We did not pass the night well, we slept true enough, but being surrounded by the spirit of death takes its toll on you in spite of the rest you may receive in its midst. We had not planned on doing the sapo before breakfast, but the guide Wilder sent us to do it arrived at 7 with the small wooden stick covered in a slimy crystal layer (the frog poison) and a wide grin on his face. His name was victor and he told us it would be better to do it before eating because it was likely we would be purging during the ceremony. I asked Blake if he wanted to try it and he rolled in his bed with a long painful sigh, a few seconds passed in silence as he considered the idea, then he said "sure, might as well" with a relenting grunt he got up and joined us in the living room.Victor told us we had to go back to camp to get the other victor, the young Belgian. We did and the German girl and the american boy joined to cheer him on and to witness whatever might happen.When we all returned to the shack everyone took a seat and the guide lit a small dry twig from the woods until it glowed red and then burnt 2 holes into each of us, Blake went first, then me and lastly the young Belgian. It took only a few seconds to take effect, my throat began to swell closed, as did my face, and a great heat seemed to flush out of me from every pore.By the time I started to feel it really coming on Blake was already curled over his puke bucket looking like he was incredibly sick. I was next to find myself in the exact same position. The Belgian puked a little but otherwise handled himself very well. I on the other hand puked out a large amount of terrible smelling yellow bile and all the while my hands were closing fiercely into fists completely out of my control. That scared me the most besides my throat swelling, because my wrists felt like they were going to snap due to the pressure. At this point I was in a spasming paralysis, I felt like my whole body was going to seize up and id be nothing more than a twisted crippled heap of flesh. Blake didnt throw up last night nor did he during this experience. The mans got a lead stomach for sure.Twenty minutes passed and we more or less felt normal again. Our young friends thanked Victor and us and returned to camp for breakfast. Blake and I sat down a little bit and then joined them. During breakfast the young American, his father, the Belgian and I discussed the fine points of linguistics.After breakfast our new guide Hiener, the one who told the ghost stories before our ceremony last night, took us on a walk through the woods down the same trail we had gone down alone a few days ago. He showed us a bunch of cool plants and insects, a 700 year old tree and then he took us to a neighboring camp that was much much nicer and just the same price per day as Renaco Lodge. We met a nice German lady who was the only person staying there, she was from Stuttgart. You can find their site here at Junglewolfexpeditions.com If you plan to visit this area of the Amazon and want a much nicer place to stay than Renaco I suggest this establishment. We returned to our camp by boat and had lunch, during which time we showed our new guide and his buddies the card trick that Ninoska had taught us in Cusco.Returning to our hut when they understood the concept of the trick, Blake tried to sleep and I finished reading an atrocious book about a pig living in a uptown hotel in New York titled Swine Not. We had noodle soup as bland as could be with stale crackers.We played a few games of 13, a fun card game in which the lowest card is the 3 of spades and the highest is the 2 of hearts, the person with the lowest 3 goes first and they can put down 1-4 3's or go up from 3 all the way to 2, in or out of suit as long as you have the cards, the next person has to put down just as many cards but a higher starting card, for example if they play 3,4,5 starting with a 3 of spades, you can play 3,4,5 with the 3 starting with a club, diamond or heart. If no other player can go you have control and can put down what you wish. Id you play a run, such as 3,4,5 or 9,10,jack,queen etc... it must be at least 3 in a row. There are other little rules but thats the general idea.Everyone had left after lunch so we played alone until the generator used up all the fuel and the power went out. We got our boots on and walked through the dark moonless jungle, with only my iphone light to guide us through. At the hut we had a philosophical conversation about how best to put as much love back in the world as we could. Blake pointed out that to start I should stop pointing out each and every negative thing around me all the time, he's so right.
The Spirit of Death
After breakfast in camp we joined Wilder and the shaman on a boat ride up river to the villages to look for some fish to buy. Apparently they didn't send enough food to the camp for everyone. After going to two different villages we still couldn't get any fish but we did see a sloth and a few cool plants, one of which had leaves that reacted by curling up whenever you touched them. Wilder got a bottle of honey for us from one friend and at another village his buddy let us dig up his yucca trees and get the tuber roots, the edible part of the plant, he also gave us a giant squash he grew that we could us in a soup.While on the way home Wilder told us about his experiences with the poison sopa frog, a frog that excretes a paralytic toxin from its back when threatened by an attack. The tribal people of the Amazon found that by getting the toxin into the blood stream, usually by burning their skin with a lit stick and then scraping the wound clean and then placing the toxin on the exposed area, purges the user of almost any other ailment, including blindness, cancer, ulcers, tumors, parasites, etcetera and they have used it for all these things for centuries. The user feels an immediate flushing of the face, their skin swells, throat closes a bit, they vomit and cramp up as they begin to sweat profusely.We had heard about this experience before and asked Wilder if we could get it somehow. Wilder said he knew a guy and that it would cost us 150 soles, or roughly $50 each for the experience. He said it would be ready by tomorrow morning, before or after breakfast. When we got back to camp Wilder also asked us if we would be ok with the Englander joining us for our ceremony tonight. Neither of us objected to the idea. We had lunch and talked to the guy, his name was Jamie. The German couple left when lunch was finished.Night quickly fell and we laid awake in our beds waiting for the ceremony to begin. Wilder had left with the Germans to tend to office business so a new guide came to the hut with another helper from camp after we had already drank and started the ceremony. He introduced himself as hiener and then went into the story of how his powerful grandfather shaman was killed by jealous bruhos, witch doctors, and that this type of thing was very common in Peru. He told another ghost story and then left with the helper when it was quite clear his being there was not positively aiding our experience.Soon after they left I vomited and neither Blake or I had any visions. Until the ceremony ended and we went to bed that is. It was there that a dark energy brought our thoughts into a completely negative space. It was already 3 am, I was dozing off in a nightmare like haze when Caesar shook me awake in my bed and whispered in a snake like hiss "espiritos muerto muerto muerte!" The spirit of death surrounds us, I told Blake what he was saying and He muttered a low grunt in obvious acknowledgment to the situation. Caesar took me back out to the ceremonial space and again performed the cleansing ritual on me, then he took his cot into our room and slept with us. The dark visions ceased and we all went to sleep, only a little shaken up by it all.
A Deadly Snake
Supposedly we were going to make Ayahuasca today, but I guess we didnt have the materials to make it so after breakfast Blake and I went on an hour long canoe ride on our own down river. We turned back early because neither ofus brought a hat or water and it was quite hot.lunch was ready when we got back and just as we finished eating 10 new people arrived. We waled passed them saying hello as walked off into the jungle with the rain starting to pore down. We stayed in the hut and I finished reading Psychology of the Transference and then starting listening to Steve Martins self narrated autobiographical audio tape, Born Standing Up. Blake then started reading the transference.At 6:30 just when the rain stopped we strolled back into camp and joined the new people for dinner. There was an American family of 3, a German, belgian, Brazilian, Brit and 3 Peruvians. We told them why we were there and the conversation turned over to the ayahuasca, the psychedelic realms and then all of our travels before arriving and our plans for the near future.When dinner was finished Blake went outside to return to our hut and Wilder warned him to be careful of snakes, Blake turned to him and said, "you mean like this snake right here?" Pointing to the ground right next to the steps he was about to go down where there was a black snake with yellow and red stripes. Wilder looked over the side and then at Blake, "yeah.., this snake can kill you in 2 hours." He said. With that, Wilder assigned a guide to take us back to our hut through the woods. No Ayahuasca was drank today.
Visions of Shadow and Light
I had many dreams in the night and in the morning the first thing I did was copy them down as best I could recall in my dream journal. It´s a great practice to have. You can surprise yourself almost every time when looking back on dreams you´ve had in the past. You´ll go back into your old journals and read one you can´t remember at all and wonder, ¨wow, I can´t remember this at all, but it happened to me!¨ The words spell out a fantastic experience that you swore was realer than anything you´ve ever experienced, yet now it´s as though it never happened at all. Sure it was just a dream, but dreams can be just as real as when your awake, and how many dreams have you had and forgotten? How many memories have we all lost in the course of our lives, either real or within our subconscious? It makes me wonder about reincarnation and such, having entire lives before our current ones, then forgetting them completely as we begin the next. Ponder it for a minute...Because we didn´t sleep well the night of our first ceremony, Blake and I decided to sleep in and catch up on our rest. Eventually we got up and walked out of the hut to get breakfast though, which was just a little fish. It doesn´t ever take that long for Blake´s stomach to overcome any other bodily need he may have, I could have just laid there and starved a little, but oh no, not Blake. He´d tear the head off of a mother bear to get the last piece of salmon on the table, only if there was nothing else left to eat that is.When Breakfast was finished Blake was getting antsy to get out and look around. We told Wilder we were going for a walk and he warned us to be careful and not go to far. With that we strolled off alone into the woods, and as we walked into the jungle, I thought of how best to heed his advice, keeping in mind how little I really knew of this environment, and it´s many strange and truly dangerous inhabitants. We took several pictures right away and moved further on down the trail. As soon as we left camp an army of mosquitoes coordinated a massive attack on us from all sides. Blake kept moving down the path taking pictures while I fought of as many as I could. Soon we were a good distance from camp, still within screaming distance but far enough to lose track of our bearings. ¨These mosquitoes are killing me here Blake¨ I said. ¨Yeah me too, but lets keep going a little further.¨ he replied. So we did.When he was done taking pictures with his GoPro, we turned around and realized the path we had taken led us into a three-way intersection, neither of us knew which path was the original, so we took the one furthest to the left, which would keep us closest to the river and logically the best way to return to camp. It was quickly apparent that we were on the wrong path and were going into thicker and thicker jungle, so we turned around and chose the middle path, which thankfully was the correct one and we were soon free of the woods strolling into camp with the mosquito legions trailing fiercely behind us.It was lunch time at this point and we sat down with Rachel, Lisa and the Spaniards. All of which were going back to Iquitos after they finished eating. I told Rachel id email her about the shamans she told me about as soon as we returned to the city. Midway through the meal a new couple arrived on the boat that would take everyone away. I thought at first they were from Spain, based on their rugged looks and dark hair, but they were actually German. We struck up a conversation and it turns out the guy is from Baden-Baden, the same area of Germany that my mom is from. He works as a tour guide in Hamburg now and suggested I visit there when I go back to Europe, Hamburg along with Berlin, Munich and the German Alps.When lunch was concluded and all but us and the Germans remained I decided to get some reading done in the only book I brought along with me, which is The Psychology of The Transference, by CG Jung. It´s a crazy book, I got it because Terrence McKenna suggested reading it to learn more about the Archetypes of mankind. You can find it here on Google: http://books.google.com.pe/books/about/ThePsychologyoftheTransference.html?id=7G2UPwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
After a few chapters we went back to the lodge and at Wilder's suggestion went out fishing with Caesar and a boatman. At first I was the only one getting any bites, but I caught zipo, nothing, nada. Blake caught a silver dollar sized piranha that fell off the hook as soon as we lifted it out of the water to show everyone, that was worth the laugh. Caesar caught seven 6¨ or so piranhas, Wilder got 3, not sure how many the boatman got more than either of us that's for sure. When nobody caught anything for a good 5 minutes we pulled our lines and went bird watching. We saw two Tucans, lots Raptors* brown falcon/Hawk like birds, King fishers, crains, monkeys and all sorts of other things. We tried to get into a beautiful lake surrounded by tall exotic trees that had thousands of birds chirping and screeching from within, but the way was still blocked by the low water, jungle water lilies and other water plants.We came back to the lodge and prepared ourselves for the second ceremony in the jungle. When it came time to drink I asked the spirits to give me visions, repeating the request over and over in my mind, concentrating only on that. We drank and after 2 hours the visions came. I saw a deep water pool, with the shadows of palm leaves and water lilies lining the edges. A humming-bird with spectral color wings glowing brightly swooped back and forth over the water and disappeared into the shadows. As this happened my thoughts darkened and I again felt the pain of my family and friends at home, with this my heart wept for them, and as it did my thoughts turned darker still, to the police state that the United States has become. What will become of us under their control? I thought. And then I saw a massive tower, with an unbelievable blinding light shining from its top. The thing was so huge it would probably reach space. With this the visions ended and so did the ceremony. Caesar gave us a final blessing and we returned to our beds. Both Blake and I laid awake for several more hours still racing with thoughts and feelings, but unlike the previous ceremony, this time we were able to sleep.Friends In Need
You know that feeling when you get up in the morning tired, not from a state of sleep, but a state of frustration, the kind that leaves you somewhat dreading the day ahead? And all of it manifested from the course of a sleepless and otherwise uncomfortable night? Well this was such a morning. It was worse for Blake then it was for me, I actually slept a little, he did not. You see, Ayahuasca keeps you awake, because it, like many other drugs, keeps your mind, or your body, fully engaged. Making sleep a very difficult proposition, even for someone like Blake, who finds sleep easier than I could find water falling out of a boat.At 8 in the morning Wilder came to our hut with two plates of food, each with a portion of Patarashka, vegetables and boiled potatoes. After finishing our meal, which actually took us some time because we weren't really hungry and still in slow mo from our long night, Wilder asked us about our ceremony. Did we have visions? what did we feel? were we ok? that kind of thing. Caesar ate nothing, he just watched and listened while smoking a jungle cigarette (pure tobacco, no chemicals, but strong as all hell)I told him I had no visions, but to clarify for the readers, I had no hallucinations, I did see many things in my mind, but not through my eyes, a distinction I make because in my own opinion, for it to be a true vision, it should be seen, not only thought about. Semantics perhaps, yes, but the most powerful psychedelic trips I have ever experienced, those I truly felt to of had visions with, were those I could not outrun by the simple closure of the eyes.I went on to say that after the ceremony was done I felt a great sadness come over me as I went through all the friends and family I have suffering back home, and all over the world, from a multitude of things really, things like drug abuse, post traumatic stress, anger issues, identity problems, broken homes, debt slavery, cultural occultism, obesity, anxiety, bipolar-ism, materialism and the list goes on..I felt their pain and their struggles to survive against the monsters that haunt them all. How lost each of them are in their own world of sadness they cannot escape. Each of these people has a history with me, moments we shared, both good and bad. They are important to me as companions in the long and unknown journey that is life. I travel the world in search of the things that will change me for the better, forge me into who I will one day become, and in so doing leaving them behind on their own.It is a new idea I've come to recently, one that has shown great promise for the dreams I have for the future. That is, to help them, I must first help myself. For no broken man should hope to successfully lead another before mending himself. This means we must walk the paths we choose, and look not back upon the choice as an abandonment of the other, but a path chosen to lead oneself into the light of your brightest future.We may not stand on the same ground or face the same trials, but they remain inside me, deep in my memories, locked away tightly but free to roam within me as well, surrounding me always, riding my shoulders when I need them to give me strength, when I use them as examples of how to be or not to be, and how to succeed when my base personality requires a certain trait to best suit the moment. It is through them that my adaptation to the ever-changing world I explore is accomplished.Due to a psychedelics ability to emulate any reality, while using them you can actually feel the physical and emotion feelings of others, not just people, but animals, insects, anything. It doesn't end there though, your mind in this state of awareness, depending on dose, setting and the type of substance, can be truly limitless. While emulating their pain, feeling their frustration, I too suffered and I thought about how much I cared for them all and want to help heal their wounds somehow. When you care, you cry, not always because your sad or angry, often because your happy, amazed at your luck, your circumstance, your role in this cosmic play you were born to fulfill. I did cry and all these reasons flooded through me readily.I related this as best I could to the Shaman through Wilder, without getting too detailed, for it would take to long and was not necessary for the Shaman to know at any rate. When I was done Caesar told us he saw the spirit of a large swamp tree surrounding us during the ceremony and that we needed to visit such a tree and pray for our friends there. So after lunch at around 3, Wilder, Moisess, Caesar, a guide, Blake and I all got into a jungle boat, a roofless canoe carved from a single tree, and hauled beside us another boat that belonged to another village at the mouth of the river.At the other side of the river we slid the boat on to the shore, dug an oar into the mud and tied the boat to it. We all got out and started walking into the jungle. There was a path there, cut through the brush, by my uneducated guess, Id say it was traversed a few times monthly at best. It was not very wide or well-defined, it was swampland so for most of the walk we trudged through murky water or mud, always minding our steps as our gum boots got stuck from time to time. We came to the tree only 15 minutes into the walk, but before we were to engage in the ceremony we walked another 15 minutes to get to a small pond with large water lilies floating around the edges.On our way back we stopped at the tree, which was a big black old growth, with large fanning roots that suspended the entire tree above the ground and into the air. An evolutionary trait many trees in the Amazon developed to survive the extreme rise and fall of water that happens every year with the coming and going rains. All around us were vines hanging from its upper branches that also dug into the swamp around it. Some vines in the Amazon are known to strangle the trees they attach themselves to and use the energy they produce to survive because they themselves cannot perform photosynthesis.Caesar, who had been smoking the entire day, blew cigarette smoke all around us, in our clothes and into our faces, making us lower our heads so he could blow smoke into the crowns of our skulls, using his hands as a tube as he blew while chanting with each exhale. He asked us to gather all the positive energy we could and then place our hands on the tree and pray, and so we did. For 10 minutes my mind raced through all that I had thought of and felt in the night, and I asked the spirits of Ayahuasca and of the tree to send all our energy of love and compassion, hope and strength to all our friends and family, but mostly for those friends of ours who are truly lost, truly in need of change. We finished our prayer and left the swamp returning to camp.For dinner we had a plain noodle soup and plain rice, which is much different without being cooked with salt, a truly bland starch is hard to swallow, so we got a lime and squeezed it over it, when that wasn't enough we used a jungle orange, which is actually green and tastes much less fruity than the orange ones were used to, it was a process we would come to repeat almost every meal while at the retreat. When dinner was finished we retreated to our hut in the woods and waited for the Spaniards to come, who can made a deal with Wilder and Caesar to have a one night ayahuasca ceremony. I stayed awake just long enough to hear Caesar begin chanting and then dozed off, my mind lost in the heavy air of sleeplessness and strained emotional faculties...
Ayahuasca - Welcome to The Jungle
We both got up early to have the same breakfast with Carolina. This time I had the fish head and boiled plantain instead of the fish body and grilled plantain. We got another 10 soles bag of orange juice as well. Once we were back in the hostel we made our final preparations to enter the jungle. I made one final blog post about us going dark, then we loaded up the van with our gear and that of the two Spaniards. We left the hostel by 9 and picked up two more adventurers at a different hostel. Lisa, from San Francisco and Rachael from New Zealand.It wasn't a long drive with everyone in the van, for soon Caesar* our shaman, Miosess, Blake and I got into another vehicle, which was a prehistoric Mitsubishi wagon from who knows when, only 2 of its windows were capable of going up or down, a feet accomplished only by pulling a string that was attached somehow to the glass. To get it down you had to feed the string back with the window while you pushed it down. The seats were a thin layer of foam probably an inch thick and became uncomfortable the moment we were sitting for more than 5 minutes. It was the same road we took to the pond but went even slower than our overheated motor taxi did. It rained the whole time as well but the driver didn't use his windshield wiper until it had stopped raining, which was scary because he was playing chicken with every car coming from the opposite direction, without even being able to see them while trying to pass the even slower vehicles.Moises got us waters outside of the airport and we drove from their to Nauta, another port city, in relative silence. We unloaded our gear and together with the rest of the group got into 6 motor taxis and drove a short while to the "port" where I argued with a guy for charging me 1 sole for using his pisser but his disregard for my position was absolute and I walked out of his hole in the wall looking for another one to use. Wilder told me it was only .30 - .50 max, but when the Spaniards wanted to use the restroom as well and needed me to show them where after finding no other place, I took them to the guy and handed him the sole he required begrudgingly.Before getting on the boat Blake got a kilo of delicious purple grapes and some very hard jungle apples that tasted great but were like unripe pears to bite through. Once on the boat Blake gave a few of the apple to the boatmen and then we settled down for the hour long ride into the jungle. During this time I got to talking with Rachael and Lisa, but mostly Rachael. She told me she had worked on the special effects team on the happy feet movie, which had won an academy award. She left the movie industry to travel, which gave her a payout for her good work and was here in Peru where she had met her fiance at a Vipassana Ayahuasca retreat in Cusco.If your unfamiliar with Vipassana, it is an ancient Indian practice developed roughly 2500 years ago to remedy almost any ills effecting the body or mind. You do not speak the entire time you participate in the session, usually 10 or so days, and it is free to attend, even the food and lodging are covered. It is paid for by the donations of those few volunteers who are willing or able to do so. My sister Michelle has done a few of these courses herself and seems to enjoy them very much.During Rachaels session in Cusco she not only had to be silent the whole time but was also taking a powerful psychedelic. In one of her sessions she was told by the Ayahuascan spirits about one of the other participants, they told her that he had fallen a long time ago from a building and nearly broken his back. Rachael told me that at the time she didn't yet believe in any spiritual stuff and was skeptical, but the spirits told her that she was a very powerful healer in a previous life and that this man was once her husband. The spirits told her to ask him about the fall and a few other things and find out for herself what was real. She did and the man was amazed at the accuracy of her questions relating to his life, from that experience on they got together and are now engaged and attempting to set up an ayahuasca center outside of Lima.Then she told me about how her mom back in New Zealand had called them after a conference an hour outside of town and then called immediately afterward telling them that she had seen a large craft over her as she had gotten off the phone and the next thing she knew she was 10 hours away on the other side of the Island, an impossibility even with a supersonic aircraft. We also went into really interesting things about Ayahuasca, how when enough DMT, (dimethyltryptamine) the active ingredient of Ayahuasca, is taken, the persons consciousness can be taken into the same dimension that Dark Matter inhabits. I had never heard this before but she told me I could read all about it in the Spirit Molecule book.Then she told us about all the experiences she had with some of the best shamans in Peru, some of which were in Pucalpa, a river city 5 days south by boat from Iquitos, they did nothing but sing the entire time without using a chakapa leaf wand or touching you at all. She gave me the names of these shamans and also of an 80 year old women Shaman, supposedly the 2nd strongest in Peru, who lives in Iquitos. But she has no phone or address so we have to find her one legged brother who can be found around the main plaza in town to find her =D She highly suggested I visit both to have the full ayahuasca treatment.The funny part is that what got us talking in the first place was the necklace that she had on, which I recognized as Roys, the same guy who sold Blake the ones he got for us. I'm very grateful to have met Rachael, she inspired me to further our journeys down the ayahuasca path, beyond this month in the jungle, even though we have yet to pass even a single day there.We arrived at camp and unloaded our gear, as we did other guests got on our transport and left. The two couples who remained were from Spain and Germany. For dinner we had boiled eggs and beats, carrots, and cucumber salad in a sad decrepid dinning area with every single mosquito net loose on the walls and molding to boot. After which we followed Caesar into the jungle, going approximately 100 meters through before coming out into a small clearing in which a tin roof hut was built. It was a fair size, with the front portion being a veranda like space with metal mosquito nets going all around it. Then there was an inner room with 2 single beds with nets and a bunk bed without any mattresses on it, which was to be our room. Outside of the room to the left down a short corridor was a door-less bathroom with a shower. There was virtually no water pressure to speak of so any attempt at a shower was reduced to a dribble of water that one had to stand under for 20 minutes before you could even consider yourself "wet". We put our things on the ground of our room and tried to get some sleep before our first ceremony, which would be at 9pm.Five hours later we got up and joined Wilder and Caesar in the veranda, sitting down on thin foam pads in a semi-circle. We drank and an hour and 20 minutes later Caesar got up to hit the chakapa against my head and cleanse my spirit. As he did, he blew the ridiculously strong, pure tobacco smoke directly in my face, something I would have swung on someone for in my youth, I've never liked tobacco in any form, especially the smoke, I immediately vomited in the bucket provided for us, but Caesar kept hitting my head with the leaf wand unabated like a champ even as i puked my guts out in the bowl beside him. I felt totally normal right after and kicked myself for having such a weak stomach. Hours later however, when the ceremony had ended and we were laying in bed the feeling of floating and being very awake came over me, I saw slight psychedelic shapes, but nothing as strong as our first experience back in Iquitos. A few hours later Blake threw up as well, it sounded very painful for him. We both tried to get some sleep, but neither of us really did...
Payment and a Gift
It was a hot night and I turned many times in the pool of my own sweat, I had many dreams but could not remember the specifics for long as I awoke. Getting up and going to the bathroom I had a strange feeling of apprehension pass over me. It passed quickly but still, it lingered in my thoughts for a time. Today is the day we must pay for our first month in the jungle and Wilder is due to arrive any minute.After laying down on for a few minutes I hear him talking with the clerk who mans the front desk of the Salamander hotel. ¨It´s time to pay,¨ I tell Blake, who is reading my previous blog entries on his itouch while laying on his back on the bunk bed above me. We get up and go out to meet him, he´s sitting at the table and Moisess, the boss and Carolinas father, is laying on the couch watching television. Carolina was sitting on the couch as well, although she was busy doing something on her phone. We sit down and say hello, I take out the cash and hand it to Wilder, who takes it, counts it, counts it again, looks at me, then Moisess, then counts it a third time before handing it to his boss, telling him ¨its all there,¨ in spanish.I've never handed anyone that much money in a third world country before, I suppose that was the cause of my apprehension in the morning, but who can say? When we were done, we thanked Wilder and Moisess and left with Carolina in a motor taxi to a open air market nearby. There we got freshly grilled Plantains*a thick sugarless banana, & piranhas cut in half lengthwise, with a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice for only 13 soles, a bargain anyway you slice it considering what we pay at Texas Rose. The food is better here as well, although to be honest the fish did have a bit of salt on it, whereas the Ayahuasca diet fish at Texas had none, with that and the price difference it´s not a stretch to see why we'd like one over the other. One we finished out meal, we walked to the next stall over and got a large plastic bag full of freshly squeezed OJ for 10 soles.From there we went a street that runs parallel with the main square that has many shops and stores selling mostly clothing and electronics. I found a expedition hat I wanted and bargained it down to 18 soles from 25. Carolina had to go to work so we returned to the hostel. When I got out of the bathroom Blake had disappeared. We had talked about going to the internet cafe and the clerk told me he had left so I went the the cafe to join him, but he wasn't there either. The women at the desk told me he had walked in and the quickly left, so I went back to the plaza in search of him. Not finding him there I went to the office of our tour company and Wilder was there talking among the people outside the building, I asked him if he had seen Blake and he said he saw him wondering around the plaza, As I turned to face it I saw him following a group of shady characters down the same street I had bought my hat. I thanked Wilder and immediately set off in pursuit of him and his new entourage.Many times in our youth I would find myself doing much the same thing as I was doing now, following Blake and whatever goon squad he was with, mostly to watch out for him, but also to be apart of a social group I was at the time so fervently against. A contradiction maybe, but while with those I considered my enemies at that time, I hoped to change them, show them the error in their ways, bring them back into the light so to speak. I don't know how well any of that went in those days, but It was my path then and I don't regret following my truth, as much as its changed in the last years. Yet I digress..As I walked up behind them I could see that they were a group of art makers, the kind you can find anywhere in the touristic areas of the world that stand for that kind of free trade. I came up close enough behind Blake to breath down his neck, a favorite tactic of Assassins, stalkers and crazies from all eras. Blake was quick to notice however and turned to face me while still walking. ¨What you up to buddy?¨ I said inquisitively. ¨I´m having these guys help me find some sandals to buy,¨ he said nonchalantly. I turned to look at his rugged companions and thought to myself, ¨They'll want something in return no doubt.¨ but I said nothing. We went into a shoe store, something we easily could have managed to find on our own I thought, and he had them help him ask to try on a few pairs in different sizes, he chose the one he wanted and bought it.After that the entourage showed him more of their wares and Blake paid for the ones he had already chosen which I had not seen. It was 2 beautiful necklaces, each with an Ayahuasca vine cut into a sliver with a see through plastic like coating covering them. One was for Blake and one he gave to me, which had a snake wrapping around 3 beads, each representing an emotional or virtuous characteristic, and the Chacruna leaf, the DMT containing plant of the Ayahuasca drink, and at the bottom there was a large white crystal, it´s truly beautiful. As far as I can remember Blake has not gifted me anything in many, many years. It´s a treasure I will hold and keep for as long as I am able. In addition to the necklaces Blake bought a bracelet and because of this the vendor agreed to let me have a bracelet as well for free, He offered the smaller ones at first but I chose the nicest one which he refused to give me, I told him that was the one I wanted, he swayed, asked me to reconsider, but I was staunch with my choice and he shook his head with a laugh and gave me the piece. Blake Payed 300 soles for everything in total.We went to the internet cafe after that, and from there we went to a local hole in the wall joint and got small grilled fish for 4 soles each. Then we went to Texas rose with Carolina and had beans and rice before returning to the Hostel to Meet 2 Spaniards who would also be joining us on the boat to the Jungle in the morning. It was a long day, full of interesting thoughts going through my head, but all in all, I for one, am ready to go into the wild..
A Nice Day in Iquitos
Carolina picked us up in a motor taxi near noon taking us to her house. It was once a laundry mat as well as their home but now the machines are only for the family. While we sat and talked with Carolina her mom made us Patarashka cooked in large banana leaves, or something like them, and served the meal with yuka, a potato like tuber with only a slight natural taste of sugar. In a bowl on the table was a coconut mango sauce to use as a spread. Wilder and his wife, Carolina's brother, who was hung over from a long night of partying, and her father also joined us for the meal.When we were finished, her brother called his buddy taxi driver and he took us to a pond some miles away outside of the city. On the way the motorbike stalled and overheated, we had to wait a little for it to cool down, but the we were already on a slope so we just coasted slowly with the motor off until we slowed a good deal and he started it up again. After a few miles we slowed down for an accident that had just occurred, a man was being carried from the ground to a car, his arms, chest and leg bloody, I think I saw his bone popping out of his leg but I can't be sure. He looked pretty fucked up.We arrived at the pond where many cars and taxis were parked, we had to pay the 3 soles fair each to get in and walked across a narrow planked path to the other side of the decent sized swimming hole. We dove in one at a time, our driver joining us as well since he knew the family, and gave us a discount on the drive since he wanted to swim too. When the three of us guys were in only Carolina was left sitting at the waters edge, she said she couldn't swim but eventually got in and did just fine. What she meant to say was that she wasn't really a good swimmer and wouldn't attempt a river or a larger body of water. Blake and I balanced one foot on branches hidden under the dark surface, bouncing up and down, having a good time, but I quickly lost interest in swimming and returned to the ledge to dry off, we had no towels after all and sitting down in a motor taxi with a wet ass isn't such a pleasant thing, especially for more than an hours drive on a bumpy road.While I stood there I watched as Blake took the huge beach ball floating nearby and spiked it passed kids on a barge who were all acting as goalies, with every successful hit passed them he would yell, "Golazo!!" just like the Sports announcers in every soccer game do all over the Latin world. It was a fun thing to watch, The little kids all kept yelling at Blake to play more with them. Blake made one last goal and had enough, throwing his hands in the air and yelling, "Golazo!" three times in succession as the supreme victor of the small tournament he had created. As he walked off they all screamed at him, "No, gringo! Gringo!" and jumped up and down on the floating platform. But Blake had already escaped beneath the dark waters and could no longer hear their pleas. It really reminded me of similar experiences I had in Mexico back in 2003, how nostalgic.After that we were all ready to go and returned to Iquitos, some of us more dry than others. Carolina had to tend to some business and we returned to our usual internet cafe to surf the web. When we were finished with that we decided to get some food, but instead of going out to eat we thought we would safe some dough and make our own dinner. Looking around we found a small super market and bought some carrots, onions and tomatoes, at another place we got a bag of pasta and a 7 liter jug of water, all totaling about 8 soles, a real bargain for dinner considering we've been spending almost 50 soles each for a meal at Texas Rose, their patarashka is good, but 39 soles is steep for a little steamed fish considering what you can make for yourself or even get from a street vendor for that price.We weren't the only people in the hostel cooking though, so we had to share the stove with 3 guys who had just returned from the same lodge we are going to. They were there for 4 days and told us that it was nice but that the mosquitoes were terrible there. They were cooking pasta as well, only with canned tuna and tons of salt and spices. At this point we have already been on the special diet for 4 days. Which as you may already know, restricts us from any salt, sugar, oils, spices such as pepper or anything spicy, and sexual activitydue to its ability to lower a persons energy.We finished our meal and then joined them in a good conversation. All three of them were from Slovenia, they were cool guys and even invited me to stay with them if I ever made it to their country, a possibility and an opportunity I could very well take advantage of at some point, I am an avid traveler after all. But many people have made such offers to me in the past, and you never really know who would appreciate the visit in earnest, that however is a bridge to cross at another time. We got up and thanked them for the conversation and the invitation, for they were heading out for a night on the town and we were heading to our beds for a full night of rest..