The time had finally come.
Peter and I had been on the riverboat for eight days. Eight days of floating down the Amazon, watching the jungle close in around us, feeling the air get thicker, the green get deeper, the sense that we were traveling not just through space but backward through time.
When we finally arrived in Iquitos, the buzz of three-wheeled moto-taxis was refreshing after the low-frequency hum of the boat's engine. The slightest breeze felt like a gift after a week of sticky, motionless air.
I'd been hearing about Iquitos for almost a year—since my time at Solstice Grove in the redwood forest. Michael and the others there had spoken about it with reverence. A small town in the middle of Peru's thickest jungle. Half a million people, connected to the world only by the Amazon River and a small airstrip. No roads in or out.
It was notorious for shamanism, superstition, and magic.
And that's exactly why I was there.
The moto-taxi driver was young, shirtless, indigenous. His eyes were familiar in that way taxi drivers' eyes are everywhere in the world—comfortable with the nooks and crannies of his hometown, ready to take you wherever you need to go.
Iquitos is one of the most accessible gateways to the northwest Amazon. A few paved roads connected the town center, but most of our route was bumpy dirt streets that would turn to mud soup during the rainy season. Lucky for us, it was dry.
The hostel was on the bank of the Amazon—colonial architecture, pastel colors (pink, light blue, yellow), blending in with the buildings around the main plaza. A stark contrast to the grass-roofed huts that made up the surrounding "suburbia."
Peter and I settled in, took much-needed showers, and started strategizing.
We had scattered information. Different leads, none of them complete. But one name kept coming up: Scott. An American anthropologist who'd opened a jungle lodge several hours upriver. He ran ayahuasca ceremonies with local shamans, bringing Western seekers into the tradition.
It seemed like the most promising lead. But I was hesitant to just jump into the first available ceremony. This felt too important to rush.
The heat was oppressive. Our shirts clung to our backs, making it even harder to breathe. We ducked into an internet café—yes, even in the middle of the Amazon jungle, there was internet—and ordered Inca Kolas.
Inca Kola is like cream soda, but fluorescent yellow. Not really our style, but our retro urges couldn't resist.
We sat down to check our emails, and that's when I noticed him.
In the corner of the café was a man I'd seen earlier when we'd arrived by moto-taxi. Tall, thin, lanky, with a long gray beard that hung from his face down to his belly. Deep blue eyes that were somehow both present and distant. European, maybe forty. French beret. He was just sitting there, minding his own business.
Peter was the first to get up. He maneuvered through the scattered chairs and introduced himself. Ordered beers. The guy declined, settling for guarana juice instead.
His name was Jerome.
Jerome was French. He'd been in Peru for eight months, five of which had been spent in the Peruvian Amazon with indigenous communities in secluded villages.
He was a carpenter by trade—you could tell by his hands. They had detail. Definition. The wrinkles on them were deeper, more pronounced, like they'd been carved by years of working with wood. Craftsmanship radiated from them.
He'd been helping locals build huts while he painted and wrote. And he'd just returned from his third ayahuasca journey.
He was eager to talk about it. Like a little child, his enthusiasm colored his words. His French was mingled with Spanish, his tone smooth and husky and colorful.
We sat there for hours, listening. Jerome hadn't seen any Europeans in quite some time, and you could feel his need to share what he'd experienced.
As the afternoon crept away and the sun came through the windows with a light orange glow, Jerome told us about a guide who could take us into the jungle for five nights. We'd drink with different shamans in different villages, see a lot of jungle, have the full experience.
It sounded good. But Peter and I needed to sleep on it.
That night, walking back from the café, the stickiness of the Inca Kola blended with beer and cigarette smoke to create a tropical mouth disaster. But at least it wasn't as hot as earlier.
The sun had just set. The moon had already risen—completely full. The sky was a mixed baby pink and blue, dabbed with small, almost transparent clouds. There was no wind. Everything was almost still.
A sense of tranquility covered the "great snake"—that's what the locals called the Amazon. Its rhythm was slow, its momentum powerful. The river moved the land and the life. It was the source of everything here.
The Amazon is a spooky place. You feel small here. Swallowed up by the overwhelming presence of nature.
For someone who's been removed from this tangled mix of life—living in cities, in cement boxes designed to give us a sense of security and separation from the natural world—the jungle can be humbling.
We've built our perfumed, air-conditioned lives to protect us from nature. We've decided that nature is dirty, smelly, sticky, dangerous. Something to be controlled and dominated.
But here, in Iquitos, nature was in control. And we were about to let it in.
I couldn't sleep that night. My eyes didn't want to shut. Too much anticipation. Too much fear.
I lay there staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling, listening to the jungle.
The hum from the river wasn't from boats—it was from zillions of insects buzzing like a gigantic swarm. Birds added another layer, piercing the blanket of buzz with splattered color. And finally, the few cries of bigger mammals tied it all into a full-blown ambient masterpiece.
I picked out one sound—a bird or something—that appeared every fifteen seconds or so. Tweet-oooo-tweet. Tweet-oooo-tweet.
I let it drag me deeper into sleep.
The next morning, I woke up early. Peter was still asleep. My friend Dimitri was arriving today—he'd been talking about doing ayahuasca for years and flew all the way from the States to join me for this.
I decided to look for Scott, the American anthropologist.
I asked a few locals about "the blond gringo," but got mostly negative responses. There was some sort of envy and competitive atmosphere in the air—other guides, other operations, everyone protecting their territory.
But at the corner of the main street, our moto-taxi driver from the day before signaled me over. We chatted for a bit, and when I finally worked up the nerve to ask about Scott, the kid's face lit up.
He knew Scott well. Spoke of him with admiration and respect. Told me Scott had a small office down by the river and came into town once or twice a week for supplies.
We went there and found him.
Scott is a special man.
He's from a rural area of the American Midwest. He'd been in Peru for over ten years—an anthropologist and psychologist who spent most of his time in the jungle, learning alternate forms of healing from the curanderos and shamans of the northern Amazon.
He brought Western seekers to his lodge, hoping to bridge the growing gap between Western scientific medicine and the ancient art of Amazonian healing.
His presence was intense. Deep voice with an American twang. Short blonde hair, pointy face, gold beard. Cowboy boots. He smoked hand-rolled cigarettes of black Amazonian tobacco—they smelled strong.
I felt safe with him. And that was the main reason I decided to go to his lodge.
We packed our bags. Bought supplies—mosquito netting, insect repellent, all the jungle essentials.
A few hours later, Dimitri showed up. Jet-lagged, disoriented, but ready.
We boarded a speedboat with Scott, his girlfriend, two helpers, an American girl named Stacy, and the two shamans: Arturo and Benjamin.
The mood was tense. Everyone was quiet, processing what we were about to do.
The boat ride was pleasant. Halfway there, we stopped at a floating gasoline platform to refuel. Children were playing, jumping into the river, floating downstream until they reached the next platform.
With the motor off, I finally felt like talking.
One of Scott's handymen told us about the pink dolphins—freshwater dolphins with long snouts that were common in the upper parts of the river.
I'd never heard of freshwater dolphins, let alone pink ones, thousands of miles from the sea. It sounded preposterous. But I remembered seeing a big statue of two pink dolphins in the central plaza in town.
"They're real," the guy said. "The indigenous people believe they're water spirits. Reincarnations of children who died before their time."
Halfway through the ride, I saw a fin.
Then two.
I rubbed my eyes. There were really two pink dolphins, just like we'd been talking about.
They floated downstream, jumping and playing. We all just sat there and watched, mesmerized.
When we finally started the motor again, Scott mentioned that it was unusual to see dolphins this close to Iquitos.
"They came up to welcome you to the jungle," he said, winking.
We looked at each other with question marks above our heads.
The second half of the boat ride was more exciting because Scott—our renegade Amazonian cowboy—was racing down the river at fifty miles an hour.
The river was narrower now. It bent like intestines. And Scott didn't seem to mind the branches that whipped across our faces as he barreled down his personal water highway.
Fully refreshed and with our hair on end, we finally reached the lodge.
We hadn't seen another human in half an hour. At least twenty-five miles from anywhere. The sounds I'd been lullabied by the night before were almost deafening now.
We were in the heart of it.
That evening, Scott gathered us in the main lodge and explained what we were about to experience.
Ayahuasca—"the vine of the soul" in Quechua—is a brew made from two plants. The first contains DMT (dimethyltryptamine), a powerful psychedelic compound. The second contains an MAO inhibitor, which allows the DMT to be absorbed through the stomach.
Together, they create a portal to what the locals call "the television of the forest" or "the gateway to the world of spirit."
The ceremony typically lasts three to four hours, but can go longer depending on the intention—healing, divination, rites of passage.
The first time is usually the hardest. The body goes through a process of purging—vomiting, often violently—to cleanse both physical and metaphysical blockages.
Scott explained that the shamans view illness as having both a physical and a spiritual component. Western medicine treats the physical. Shamanic healing treats the spiritual. Ideally, you need both.
"The shamans have been entering the spirit world for thousands of years," Scott said. "They know some tricks."
We spent the afternoon brewing the potion.
The two plants—chacruna and banisteriopsis caapi vine—were layered in a large cauldron and brewed for eight to ten hours. The shamans giggled and joked as they worked, their good humor making the afternoon pleasant.
Time flew. The steam from the brew brushed across the shamans' faces. And before I knew it, the sun was setting.
The butterflies—both inside and outside my stomach—were fluttering.
Dimitri had fully awakened by now. He was alert, inquisitive, watching the brewing process with intense focus. He'd befriended Arturo, the younger shaman.
Peter was getting excited too. He'd been reading about ayahuasca for years. This was his moment.
Scott went to his room to rest. We decided to take an evening nap.
A long conversation began—our way of calming our anxiety.
Surprisingly, we all fell asleep. Even the shamans.
I woke up in a panic, like I was going to miss the bus to school.
*What happened? Where are we? What are we doing? Did we drink the brew? Is this real?*
I realized we'd all fallen asleep. Part of me was relieved—we still had one more day before we had to face the holy snake.
Procrastination was welcome at this point.
But that childish urge—the same one that makes an eight-year-old keep flicking a lighter—wanted me to drink tonight.
So I gently woke my companions. After they went through the same process of relief and then the urge to face their fate, we all went to wake up the shamans.
The ceremony hut was big. Classic Amazonian—cone-shaped, with a thatched roof made of jungle leaves. Two floors. Could easily sit fifty people.
Like most of the huts, it had no walls besides a low bench that wrapped around the entire room. The air was thick. The humidity had a stench that was hard to dismiss and harder to forget.
Three candles flickered in the otherwise quiet room. Their orange glow gave a sense of security and motherly reassurance that, at this point, was desperately needed.
The sounds from the jungle were having an orgy. Squeaks, quirks, blips, moans, groans, flaps, paps, lingering clicks—all intermingled into a green felt blanket that buzzed with life.
We were definitely not alone.
The sounds soon became background noise, pierced only by the clunk of boots.
The Amazonian cowboy was here.
There were about nine or ten of us drinking. Three or four more sat in to help if needed.
We sat like numbers on the face of a watch—equidistant from one another, all facing the center. A small plastic tub was given to each of us without explanation.
The shamans prepared themselves.
Benjamin was the older of the two. Fully indigenous, almost seventy-five. Short and stout, with a swollen bottom lip, droopy dreamy eyes, and a thin, slight grin. His hair was short, falling lightly like a bowl across his face, amplifying his juvenile innocence.
His demeanor was enchanting. He magnetized you like the blank look of a baby—drawing you into him and simultaneously into yourself. You felt childish yet wise, free yet disciplined, old yet incredibly young.
His feet dangled gently, not touching the floor, as if blown by an invisible breeze. He sat on the bench, patiently waiting.
Arturo, the younger shaman (mid-forties), walked by me wearing a white robe with stripes across the shoulders and back.
He was much more energetic than Benjamin. His abrupt, definitive moves conveyed confidence—the mastery of a craft. He reminded me of Greek fishermen his age, men who'd almost perfected their art and executed it with grace but still held onto a macho attitude.
A bottle of the day's brew was passed among the three of them—Scott, Arturo, Benjamin. They whispered into the top of it. The air slipped slowly across the curves of their lips, whistling lightly on the rim.
Each said their prayer. Each asked permission to awaken the ayahuasca spirit.
A shot—not more than three fingers tall—was passed to everyone.
We chugged it.
The taste was overwhelming. The texture was like thick orange juice. The flavor was like burnt grapefruit.
Scott walked over to the candles and blew them out.
Darkness.
The only light came from the moonlit stripe that circled the hut at window level.
We all sat and waited.
Fifteen minutes into the ceremony, a whisper to my left broke the silence.
Almost simultaneously, I felt a buzz in my hands. A tingle. Like pins and needles, but milder and more electric.
The buzz spread up my arms. Into my chest. My heart started beating faster.
The buzzing was clearly louder now. I was sure there was some large insect hovering around my head—the sound didn't seem to be coming from one particular point.
This reminded me of a myth I'd heard earlier: the holy bee that swoops down at the beginning of the ayahuasca ceremony to carry you off to the dream world, the land of spirit.
DMT—the chemical compound that induces the visions—is found in everyone's brain. It's secreted from the pineal gland when we're born, when we die, and when we're dreaming. It's the chemical that switches the brain between modes of consciousness.
Adrenaline was pumping through me now. Benjamin's whisper had morphed into a gentle chant. His voice twirled around his dangling feet like playful fingers of a maestro.
People were moving around. Scott's boots provided a bass line. But I couldn't tell from what.
Fear was dominant now. An extremely unfamiliar sense of abandonment overcame me.
I was alone.
As soon as I let go of the fear and self-pity, I could hear the beautiful song again.
It was more alive now. More strength. I could see Benjamin in my mind—like a little child, the words dribbling from his mouth so effortlessly.
It reminded me of freestyle rapping. Or iambic pentameter—the stylistic format of classical Greek epics.
I wondered: Is it possible that the reason these songs were never written down for so long is because they were flexible yet always the same? Could it be that the storyteller—the epic singer—entered this dream state similar to the hip-hop artist or the shaman or the guitar player, where spontaneity allows for some sort of channeling? Divine inspiration?
Did Ulysses sail on deadly seas for ten years only to be guided by the muse that inspired the words of the poet who sang his story?
Was Homer asking for the flow in the first verses of *The Odyssey*? So he doesn't trip, his rapping doesn't cut the rhapsody in half, and his hero doesn't drown?
Benjamin's words tumbled, then bounced and popped into organic geometrical shapes that unraveled as his voice guided them through the darkness.
Each word and tone had a particular color and emotion. They penetrated my body and, through the still-present buzz, cleaned me.
The words grabbed things from inside me. Excited them. Churned them in my gut.
It felt like light wind was hovering around me, but inside I had a growing storm.
His voice flew around as if on surround speakers. I could almost feel his breath on my face while I could hear his feet and sense him on the other side of the room.
His song was like a lullaby. As you drifted off, your mind made everything more real.
The storm was growing into a hurricane. A sharp twist of the abdomen and—
BLAAAGHH!!
Now I knew why we'd been given the plastic tubs.
Vomit. A lot of it. Poured out of me.
And I felt calm again. I relaxed. The song was beautiful again.
Time vanished. Cyclical thought patterns confused me. I couldn't tell if the thought I was having was a new thought or if I'd just had it. A perpetual déjà vu.
I was hot and sweaty. As I sat straight up, a voice slowly started to break the loop of recurring thoughts.
It was like nothing I'd ever heard before.
The rattles, the jungle, the shamans singing—all fused into a homogenous background. While up front and very personal, a voice started to speak.
It was female in nature. It spoke in poetry and thoughts. It criticized me but with a constructive, strict yet non-threatening tone.
It told me a secret about myself.
And while this process occurred, the shamans' songs colored our conversation.
I continued to vomit for several hours. The night pulled on. The deeper I went, the more I cleansed.
I was having a rough time.
The shamans came over at the most needed moment. They tried to soothe me by whispering prayers and hitting me lightly with their bushels of leaves. They blew smoke on my head from their black tobacco cigarettes—the smell made me even more nauseous. Then they rubbed jasmine water on various parts of my head.
Everything changed.
The colors shifted from dark hues to light ones. There was tranquility. A deep meditative state overcame me.
I felt connected to the entire universe.
I could see it, too.
The more I stayed there, my mind played tricks and got distracted, making the precious balance of "just being" very challenging.
I had never felt like that before.
It felt like a lifetime had gone by.
And then, all of a sudden, with no warning whatsoever—I was sober.
The ceremony had finished. People were walking around thanking the shamans. It was as if a high school play had ended and the parents were mixing with the cast.
I went over to Dimitri immediately. We hugged.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Why? Did it seem like I wasn't okay?"
"You were making a lot of noise," he said. "Like you weren't having such a good time."
I admitted there were some scary parts.
"How was yours?" I asked.
"Amazing," he said. "But mellow throughout most of the ceremony."
Peter had been blown away too.
We spoke to the shamans and to Scott. Thanked them. And we all went to bed.
The next morning, we had breakfast and talked about our experiences.
Scott elaborated on the types of magic that exist in traditional Amazonian shamanism. How the shaman—the curandero—is initiated at a very young age through collective rituals. How the curandero observes the children and, when they're in early adolescence, chooses one to be his apprentice.
After several years of training—learning about the animal and plant kingdoms indigenous to their area—they're sent out to learn their song. Their unique signature song. A reflection of their individuality and a fingerprint of their archetype.
During this period, they consume large amounts of the brew. It teaches them to survive in the wild, how to hunt, what plants can be used for what purposes. It's like the Marine Corps' Hell Week in the Amazon jungle—on ancient hallucinogenic potions.
The jungle comes alive to initiate its new ambassador to the human species. It plays with him and teaches him to be a man.
At the pinnacle of each shaman's jungle outing, he learns his song.
It comes in a variety of forms, but essentially, at some point, the now-initiated shaman opens his mouth and words fall out.
Depending on the archetype of his character, his mentor, and his individual choices, his song and its variations will have a range of properties.
Black magic to do harm. Red magic to protect from other black magic. Yellow and white magic for healing. Blue magic for telepathy and divination.
His song is his soul. The notes that compose his song are different colors. All together, they have a desired effect.
All of this was a little too much for me. It baffles me to this day.
But I think there's a truth in all of this that's worth exploring.
The power of this wisdom is the cure to the sickness we've brought upon our planet. Our over-rational paradigm has disenchanted the world to the point where "the gods are dead."
It's in our hands to bring the magic back. To resurrect ourselves and the gods we've killed.
We have a lot to learn from these ancient ways and people. But unfortunately, it's our mythology that's corrupting theirs. Fewer and fewer people want to learn the sacred ways of the shamans. The younger generations want to go into town and play PlayStation in the Iquitos arcades.
Medical companies have exploited and profited from the knowledge of the indigenous people here, and now market their products in direct competition with traditional methods of healing.
Since we've lost our myths, we must learn them from people who've had them for thousands of years. We must view them as guidelines. As aboriginal song lines.
Sitting here in New York, six months later, dictating this to Akiko, I'm trying to make sense of what happened in that jungle hut.
I'd gone to Peru looking for answers. Hoping ayahuasca would reveal some profound truth about myself or the universe or the nature of reality.
But I didn't get answers. I got more questions.
The voice that spoke to me—that female presence that told me secrets about myself—didn't give me a roadmap. It gave me a mirror.
It showed me my ego. My fear. My attachments. My patterns. All the ways I'd been lying to myself.
And it showed me something else: that underneath all of that—underneath the stories I tell myself, underneath the identity I've built, underneath the performance I've been running—there's something else. Something quieter. Something that doesn't need anything because it already is everything.
The shamans call it "spirit."
The Buddhists call it "Buddha nature."
Michael at Solstice Grove called it "the witness."
I don't know what to call it. But I felt it. For those few moments of deep meditative connection, when the colors shifted from dark to light and I felt connected to the entire universe—that was it.
That was what I'd been searching for.
But here's the thing: you can't live there.
That state of pure connection, pure being, pure awareness without ego—it's beautiful. It's transcendent. It's the answer to every question.
But you can't pay rent from there. You can't have a conversation from there. You can't make dinner or fall in love or write a book from there.
You have to come back.
And when you come back, you're still you. You still have your patterns, your fears, your ego. But maybe—if you're lucky—you come back with a little more perspective. A little more compassion. A little more understanding that the ego is just a tool, not the whole toolbox.
I spent three more nights at Scott's lodge. We did two more ceremonies.
Each one was different. Each one peeled back another layer. Each one showed me something I didn't know I needed to see.
By the time I left, I wasn't enlightened. I wasn't cured. I wasn't suddenly free from all my neuroses and hang-ups.
But I was different.
Lighter, somehow. Like I'd been carrying a backpack full of rocks and someone had taken a few of them out.
On the boat ride back to Iquitos, I watched the jungle slide past. The pink dolphins appeared again—just for a moment, jumping and playing.
Peter leaned over. "You think they're really water spirits?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said. "But I also don't know that they're not."
He nodded. That seemed like the right answer.
In Iquitos, I said goodbye to Scott and the shamans. Thanked them. Hugged them.
Dimitri flew back to the States. Peter and I planned our next move.
Brazil was calling. There were parties in Florianopolis. The journey wasn't over yet.
But something had shifted. Some circuit had completed.
The vine had spoken.
And I'd listened.