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Published: February 22nd 2022
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I missed the opportunity to try Ayahuasca in Peru. Getting to Iquitos wasn't a problem. The problem was time. Well, it wasn't so much about time either, now that I think about it. I felt that Iquitos was too touristy. After finding out that it was possible to try Ayahuasca in Ecuador, I decided to do it there. Tena is the gateway into Amazonia. It was humid when I arrived and remained humid until I left. After checking into my guesthouse, I looked around town for Ayahuasca. I cooked most of the time while i was in Tena. The food prices were a bit out of my price range. I made pasta.
I stumbled into a tour agency and inquired about Ayahuasca. It was advertised on the window. The guy who worked/owned the place was Ecuadorian. He assured me that his ancestors were conquerers, of which I thought was a little odd. We reached an agreement for a couple of days at a lodging in the Amazon jungle. Well, it wasn't exactly in the jungle. More like on the outskirts of it.
I met up with him the next morning and he drove me to our destination in his
car. I had no expectation of what I'm about to see. We arrived to the lodging. It was a big house that resembled a small hotel. It was fully furnished, but there weren't any other guests there except me. It looked like it doesn't get too many guest. Further down from the house was his house. He lives there with his wife, who is Austrian and their children. I think they had four young children. It was apparent that this hotel was in its decline. There were pictures around the house of when it was first constructed, almost 20 years before.
The hotel owner was gone most of the time. I practically had the whole place to myself. I saw his wife and the kids periodically. The kids were cute. He introduced me to one of his worker, who was indigenous. He looked like he was in his late teens. He was a good kid. We went for a hike into the jungle that lasted several hours. It started pouring mid-way on our hike and we were soaked. It was an exhilarating experience. Included on the itinerary was a session with a medicine man. The medicine man look just
like any other locals there. I questioned his qualification in my mind. He presented a couple plants as my tour guide tried his best to translate in his broken English. I'm not going lie, I was disappointed, but I remained polite and and with it.
Next day the hotel owner dropped me and my guide off at the "local shaman" where I would partake in an Ayahuasca ceremony. The shaman had on something similar to a luau skirt. We started the ceremony once the sun went down. I was served Ayahuasca in a small coconut like bowl. It taste bitter and medicinal. I downed the whole bowl and we waited. The shaman fanned the air with his fan and made whooshing noises. My guide was overly accommodating. To the point that it annoyed me. I got impatient and took a second bowl of Ayahuasca when it was offered to me. My guide and the shaman were drinking home brewed alcohol along with the Ayahuasca. They were crazy. I didn't see anything other a single fire fly. Or maybe that was my hallucination. Then I started to feel nauseous. I crouched over for the remainder of my time there. My
tour guide continued to be overly accommodating. He would ask me "Are you ok, Nam?" every couple of minutes. I assured him that i was ok if I stayed the way I was. In a crouched position. They decided to go down by the river and asked me if I wanted to join. I declined because I felt a bad vibe...They eventually came back. I rushed to the toilet and had one of the meanest diarrhea session ever. Everything was flushed out of my body. I felt woozy, but made my way back to the circle. The ceremony eventually ended. My tour guide help me up the steep dirt path into the car of the awaiting hotel owner. Back at the hotel, the hotel owner served me some pasta. I ate a little, felt nauseous, went to throw up in the restroom and then came back to finished my plate. I went to bed afterwards. Patient is one thing I learned from this Ayahuasca session. I also learned to know my limit...a lesson, which I will apply later on with shroom and peyote..
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