I left to cross over the road to the hotel and check in, where I found Daniel sitting, drinking his beer with a French Swiss couple. I sat down to join them and noticed that I had "canoe tan", where the insides of my legs were tanned, but the outsides weren't, from sitting cross-legged in the sun for four days. At least it made my surfing tan from Huanchaco look a bit less silly: brown from the neck up, the wrists and hands, as well as the "sock tan" fixing brown ankles and feet. It was a year to the day since I had left Scotland, so I told them that we all had to celebrate my one year of travelling and we duly got drunk. The Swiss couple, Luis and Maude had returned from their jungle tour two days previously and were due to start a two week ayahuasca course the next day; they were going to stay at a shaman's house (for free) and take part in the ceremony there every second day. I said that it sounding interesting, but I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, particularly in the light of what crazy Carlos had told me. I asked if they thought I would be allowed to "sit in" to make my mind up about it, and I agreed to go with them the next day to speak to Manuel about it, with whom they had arranged their course.

Andean toad

The next morning I asked Manuel and he said he didn't see any harm in it as long as I made a small contribution for the accommodation, which he warned was basic, if I wasn't going to be paying for the ayahuasca. Then when I said to the couple that I thought they were very brave signing up for a two week course when they don't know yet what it would be like, they told Manuel that they had changed their mind and only paid for one week. Then I bade Daniel goodbye, as he was going to leave that day to push on further into the jungle and Iquitos, and a mototaxi whisked us away to the shaman's house, which was on the outskirts of town, on the way to the reserve.

Shaman's house

The shaman's house was certainly basic, but quite rustically peaceful and beautiful. The buildings were just roughly made wooden shacks with palm fronds for roofs and no flooring, just the dirt ground that was there before; there was no running water, just a well from which we would have to fill a basin to wash in; and there was no toilet at all: it was a short walk into the jungle. There were a dozen or so domestic birds wandering around the grounds, including one large and very ugly turkey, some ducks and some chickens. We immediately started to hitch up our hammocks between the trees so that we could relax. It was then that I realised I had a problem: Daniel's clever one Sol saving idea now meant that I had only one cord to tie up my hammock, and now no share of his second extra long cord. After trying various combinations of hammocks and trees, I had to resort to nicking a cord from a hammock hanging in the large room of the building we were to sleep in. We had a day before the rituals were to begin because, the shaman had told Maude and Luis, Thursday is not an auspicious day to begin, but Friday is ideal, so we practised getting as comfy as possible in the hammocks. That's when the mosquitoes started attacking. There were loads of them and no matter how much repellent we applied they still kept coming.

Maude and Luis by the hammocks

Aurora

Then the rain came and we retired to the kitchen to prepare some food, where we discovered the two parrots that lived on the roof of the kitchen. At about 5pm one of the parrots burst into song and kept it up for at least an hour, chattering away then singing in as voice that sounded like a child. We gather from the frequency of repetition that the bird was called Aurora. Maude and Luis had bought some food but preparing it wasn't so easy: the kitchen wasn't exactly well equipped and the only way to cook was by building a wood fire. Cooking on a wooden fire is no way to live! By the end of the first day I was already missing modern conveniences quite badly. Even in town the electricity was only on from 6pm to midnight every day, so when the lights came on I left to investigate, with no great hope, what the town's internet was like. It was a nightmare: it took me thirty minutes, slipping around in mud, to get into town, then another fifteen, wandering around town, unable to get my bearings because the buildings all look so similar, with their wooden fronts and palm frond roofs. Eventually I found the tour agency and someone took me to the internet place, where I had to wait one hour for the one PC to become free; all so that I could go online at the blistering speed on 16.8 kbps. In one hour I was able to send two emails.

Path up to shaman's house

Ugly bird

I slipped all the way home and discovered that I was sharing my bedroom with a funny little old guy, who was completely incomprehensible. I think he had been left to look after the fowl and was acting as caretaker. The other two had a double mattress on the floor of the main room of the building which I suppose was the living room, which was about half-open to the elements. There was still no sign of the shaman and when I asked the others about it, they said they weren't sure but they thought this was a different shaman's house, because someone had mentioned that we were going to a Dutch shaman's house, and the shaman they had made the arrangement with was definitely a local; the Dutch shaman was out of town. During the night I discovered that my single bed was small enough that my skin spent the whole night pressed against the mosquito net, giving the beasties easy access to my skin. And for the third time in a row, my phone ran down completely overnight, convincing me that it was badly malfunctioning, probably, I guessed, because of the heat and extreme humidity.

Alfonso the caretaker

The following day I tried washing in the tub. Not that easy, especially with the mosquitoes, but better than nothing. I like modern life. Luis and Maude had been instructed that on the day of the ayahuasca ceremony, they should drink no beer, eat nothing sweet, and eat no salty food, so we ate unsalted rice and vegetables that day. The shamans all seem to have different ideas about what you can consume; Christophe's French shaman had them eating no meat for a month before they started and no alcohol at all during the course, and I had heard of others that ask you to fast completely on the day of the ceremony.

Mosquito bites on my leg

At about 5pm again, the parrot burst into loud song and kept it up for at least an hour. It was really funny, and we kept dissolving in laughter every time it began a new refrain. About 9:30pm Manuel arrived with some other tourists, who were only going to take part in one ceremony, not do a course, then not long after arrived the shaman with some other Peruvians. The shaman wasn't exactly what I was expecting: there were no animal skins, bones, or feathers in evidence, just a little old guy in tracksuit bottoms, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap. OK, I suppose we were living in a small town, not an isolated village deep in the jungle but still - where was his sense of theatre? The others were Manuel's wife, the shaman's wife, the shaman's son, and another trainee shaman.

All the paraphernalia

They laid out sheets, mattresses, and benches on the floor, so that everyone had somewhere to sit and they started preparing various paraphernalia: two plastic bottles full of murky brown liquid, which I guessed was the ayahuasca; some things that looked like large fans, made of leaves; some cups of various sizes; two plastic bottles full of clear liquid; a pile of cigarettes made of very dark tobacco; and several basins. The clear liquid, the shaman explained, was aguardiente for getting rid of the taste of the ayahuasca, which I thought was a bit odd, since beer was forbidden, however aguardiente is OK apparently. The cigarettes were made of special black tobacco from the jungle and were for cleansing and purifying because, he explained, the tobacco spirit and ayahuasca spirit are connected, so they must always be contacted together. The basins are incase you need to be sick, he said, and if you need to go to the toilet it is vital that you ask him first, so that he can carry out the necessary rituals to ensure that there are no evil spirits waiting for you outside. The leafy things remained unexplained.

The shaman's wife blesses Manuel's wife's hands with smoke

First, he said, everything needs to be purified with tobacco, and several of them each lit up a cigarro de la selva and went around the room blowing smoke over everything, including all over everyone's body, in their hair, and over their hands, which they asked us to clasp. Then he asked us each to smoke some, to purify us inside. A couple of the tourists asked if they had to inhale, because they didn't smoke, and they were told it was OK just to take it into their mouths, so I did the same when it was my turn. The tobacco was much more like a cigar than a cigarette, and certainly much less poisonous- and acrid-smelling than the processed American chemical cigarettes most people seem to smoke in South America.

Then it was time to begin. The shaman offered one last piece of advice: if you see any snakes, don't worry it's just a vision; if you see the spirit of the ayahuasca queen (I think that's what he said), don't worry, it's just a vision; and if it's going too fast and it's too much for you, just ask the shaman and he'll slow the spirits down. If you want to see someone in your family just concentrate and think about them, in fact if you want to see anything at all, just concentrate on it, he finished. And then his son went around everyone giving them their dose of ayahuasca and the bottle of aguardiente to chase it down with. All the tourists were given a shot glass full, and most of the Peruvians took a large cup full, while the shaman took two large cups full. Manuel's wife was the only Peruvian who abstained; Manuel explained that he always joins in when any tourists arrange through him to take part in the ceremony. Meanwhile the shaman had begun mumbling to himself and blowing on a handful of cigarettes. He seemed to be gearing himself up, repeating some mantra under his breath, then he went silent, and soon after Manuel turned the lights off. On the edge of the jungle where we were, it was pitch black. And there was a very serious atmosphere, with hardly a sound being made in the dark.

Luis, Elvis, shaman's wife, shaman, Manuel and his wife

After about ten minutes of sitting still in the dark, the shaman began singing, quietly at first, then louder and louder until some other voices joined him along with rythmic swooshing noises; so that's what the leaf fans were for! They weren't the best singers in the world, but the tunes made a great atmosphere along with the leaf percussion accompanying them like a steam train. After the first song, Manuel switched the light on again and asked everyone if they were feeling anything, and whether they wanted anymore; ''¿mareado'?' was the question he asked, which I later found out means something like "dizzy?" A Czech guy, Pedro, who had already reported feeling a bit strange before the lights went off, said no way, he'd had enough, but the rest of the tourists all took a second shot glass.

Luis prepares himself for the second cup

Nice?

Then the lights were off again for more of the lovely hypnotic singing. Shortly afterwards, this was rudely interrupted by the sound of very violent vomiting. It sounded like some wild animal had come into the building and was making horrible inhuman gurgling and growling noises. After every bout finished the shaman and his helpers made funny whooshing noises, as if blowing away bad spirits, I thought. At one point, the shaman staggered to his feet and he threw up copiously outside. I thought this was strange as he would be used to it, but he did take rather a lot. In turn each of the other Peruvians puked as well, proving that experience makes no difference to the likelihood of vomiting, but after each convulsion had finished they would follow it with some more deliberate animal noises, which they eventually coelesced into atmospheric jungle noises in between the songs, including caiman gulping noises, slurping noises that I took to be an impersonation of toads catching insects, and bubbling noises, which just sounded like swampy ground. It was all really vivid and in the dark, it was easy to forget we weren't in the middle of the jungle with the animals.

Next round, only three people accepted the third shot glass: Maude, Luis, and Tomas, the French friend of the now staring into space Pedro. Next time only Luis and Tomas asked for more; this time they were given one of the big cups. By this time someone was moaning and whining in the dark, along with the periodic rounds of puking. I couldn't tell who it was, but later discovered it was Czech Pedro, who came to his senses before the rest of them and told me it had been a horrible experience that he would never recommend to anyone. He said that two minutes after the first shot he had already begun feeling very strange and was seeing images flashing in front of his shut eyes then, later, for about half an hour, the visions and the "dreaming" became so strong that he forgot where he was, and wasn't really aware of his own body or the room. At first he "dreamed" he was in the reserve, flying over the river, following it downstream, but then he was lost in a void with only a light at the end of a tunnel. At that point, he said, he had become very scared, because he thought this was the light that leads to the other side and he was facing death. This was probably when he started moaning, and apparently he had begun to shake violently as well, so to help him through it, the shaman and his helpers began singing over him, blowing tobacco in his face to purify him, and also "washing" him by shaking the leaves in his hair; all of which were supposed to make him feel better, but he said had made him feel much worse! At one point he had felt like he was going to fall asleep because it had all made him feel so tired, and they told him that it was dangerous to fall asleep and he had to fight it, just like he should have fought the shaking instead of allowing it to take over. Finally, he had made it to a mattress to lie down, where he had started to feel better. All very strange since he had only had one little shot glass, whereas the others had far more and still did not appear to be in anything like the same state. By that time, after three hours or so, the singing appeared to have stopped, and after lots of whooshing and blowing tobacco around the room, the shaman told us we could go outside if we wanted, and it was then that I spoke to Pedro, who said he now felt absoutely normal. Outside, the skies were completely clear and the stars were the most incredible stars I've ever seen. There must have been ten times more visible than you can normally see, even in the Highlands of Scotand.

Publicity shot?

Back inside I continued chatting to Pedro, and his friend, Tomas, finally started to experience some of the stronger effect he was apparenly after. Now it was his turn to get the private singing, tobacco smoke, and leaves waved in his hair. Maude had also been through a difficult time at one point, trying the shaman's suggestion of asking him to slow it down because it was too much for her, but the shaman at that point had been sprawled on the floor, totally incapacitated himself, while the others were contnuing with the singing; instead Manuel's wife sat next to her and spoke to her, stroking her back, which I thought had been quite nice. The following day, Maude told me that she had not been at all happy with the situation: the shaman was meant to be her spiritual guide and lead her through any difficulties, but instead he had been out of it, leaving Manuel's wife, who isn't even a shaman, to deal with her because, Maude reckoned, she was the only one of them who hadn't taken any ayahuasca.

Posing

I thought the ceremony had been very evocative, and it had seemed very serious to the shaman. At times, the singing stopped and he started rambling away, sometimes in quite excitable tones, at other times it seemed that he was speaking in a young girl's voice, and at other times speaking in a deep growl that I thought was supposed to be the voice of a demon. It seemed to me that he believed he was arguing or fighting with various spirits in the other world. I wondered if the little girl might be Manuel's baby grand-daughter, who we learned was in very poor health. After all, the function of the shaman is supposed to be to heal, so maybe he was contacting the girl's spirit and trying to purify it. The shaman had asked Maude and Luis if they had any problems that they wanted to have healed, but they had said no, which I think may be why the shaman suggested that they focus on family.

The Peruvians also emphasised the importance of becoming limpio. Of course the ayahuasca is known for being a purgative, which they appear to see as a good thing and any time anyone was sick, someone would be saying limpiar as if in encouragement in the dark. Christophe had mentioned this "cleansing" side of his course as well, suggesting that it would cure any digestive problem, for example worms, one may have picked up while travelling. They all apparently experienced the effects of being limpio at both ends, because later in the evening everyone had to take their turn to run outside.

The next day, when I woke up, I heard that the parrot had decided to treat us to a rendition of everyone vomiting violently from the previous night, instead of its usual 5pm bout of singing. Lovely. Luis had enjoyed his experience, and although he had vomited a lot, didn't seem to think it felt as bad as it sounded. He had also found himself imagining flying over the reserve and spent some time in reveries about his family. Maude was quite angry, though, and felt that the shaman had let them down, whereas Luis seemed to have much lower expectations and thought that there was really only so much the guy could do. But Maude wanted to leave. They had travelled down through Mexico and Central America, and now that they were in Peru, felt a really big change in the people: they felt that the Peruvians lie and cheat, as well as not being as friendly, and all they were interested in tourists for was money. I hadn't thought they were that bad, but it is definitely the only country in South America where I got the impression that tourism was spoiling it; in the rest of them it was only the desire to be like the US that was spoiling the country. They decided to move back to the hotel to get a bit more comfort, and arranged a meeting with the shaman to discuss a refund for their remaining days. The shaman said no refunds, and entered into a long argument with Maude, during which he revealed that the ayahuasca had actually been bought from another shaman, rather than made up himself as he had previously claimed. Various other contradictions in what he said enraged Maude even more and by the end of it, she had decided that she wanted to leave Peru and their lies as soon as possible. Given the lack of refund, though, they had decided to stay a bit longer and take a much smaller dose the next time. We met Tomas at the hotel, who said that he had also enjoyed it, at one point seeing snakes just as the shaman had predicted: he said he too had been flying over the river, totally surrounded by snakes, which filled the river. Strange how everybody seemed to see themselves in the reserve.

The next day, was more of the same, and this time it was only going to be Maude and Luis taking ayahuasca in the ceremony apart from the Peruvians, and I was slightly surprised when Esteban turned up. He kept on saying he was going to come and earlier that day I had sat and drunk several large aguardientes flavoured with jungle fruits. He had been quite drunk, but said it was only beer that was a problem, not aguardiente. He had taken part once before, as it seemed everyone in that town had at least once, but he didn't have any visions, so he was keen to try again, and took two large cups to make sure. I had decided that it didn't look like much fun after all of the horrible vomiting and Pedro's scary description. This time the trainee shaman wasn't there, but all the other Peruvians turned up again. The shaman took less this time, perhaps because Maude had chastisted him for being incapacitated when she needed help. This time they didn't seem to be making as much effort and the singing didn't seem as good, but there was a more informal friendly atmosphere and lots of chatting and banter between the songs. It was all a bit of a waste of time really, because Luis and Maude didn't take enough and had no effect at all.

The centre of town

The next day I was thinking of going because I had nearly run out of money and there were no money facilities in town, but instead Maude and Luis leant me money and we sat, drinking all day at the harbour. They were going to do the ayahuasca ceremony one more time, and the shaman had also suggested than they had a cleansing herb bath. That meant they would only be losing money on their last ceremony. As we got drunk, we started trying to remember and sing some of the songs, but we couldn't remember them much; most of them don't have any lyrics and the rest are in the local dialect, I think, so they aren't easy to recall. Instead we ended up impersonating all of the whoosing noises, and animal sounds; and giggling. We were joined for a bit by a tour guide, who had a few beers then left to catch the boat to Yurimaguas, where he is based. I'm not sure if the other two knew him from before or if he just invited himself to sit down, but he didn't pay anything for his drinks.

Lagunas dock

The next day, I was also offered a herb bath, which I accepted. Slightly unexpectedly, they expected us all to get naked so that they could sponge the water full of herbs all over us. Maude asked me to go away until she was done and we all took turns. I just thought of it like a visit to the doctor. But afterwards I did feel quite nice and invigorated, and cleaner than I had since arriving in the jungle; I dare say some of the herbs with in their for their soapy qualities, rather than their spiritual ones. After the bath they asked me for money for it, but the other two successfully argued that, since they weren't going to use their last ayahuasca ceremonies, they surely had S50 each credit, which they could use to pay for my bath.

Shaman and wife preparing herb bath

Herb bath being prepared

Shaman and herbs

Then we all left and went back into town, where we ate an aguaje ice pole, which I thought was an odd thing to do with a fruit that tastes so savoury, but it was quite nice. Usually it is sold as juice, which is also really sweetened, wheras I think it would be best in a salad. Then we had lunch, which was full of salty things, and followed it with a beer, meaning that the two of them had broken every dietry rule the shaman had given them, albeit only a little of each.

Main road in Lagunas

Maude had decided that she didn't want to do it this last time, as she didn't trust the shaman enough. So this time it was just Luis. This time he took quite a lot again and the atmosphere was even more relaxed. This time the shaman's son, Elvis, took took huge cups and he was really leading the ceremony. The shaman said his son was going to be a really good shaman beacuse he could sing so well. Elvis told us that he first took ayahuasca in the ceremony with his parents when he was twelve years old. This time it seemed relexed enough for me to take some photos, and after the first few they all encouraged me to take more, ensuring that I took down Elvis's email address so that I could email them copies. It was this night that all the ceremony photos were taken. After a few posed shots they got down to business and it was all the same again, though I still don't think there was as much effort in the singing as the first time. I also remembered to record a few of the songs on my mp3 player, though I wished I had thought to do so on the first occasion when the singing was better.

The next morning I woke up to discover a rat had chewed my camera case and decided it was definitely time to leave. The other two were leaving as well, so we sat and drank at the dock until the boat turned up, predictably four hours late, at 10pm. This time I was prepared: I had bought a fork and a tupperware container to use as a plate for the meal on the boat.

written by  The Happy Couple on December 16, 2009 from Lagunas, Peru
from the travel blog: Michael's Lonely post-Honeymoon
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I loved the recording of the bird's singing.

written by  Rosalyn Faulds on January 4, 2010

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