, I can see tiny cogs and levers. Some of them turn in controlled intervals every few seconds. Tic Toc.

There is a gap in his fur around his neck. Exposed beneath it are rusty iron rods and thin twine pulleys.

Unlike the girl, the bear is not looking at me. it's head is turned away from our triangle and cocked down.

In my mind, I speak to it.

"Hey."

Somewhere inside the bear, antique gears begin to turn and squeak. The twine pulleys in the neck tighten and begin to move. The bear's head lifts to look straight ahead at the wall. The gears stop, and a different set begin to work - not as squeaky. The head turns on its axis to look at me and stops with a loud click.

His mouth suddenly drops open with a spring-loaded twang. The bizarre, scrambled voice from before then comes from his mouth. It's speaking, but I don't understand a word.

I look back to the girl who continues to regard me with her silent gaze.

"I can't understand Yogi over here," I say. "Should I be talking to you?"

She doesn't respond. She just sits there. She then turns her to head to indicate the mechanical bear and then looks back to me. Her eyebrows lift every so slightly.

Ok.

I turn back to the bear.

"Sorry, no more wise cracks," I take a breath. "If you have something to tell me, I am listening."

Deep inside the bear's torso, the ancient clockwork begins to creak and turn. Behind the glass of its right eye, an electrical relay sparks a few times.

With that, the widescreen flat panel appears again in mid-air between the bear and the girl.

This time, I see myself. I am standing in an apartment. I am facing a man and a woman in their late twenties or early thirties. Behind them is a living room with a nice hardwood floor. The furniture is almost definitely from IKEA. Intense sunlight pours in through large windows.

In Spanish, the couple is explaining details about the apartment to me. We then discuss the cost of the bedroom I would be renting. Their accents are deep Castilian.

The conversation then meanders to small talk about the neighborhood, work, life.

The relay behind the bear's eye flickers a few more times and the screen fades away. I turn to look at the bear.

Of course he's a bear.

The forests around the Spanish capital of Madrid were once full of bears. The animal eventually became a symbol of the city - used on its coat of arms. To this day, the image of bears can be seen all over the city from statues to corporate logos. There is even a legend that says the original name of the city was Ursaria - 'Land of Bears' in Latin.

"Madrid?" I ask the bear.

The bear remains motionless - its noisy internal clock ticking away the eons.

I look back to the girl.

"And who are you? The house? What's the connection?"

She remains silent. Her eyes dart back and forth - studying mine.

I look back to the bear.

"I lived in Madrid for two and half years. What's the point in going back?"

The gears inside the bear's neck turn again and its head cocks to the right and just looks at me.

'Don't argue' that look says.

"Ok, ok. Non-linear path."

I rub my eyes. When I open them again, the bear and the girl have gone.

I lean back against the wall of the cabin and listen to the shaman chant. The three shamans that were standing in the center of the triangle have gone, too.

The puma is still in the corner - snoring softly. The dog has also fallen asleep at the base of the door.

I bring my knees up to my chest and clasp my hands around them to keep warm. I fall into a mild trance.

Time passes.

Coming Down

When I come back to full consciousness, I am lying on the mat with my arms folded over my chest.

The shaman has stopped chanting and shaking the rattle. He has switched on the headlamp and holds it in his hand. I look up at him.

"Todo bien?" he asks.
"Yeah," says Luis.
"Todo bien," I say.

I arch my neck and look back at Luis. I reach for my flashlight and turn it on.

"Ready to go?"
"Yeah, if I can get up."
"Yeah, not going to be easy."

I sit up and try to stand. I fall back down into a kneeling position.

"Tranquilo," says the shaman. "Give it a minute."

I give it a minute. I am awake, but time freezes. Maybe thirty seconds pass. Maybe ten minutes, I don't know.

I pull myself together and slowly stand on wobbly legs. The shaman and the woman begin preparing their things to go.

I point the light at Luis. He is kneeling on one knee and staring blankly ahead. Time has frozen for him, too.

"Luis."

No response.

"Luis. Come on, man. Let's go find an IHOP. They want to get home."

He shakes his head into coherence and stands.

"Yeah, ok." He walks over to me. "We need to pay him, no?"
"Oh yeah. Forgot."

I slide a hand into the tight pocket of my jeans and scissor the 100-sol note between two fingers and carefully pull it out. It is one of the most physically challenging things I have ever had to do.

The shaman turns to us.

"Now don't forget about breakfast. Lime juice. Very important."
"No problem," I say. "Here, we probably should have given this to you before, we forgot."

I take Luis's bill from him, fold it with mine, and hand it out to the shaman.

"Oh," he says. He looks down and off to the side.

He is embarrassed - maybe even offended. He doesn't want to handle the money.

Luis looks over to the woman.

"Señora?"

The woman looks up from the bag she is arranging.

"Oh!" She walks over to us. "Here I'll take that. Thank you."
"Thank you," we say.

Outside, the jungle lodge is dark and silent. I look at my watch. It's 12:30. Everyone is in bed.

We walk with the shaman and his wife to the door of the dining hall. I am only able to do this by leaning heavily on the railings of the boardwalk. Controlling my legs is next to impossible. Luis is a bit clumsy, but is able to keep his balance.

We thank them at the door and they head off toward the dock to where their boat is tethered.

Slowly, we make our way back through the maze of boardwalks to our cabin. The last stretch is the hardest. Unlike the other walks, it is uncovered and has no hand railing.

"Hang on," I say when we reach it. "I'm going to crawl from here so I don't fall and break my neck."
"Ok."

I start to kneel down slowly, lose my strength and collapse to my hands and knees. Luis puts a hand on my shoulder.

"You ok?"
"Yeah," I say laughing at my ridiculous condition. "Just give me a second."
"So did the spirit world tell you where you're going?"
"The freaking Bermuda Triangle," I say still laughing. "I don't know. You?"
"Don't know. China, maybe."
"Cool."

I rub the pad of my thumb across one of the dry, splinter-infested planks of the boardwalk and stop laughing. I look up at Luis.

"The wood is dry," I say.
"So?"
"Well it was raining."
"When?"
"When? For like forty-five minutes at the beginning. You didn't hear that?"
"No."
"Come on. Thunder, lightning. It wasn't much, but you couldn't have missed it. You're really telling me you didn't hear it?"
"I don't have to, look. Nothing is wet."

I look back down at the bone-dry wood. The rain I heard had started not five minutes after I drank the Ayahuasca.

"Well I'll be damned," I mutter.

I manage to flounder back into the cabin and onto my bed. Luis just stands near the door with his arms crossed over his chest. I shine my light at him.

"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he says. "Just feel kind of restless."

He starts to talk, but I lose focus. My stomach begins to churn. Saliva explodes into my mouth. Taking the hint, I roll out of bed and hobble into the bathroom. I throw the toilet seat up just in time for my stomach to invert and push itself up into the esophagus. Breathing locks.

But nothing comes up. Of course not. I haven't eaten anything in well over twelve hours.

"Are you alright?" asks Luis.

I cough a few times and walk back out of the bathroom chuckling.

"Not sure what I was worried about. Not like there's anything in my stomach to puke up."

Having said that, my insides wrench again. I turn right back around and dart to the toilet.

I'll spare you the details. But let's just say the only thing going through my mind for the next three minutes is 'Where is all this coming from?'

I brush my teeth and crash into bed.

"That must have been the cleansing part of the ritual," I say.
"Feel better?" asks Luis.
"I feel fantastic," I say.

It's true. With my stomach settled and a bed beneath me, I feel extremely peaceful - serene and relaxed. I close my eyes.

I hear Luis walk slowly across the room and stop. Then he walks back.

"What are you looking for?" I ask.
"Nothing. My legs just want to walk."
"You're stoned."
"At least I can walk."
"You got me there."

I leave my flashlight on beside me so that his legs don't walk him into anything. Eventually, they calm down and carry him to his bed. I switch off the light.

"Seriously, did you get an answer to your question?" he asks just before I fall into deep sleep.

I think for a moment.

"I got the only answer that ever really matters to any question."
"What's that?"

"More questions."

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