In the morning, id say at 6am, Jimmy and I walked to a market Id never been to before. I told him yesterday about the market we had been going to and he went on a tirade about how filthy and disease ridden it was, how he'd seen the health report done on it by the UN, and that almost every supposedly extinct disease was alive and well there. Needless to say I had no love for that particular hell hole so I was perfectly content with the wonderful market he took me to instead. Once Blake got up I showed him where it was and we had fish soup there for 12 soles. It had more salt in it than we'd tasted in more than a month combined, so you can imagine how tasty it was to us.We returned to the hideout where Ricky awaited us, he was going to make patarashka for us and needed supplies, funnily enough he took us straight to the market Jimmy had ranted against earlier. The sights and smells of that place hadn't effected us so much the previous times we had been there, now it seemed ebola lurked under every corner. Jimmy's words either really got to us or we were hyper sensitive to smells after returning from the jungle.Ricky's house was small but much nicer than those of his neighbors, the fish he cooked was absolutely delicious! And his family was very nice. Ricky's plan for gifting chocolate, bread and toys to the kids was discussed again and we both gave 100 soles to buy the goods. We thanked him for the meal and left in a motor taxi. During which time it rained so hard I had to put my phone and wallet in a plastic bag because my pants were getting drenched.At the hostel Jimmy told us that if we helped him on his farm he would help us find all the black holes in town, but we would have to find our own way out. Referring to the purely spiritual experience we told him we wanted, and the usually shady people in equally shady surroundings they are provided by. You see, we've decided to skip the less than reliable ayahuasca for now and go straight to the source of it's power, which is DMT, the spirit molecule.The next day we went to the market, got fruits and veggies for breakfast, moved from the room inside the main house to the two story bungalow out back. Once settling in we went to an internet cafe where I skyped my mom for the first time in a month. Apparently she's turning my room into a kitchen, so when I get back i'll be sleeping with Blake in his parents friends garage. Ahh the joys of change, haha.After that Ricky and his wife came by and we went downtown to buy the toys for the kids. We picked out little plastic toy cars, dolls and bowling sets. It was hard to decide what would be best for so many kids of varying ages. We took the bus and taxi to Ricky's house and spent time with the family as he drove around trying to get more toys. He made us another amazing fish dinner, tailored to the ayahuasca diet as always, and then we prepared to serve the local kids.The second the giant cauldron of hot Chocolate was placed on the street, kids from every direction converged on Ricky's house seemingly out of nowhere. Blake and I were in charge of distributing the toys, which was the most stressful job because the same kids came back to get more over and over. Ricky's wife made sure no one got seconds of the food and drink, which she did very well, her sister handed out the fruit cake, her mother pored the chocolate and Ricky just stood and watched, smiling. It was a beautiful experience to be apart of, well and truly.Before we left Blake and I danced with all the women in the family and hugged everyone, then took a taxi home again. Blake was hungry so we got barbecued fish at the local hole in the wall restaurant. We got our laundry and made a plan to join Jimmy on his farm tomorrow, which Im pretty excited about. Never done anything like this before, so glad we did.
Hobo Hideout
The night dragged on in the slowest of fashion, and the distant morning was the reminder of our nightmare. Few things are more psychologically stressful than sleep deprivation. It's actually a common form of torture practiced all over the world. I once forced myself to stay awake for 7 days straight when I was 16 just to see if I could and that fucked me up for, well.. For life! Every time I can't sleep for more than 24 hours I develop a sort of anxiety that brings me back into the space I was in during that experience, making it even harder to sleep.When the dawn finally came, we went into the dining hall for our last breakfast there. The Canadian dance couple came in and talked to us about a woman who felt like she had worms crawling under her skin. The doctors in the United States didn't know what it was and couldn't help her. So she went to Peru and a shaman gave her a strong hallucinogenic agent administered through the nose in powder form. Now im not sure if they said the woman had the worms coming out of her every orafice or she just felt that way, but the lady continued the procedure for 9 months until she was finally cured. She must have really been suffering to commit to something like that!We had our final lunch and then handed out tips to who we thought deserved it, namely the cook, Ricky, Christian and his apprentice. As we were leaving two new woman arrived. One was born in Ghana but raised in New York and the other born in Iran but lived in the US. They had just attended the climate change conference in Lima and said it was very, very disappointing. I was tempted to go into the global warming hoax and a number of other issues but I didn't.The boat ride back to Iquitos was the most magical one yet. We went up very narrow rivers surrounded by tall grass and Lillie's, with the sun shining and the rain poring all at once. A pod of dolphins swimming beside us and a flock of white storks gliding over them. Just wonderful.As we arrived at Nauta the port we left 26 days past, I felt the weight of civilization press down upon me with all it's loud noises, pollution, garbage and endless swarms of people all competing to survive. It's a lot to take in when coming from an extended stay in the wild. The first thing we did was look for the same grapes we had gotten there the first time, failing that we piled into a motor taxi, which took us to the bus stop, and from there we got a minivan transport to take us back to Iquitos at blinding speed.We didn't care for the first hostel we visited, the Casa de Fraces, it smelled stale and was more than we wanted to spend, but we immediately liked the second one which was cheaper and much nicer, it was called the Hobo Hideout, and we didn't know it then, but we'd soon become apart of the place and the family who owned it.We couldn't find a place to eat that fit the diet so we went to the market and loaded up supplies to make our own food. Upon returning to the Hobo Hideout the lady who checked us in said we weren't allowed to cook past 6pm, but she saw that we were only trying to boil sweet potatoes and relented, actually helping us cook them. Just then we heard a man entering the living room complaining loudly about a multitude of issues to a Peruvian woman. Our first impression of the guy was that he was just another kook traveler staying at the hostel like us, but he turned out to be the owner, the Peruvian lady his wife, and the elder lady helping us cook the sweet potatoes her mother.He introduced himself as Jimmy and began telling us a long and incredible string of tales that he had lived through, how he had just survived malignant malaria and dengue fever when everyone else on the expedition had died, how he had taken Ted Nugent and a host of other Rich and powerful people hunting in Alaska and the Amazon. The tales continued and all the while Anacondas, the movie with jon voight and ice-t was playing on tv in the background, lol. We thanked him for his time and turned in early for the night, I had 28 unread emails but I decided to save them for the morning.
Enough!
It was a sad rainy morning, neither of us were happy, and our greatest comfort was mocking Wilder and laughing about the crummy situation we've paid to be in. Our list of concerns included but were not limited to, There being no running water in our hut for the last 6 days, having little to no fresh drinking water or food or to eat besides rice and potatoes, our hut being a mosquito death trap, and Wilder being a vicious lying scumbag. On the bright side of things I finished reading The Morningstar and was quite pleased with it as a whole.Lunch took till 1:30 to be served because they were waiting for Wilder and a new guest to arrive. It would seem they prefer everyone to mingle during meals instead of having them served on time. Regardless of how many times we've made clear to the cooks, guides and management that we want the food on time. After four weeks of the ayahuasca diet, the last thing you want to do is waste time waiting at the table for your bland food to arrive.Before the food came Wilder arrived and with him a self described Canadian red neck named Arthur. Right after telling us that he sat down and told us he was here because he was crazy, tried to kill himself by sitting in a car with the engine running, windows and garage door all duck taped shut too. But it was a hybrid car and barely used enough gasoline to put him down so he lived. He assured us however that he would not fail the next time.He went on to say that he was looking for a month long ayahuasca retreat like we were doing and wanted to know what we thought of it. We happily vented our misgivings of our Renaco lodge experience and he thanked us for it, leaving within minutes of arriving on the same boat he came with, back to Iquitos. The last thing we said to each other was that neither of us was leaving Peru until we had our minds exploded and spirits healed, and with that we bumped fists in the universal new age sign of brotherhood.Ricky, Christian & his apprentice (whose name I never got), a guide, Blake and I took a boat into the swampland forrest and gathered the bark from several trees found there. We returned, soaked them in water, waited several hours and then drank before dinner. It tasted like the pruno alcohol they make from fruits in jail, which one of our childhood friends got a taste for after a couple of extended vacations inside the joint.A swiss couple came the next morning, the women was originally from Bosnia and after getting to know us a little better told us of the horrors she survived during the Bosnian war. Although every war is hell, it always hits me hardest hearing it from the people who lived it.We had our ceremony at 8:30 till just before midnight. When Victor didn't show up with everyone else, as I had made clear we wanted him to be, I lost my temper and yelled at Ricky and Christian. They either didn't understand our request, didn't care, or couldn't make it happen. either way my show of anger tainted the entire ceremony. During which we drank twice the usual dose, I felt a little drunk but otherwise nothing special. Blake said he had pretty good visions though.The next morning while still laying in bed we had a chat about which people in our lives bring out the best in us, and what we needed to do to bring out the best in ourselves and others.At breakfast the first thing I did was check the "special cereal" that supposedly Caesar had made apart of our diet. It was a type of wheat and oats Kellogg's cereal id never seen before, and just as I suspected, packed with sugar. Ricky saw me frowning and shaking my head as I put down the box and said, "don't worry the water is working now." "No.." I said, "its not." He looked at me surprised saying, "Dennis told me he fixed it yesterday."I wanted to say that Dennis was a liar but Ricky already knew that, and Dennis was just walking in behind me. Trying not to loose my cool I just walked back to the table were Blake was peeling an orange and staring aimlessly into space. Ricky came in, I apologized for my angry outburst last night, he said it was alright and that he understood.Then he and a few other guys spent the next hour or so checking our huts source of water, a half inch plastic tube that went from camp to our hut hung on sticks 20 feet apart all the way there and duck taped together in several places it leaked from. I hoped they could fix it, but they gave up and Ricky apologized.Long before exploding I exhibit anger and frustration, but Blake's anger builds over a long period and you may not know your in the way of hells wrath before he's ready to explode. And if theres one thing that triggers him more than anything else is his food. Before lunch was served, all Blake said to me or anyone else was, "it better be on time.."When it finally came, late as feared, but as expected, I preempted the fury in Blake's near future and got up and went into the kitchen, telling Ricky, who was sitting at the kitchen table with all the workers, that we would be leaving tomorrow with the Swiss back to Iquitos, and walked promptly out. Ricky came out a few minutes later with Christian and said he felt very bad about everything, asking us to stay one more day to finish our last ceremony. We agreed, but only because we didn't want to leave on such a sour note and we wanted another shot at visions.