Iquitos, Peru - mosquitos and shamans

hey, so many thoughts that I've been trying to get down, and I just have to publish this.

A note on Simon's comments on village life.

I really do have to agree with him on the quality of life there, particularily regarding the day to day, so I won't repeat them here. However, one thing I noticed was that all the villagers were pretty much 16 and under and over 35. And I can only assume, that they went off the work in the towns and sent money back. Two of the kids that we spent the most time with, James and Alain, were clearly bright kids. And they both said they wanted to be doctors when they grew up. And given the current situation, I wasn't sure how that would happen exactly. So while their day to day life was great, any life beyond the jungle would be a challenge at the very least.

Los mosquitos tienen hambre por Louie y Simon

Ever since I learned about the rainforest in high school, it´s been my dream to go. And obviously, it´s not everyday I get to fulfill a dream I´ve had since high school, so I must say it's a great feeling. It was amazing to see the wildlife and the plants and trees. Like the trees where the roots grown down, the insects that look like sticks. You really do have a sense of the immense power of the jungle. The sound is almost deafening, but it´s incredible to hear all the different tones. And one of my favorite things about the jungle was the smell. It´s got this sweet flowery smell through out. And it is really beautiful and lush, and we weren´t even in the deep jungle. I loved breathing in the jungle.

But fulfilling this dream was a high cost7high reward thing for me. I got absolutely got eaten alive by the mosquitos and other buggers, in addition to a few scratches from spiney pokey plants. There are diminishing marginal returns on monkey sightings as the mosquito count goes up. If we can, we´ll upload a picture and I will say it´s every bit as uncomfortable as it looks. Those of you who know me, know that my skin tends to be a little hyperactive and this is no exception. The children in the village were fascinated with the gore. And of course I had no grounds to complain since I was the one who really wanted to go into the jungle.

But for the record, Simon wanted to be as "hard core as possible." And this is what he had to say about the buggers. "I hate to admit it, but the mosquitos are one of the images I´m going to take away from the Amazon. If there´s any dengue fever in the area I don´t see how we could have gotten by without catching it, seeing as how we were walking buffet tables. Our DEET repellent was useless, acting only as a citrus marinade before our sweaty flesh was served up."

I thought I could be hard core about it, but on the fourth day, I started to go bananas because I was so uncomfortable between the heat and the irritation. And by that day, we were treking through the jungle with long pants, rubber knee high boots, my gortex jacket, a hat and a bandana. And they still managed to bite through most of my clothing. Those of you who might have stock in a deet manufacturer, dump it. That stuff doesn´t work at all. And to really add insult to injury, our guides who were all locals from Iquitos and the villages, were running around with their shirts off and while they still got bit, it didn´t affect their skin which stayed in clear as a baby´s bum. nargh. And I will say it was a humbling experience to run around in the jungle looking like a makeshift ninja whose uniform was from REI. But so long as I don´t get malaria it´s worth it. And certainly I don´t regret it one bit.

Ramon the Shaman

A friend of mine, Andres, recommended that I visit a Shaman named Norma for an ayahuasca cleansing ceremony which lasts five nights. Basically, the ceremony involves the drinking of a tea made from some plants that have psychotropic propertries (a note to my brother Ed, you should definitely NOT mention this to our parents, really) and from those visions, you can cleanse, heal, get questions answered etc. I´m not describing this accurately, but google it and you´ll get a better idea. Andres said that this woman changed his life and I was super gung ho about this, but Simon wasn´t. He was pretty nervous from the get go about having a bad experience in the middle of the jungle and it is common to throw up after taking it. Our cab driver also told us that when he first did it he lost control of his bowels. But I was pretty stressed out and sad with our departure, packing up and leaving my job, friends and family, so a cleansing ceremony seemed like just the ticket.

Anyhoo, we didn´t have time to find Norma and do the full ceremony with her, since we were slated to take a tour of the Andes at the end of the week in Cusco, Peru. But our guide took us to a Shaman who lived in the jungle near a village called Jerusalem. When we met Ramon the Shaman, he was, no joke, wearing a Kwik-E-Mart hat from the Simpsons. And we planned to do an ayahuasca ceremony with him.

Ramon was an incredibly sweet person, but you can tell there was an air of sadness about him. It turns out his wife, aged 44, died unexpectedly due to a bite from a poisonous snake bite several months ago and died in a matter of hours. They lived in a house - the largest one we´ve seen in the villages - that was about a 45 minute canoe ride from Jerusalem and it was clear that he was incredibly lonely. He lamented to us that there were no young people who wanted to learn shamanism from him, only Americans, and that his family didn´t come visit him very much. It also seemed that he spent a decent amount of his time drinking Masato, a drink made of fermented yucca root. And it seemed like he was well on his way to getting toasted in the middle of the afternoon. But we spent the afternoon talking to him (or rather simon did and I gleaned some bits and simon translated the rest). He was a very interesting person and shed a lot more light on jungle life. He showed us pictures of his family and of previous apprentices. And I don't doubt his sincerity at all.

Simon started reading more about ayahuasca from our guidebook and talked to our guides and got a better sense of it and was feeling pretty comfortable. I, on the other hand, started questioning why I wanted to do this. I didn´t have a specific question in mind or ailment to cure, and now that we were done tying up all the loose ends before we left, I definitely felt less stressed. And all in all, I´m very grateful for everything I have in my life. Not that you must not be to enjoy the ceremony, but I wondered why I was putting so much responsibility on another person to change my life. And to top it off, Ramon´s current disposition wasn´t entirely inspiring confidence.

The ceremony was slated to take place at 8:30 and last three hours. About an hour before, it began to rain and thunder and it continued through the night. There was a lit candle for the first half hour and then he blew the candle out after we had our first drink of ayahuasca. So there we were in the pitch dark where we could see nothing, except when lightning struck and we would see his silhouette with his headress as he sat in the chair. Intense to say the least. The effect of the ayahuasca was supposed to begin after a half an hour, but after an hour, all we felt was the swarm of mosquitos around us. Our guide told us that we could ask for more, if we didn´t feel it. But at that point, Ramon seemed to be in the "zone," with his chanting and we didn´t feel right interrupting. So after another hour simon was so uncomfortable with the mosquitos and sitting on the floor, he left to go sleep in the tent, which our guide told us to do when we were done with the visions.

I, on the other hand, felt it was important to stay for Ramon. I didn´t want to be yet another person who abandoned him. And so for the next hour, I sat alone in front of him, in the middle of this thunderstorm, getting bitten and slowly scaring myself shitless with the stories of the jungle demons from Walter and the cabbie and thoughts of every horror movie I had seen. He kept chanting something about cigarettes and family as far as I can tell. Finally, Ramon turned on the flashlight and asked where simon was. I moved closer so he could hear me over the rain and thunder. At that very moment, there was a huge clap of thunder and a bolt of lightening, lighting up his face and headdress, making me yelp. I answered "dormir" (sleeping), said "muchas gracias y buenas noches" and booked it for the tent.

I brought that one on myself. It wasn´t the most mature thing to do and I´m not proud of the fact that I was so scared. Now we both really regret not asking for more ayahuasca. It seems like a squandered opportunity. But I guess that is one lesson that we should take from this. Hopefully the next time, we won´t be shy to carpe diem.

So onward to Cusco and the Andes.