Perú (Part 1)

The “Spirit of the Amazon” retreat that my brother and I signed up for was to take place at Corto Maltes Amazonia Lodge on the banks of the Madre de Dios River near Puerto Maldonado in southeastern Peru...








The retreat would include three ayahuasca ceremonies, officiated and supervised by experienced local curandéros and ayahuascéros grounded in the shamanic traditions of the region and the responsible and respectful use of these powerful plants. I knew something about the nature of the ceremonies from my father, who participated in several this past summer in BC. Here’s what I knew going in:

• They take place at night, with little or no light, in some kind of circular structure where people are seated against a wall on mats or cushions.
• With the exception of music, which plays a vital role, a “noble silence” is observed, meaning that there is no speaking or deliberate making of any noise (such as tapping the floor, sighing, etc.) except to join in, or initiate (with the curandero’s permission) a song.
• One by one, the participants drink a cup of the brew, which is made from a combination of the ayahuasca vine and other jungle plants, then return to their seats. The effects are felt anywhere from 20 minutes to 1 hour later.
• Ayahuasca often promotes “purging” or vomiting, which is encouraged as a means of releasing whatever fear, pain, angst, or negativity has been stored in the mind-body. Everyone has a bucket for said purpose. The instruction is to welcome the purging and let it come if it comes, and not to force anything.
• The ceremony lasts anywhere from 4 to 7 hours, roughly the duration of the main effects of the brew (though it varies from person to person).

The plan was to fly from New York to Líma direct overnight, arriving around 6:30 am, with about three hours to spare before our next flight left for the Interior, getting us to our destination well in time for that evening’s opening ceremony, so to speak...

CEREMONY #1: Oops.

Didn’t happen that way. Our flight left JFK nearly four hours late due to bad weather on the plane’s previous voyage. There was a slim hope we’d land in Líma in time to make our connecting flight – and in fact, we touched down with 10 minutes to spare – but it wasn’t enough. By the time we got through customs and figured out the lay of the land, our flight was long gone. And to our dismay, it had been the last of only two daily flights to Puerto Maldonado – both on the same airline, both in the early morning, both within an hour of each other, in a maddening bit of compressed scheduling. (Thinking of it now, it occurs to me that it’s probably for financial reasons: this way the Puerto Maldonado airport can be open for its two incoming and two outgoing flights and then be done for the day by 3 pm. But at the time, frustrated and disappointed as I was, it occurred for me like evidence of grim stupidity on the part of everyone but me, the one who booked his flights with a mere three-hour buffer zone between.)

So there we were, in stinky smoggy Líma, with free rooms at the airport Ramada but no ayahuasca, no ceremony. (We could have guzzled tap water if we really wanted to have visions and throw up, but figured we’d do better under a shaman’s care.)

We spent the day napping, visiting downtown Líma, and touring a 17th-Century church complete with catacombs. (The thousands of skulls and bones were kind of spooky, but even creepier was a large “Last Supper” painting with Jesus & the Apostles surrounded by what were supposed to be little Incan children – the idea being that the painting depicted the innocence and wonder that constituted the proper attitude for the local natives to adopt toward Christ and his missionary spokescolonists.)

All in all, not a bad day, but we knew that off in the jungle there was some serious medicine being drunk and some serious visions being had, and we went to sleep feeling a bit hard-done-by, a bit deprived, and a bit annoyed with ourselves for insisting on the direct red-eye flight...