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Published: July 26th 2006
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On our last day in Huanchaco we went surfing.. or at least we hired surfboards and spent a little while splashing around embarassingly in the sea! Then we set off for Yurimaguas, a mere 22 hours away by bus. When we arrived we checked into a hostel and ate and wee just about to start exploring when it began to rain. It rained torrentially for 2 days. At one point we went to an internet cafe which was having the water removed from the floor by the bucketload as we typed! The rain stopped on the evening of the second day and we started to ask around about how to get to the port. After a lot of confused looks we ascertained that the river was an hour and a half away. Our bus delerium had resulted in us getting off in Tarapoto, 4 hours away from Yurimagaus!
When we eventually got to the real Yurimaguas we met up with Sam and Suzy again and set off for Iquitos by boat, a 2 day journey. The boat we were on was carrying cows, pigs, chickens, and about a hundredweight of rice and bananas, as well as having 2 passanger decks. We opted to go tourist class, for a tiny extra cost we could ensure hammock space further away from the smell! The boat trip was good but 2 days was enough, we were getting a little bored of lazing in our hammocks and dolphin spotting!
When we arrived in Iquitos we set off on another jungle trip. This time we spent one night on the edge of a village and the second right in the heart of the jungle with just hammocks with mosquito nets to sheild us from the beasties! The jungle noises at night were incredible, if a little scary at times! We saw a lot of the same wildlife as before which I wont bore you with, the new things were: a scorpion, a small poisionous snake whose name I cant remember, a tiny monkey that you could hold in one hand, called a titi monkey(!), and in the village they had a sloth who we named Simone, then when we returned on the third day it turned out to be a Simone because there was a teeny baby hanging on her leg.
We also went to see a shaman when we got back from the jungle, to drink some Ahyhuasca, a drink made from a jungle vine with spiritual and hallucenogenic properties. The shaman looked perfect with a beard and bare feet, until he put on a baseball cap! Out the back of his house was a fire with a cauldron on with a horrible brown liquid inside. Even though none of us had eaten all day (Youre not allowed to eat the day before the ceremony as the drink makes you puke, or purge as they call it, apparently purging is the same as puking but the latter has a more spiritual ring to it or something) it still didnt look or smell in any way appetising.
When the concoction was finally ready after 8 hours of boiling and then much muttering by the shaman we set off to the ´special place´Moses said he would take us to for the ceremony. This turned out to be a beautiful sandy river beach and by the time we got there it was about midnight so the stars were incredible.
We drank the Ahyhuasca and about 20 minutes later things started to get very strange. About 30 minutes later everyone stated purging! Lovely. The ´dream´supposedly lasts for about 4 hours although during that time seconds feel like hours and hours feel like seconds. I found it an absolutely terrifying experience and it is one that I have no desire to repeat! However the ceremonial side of it was interesting.. the shaman did a lot of chanting, placed shells on our heads, spat pollen in our faces and did some weird stroking on our backs for a while as well. And some of the visions I had were quite nice, Ahyhuasca is meant to connect you with nature and create animal images etc. and I did have a little while when I was playing with fireflies! The connection which we all made with the ridiculous ammounts of mosquitoes that were taking advantage of our drug induced state was not quite so enjoyable however!
The worst part about it however is that we had all been consoling ourselves about the day of no eating with thoughts of a feast the next day.. but the shaman then told us that we cant have meat or salt for 15 days, chocolate for 8 days, fat or sugar for 10 days, alcohol and caffiene for 4 days etc etc. When we asked what we could eat he said fish, rice and bananas. Brilliant.
Yesterday we flew back from Iquitos to Tarapoto, ignoring our free drinks (all caffiene or alcohol) and our free peanuts (salted) and today we are off to Chiclayo then hopefully into Equador in the next couple of days.
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