- My Experience in the Amazon in Iquitos
- My Ayahuasca Experience in the Peruvian Amazon
- Chile – 17 Things To Know Before You Go
- Skip It: The Floating Islands in Puno
- Isla Del Sol on Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca
- Salar de Uyuni – One of the Most Unique Places on Earth
- Bolivia – Everything You Need To Know Before You Go
- What to Expect on the 4 Day Inca Trail Hike To Machu Picchu
- Peru – 23 Things To Know Before You Go
- South America – Everything You Need to Know Before You Go
- 14 Reasons Why You Need To Travel to South America
- How To Stay Safe in South America
Ayahuasca is a psychedelic brew, prepared from Amazonian plant infusions, which is meant to help you tap into your inner subconscious, cause spiritual awakening and hallucinations. The ayahuasca experience is also said to cleanse and heal you because you are meant to vomit after drinking it. DMT is one of the main ingredients in ayahuasca, but the Amazonian people claim that it’s not a drug due to all the health benefits, and while that may be true, something that causes you to hallucinate is definitely a drug.
Ayahuasca ceremonies are led by an experienced shaman. The ayahuasca takes 20–60 minutes to kick in, and the effects can last up to 6 hours. Typical effects of an ayahuasca experience include visual hallucinations, euphoria, paranoia, and vomiting.
I booked a last minute 5 day, 4 night tour to the Amazon in Iquitos, Peru, with the intention to have a few ayahuasca experiences. Supposedly, you get more out of it if you do it a few times.
I had never heard of Ayahuasca until I arrived in South America, where I had met a few people who had gone on full-on 1-2 week Ayahuasca retreats in the Ecuadorian Amazon and raved about it. I didn’t think I’d have time for an ayahuasca experience because a lot of preparation and time was involved, like a cleansing diet for a full week beforehand, which I hadn’t planned for. But on my Amazon tour in Iquitos in Peru, you could do ayahuasca without the preparation. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not…
It probably wasn’t.
THE AYAHUASCA PREPARATION AND RITUAL
The night I did ayahuasca, we weren’t supposed to eat dinner. Typically, you’re supposed to have a very restricted diet for a week prior to doing ayahuasca by eliminating all sugar, salt, fat, meat, caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes and sex. However, I’m hypoglycemic, which means I have major issues my blood sugar levels, so I have a very hard time going too long without food. So I ate 3 pieces of bread for dinner.
It was me (a solo female traveler), 2 other travelers and the shaman who did ayahuasca. And the guides were there to supervise. We were all a little nervous.
Apparently, the shaman had overheard that I wanted to leave the terrible Amazon tour early. I was unaware that he was talking to the other female traveler, Barbara, in Spanish about me. But right after, Barbara told me that he said that I couldn’t leave early because I “was on a contract”. She said she was getting really upset with the conversation because she didn’t like the Amazon tour either (none of us did) and she didn’t like how I was being treated. It was very awkward, uncomfortable, intrusive and controlling. And it also wasn’t any of his business.
The last thing Barbara said to me before we started the ayahuasca ceremony was “everything here is fake and the shaman is fake”. What a terrible way to start off a drug trip, led by someone I completely didn’t trust now. And prior to this, I already felt like I would need to watch my back after all the information I had read online about fake shamans and ayahuasca trips gone wrong (like people getting raped and beaten).
Sitting in a circle in the dark, the shaman started off by blowing cigarette smoke all over us as a “ritual”. I HATE cigarette smoke and it’s also certainly not part of the ayahuasca cleansing ritual. But the bright side was that hopefully it would keep the mosquitoes away. He blew the smoke down our shirts too, front and back, which I did not appreciate. Then he made a speech and then we drank the ayahuasca. It tasted like a donkey’s asshole and the thought of it still makes me want to throw up.
Then we waited.
After 10 minutes, the shaman started singing the same song for the next 5 hours. Barbara started tripping out immediately. She was wailing and sobbing. Then screaming. This was a normal ayahuasca experience, but it was also an unsettling buzzkill. Then she started throwing up.
THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF AYAHUASCA
I was still waiting for mine to kick in.
Waiting, waiting.
Then my body started to feel numb.
Waiting, waiting.
My mind started to go in and out of mildly distorted reality and normality, meaning floors and other various inanimate objects became mildly more interesting than usual.
Then I started to see purple lights. I was excited!!!
Or not. That was as crazy as it got and that was the last of my hallucinations.
I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes. My mind was going a mile a minute and my thoughts had ADD. I thought about anything and everything and I would start thinking about the next thing before I had finished thinking about the last thing. Things like: “this is awesome; South America is awesome; I love traveling; where should I travel to next?”
Since I had come back from traveling through Southeast Asia last year, every day I would think about how much I wanted to go back. Cambodia had captured my heart, so I envisioned being back there and then I envisioned the monk’s smiling face, who I met while teaching English in Siem Reap.
I kept getting waves of chills, which wasn’t normal in the Amazon, where it’s about 500 degrees with extreme humidity.
Then I got up to go to the washroom, which was right behind me. The guides immediately rushed over to me to try help me. At first, I thought they were being dramatic, but then I realized very quickly that I could barely walk. My mind was aware of everything that was going on, but my body was nearly useless. I insisted on going to the bathroom alone, which I managed.
After, the guides led me over to a hammock to lie down. Back to ADD thoughts- I thought ayahuasca was awesome and I was excited to do it a second time and hopefully hallucinate next time. I thought maybe I wouldn’t leave early the next day after all; that I’d stay and have fun instead.
Then I reflected fondly on the last 2 years of my life.
THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF AYAHUASCA
Then my thoughts turned really negative. I started worrying about what I’d do for a job when I got home in a month and a half. Then I got really worried about my job situation. I’m talking extremely unnecessarily worried. I started feeling hopeless. Things were getting weird and I could not stop focusing on that. I couldn’t stop thinking about how my life at home was in shambles, which was ridiculous because my life was by no means a disaster and I knew that, but for some reason I could not shake those negative feelings. This was not like me at all, but it was normal part of the ayahuasca experience.
The shaman wouldn’t stop singing. And it was the same song for 5 hours straight. I just wanted it to stop. I found him to be creepy, so I was keeping my eye on him. I had made sure that he drank the ayahuasca too. Every time he got up, I kept my eye on him. I was getting a little paranoid and negative, but he was weird, creepy and inappropriate, so it felt necessary.
Later on, I heard him vomit violently.
The whole ayahuasca experience was extremely anti-social. Every time the shaman would come over to me and sing and chant, I would get so annoyed, distracted and disturbed. I just wanted my space and for him to leave me alone. Everything was tranquil until he came over, which made me trip out more.
Then, in Spanish, the shaman asked me if I saw any visions. This is when I learned that I couldn’t speak. I felt completely useless, just lying there and not moving. I was in an uncomfortable position in the hammock, but I didn’t care because I was numb and I couldn’t move. I thought I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes because I could hear them, but I couldn’t feel them because my whole body was numb. I hoped that I was just being paranoid, but sadly, my fears were correct- I realized the next day that I had been annihilated with over 50 bites.
This was not my idea of fun. I felt like a useless junkie. I just wanted to go to my own bed, even though I knew I wouldn’t sleep, I just wanted to get away from the shaman and I just wanted it to be over.
I didn’t want to be high anymore.
The shaman jerkily make his way over to me again. He moved the blanket away from my stomach and put his hands on my stomach. Awkward and creepy. He did this again later too. I calmed myself with the fact that sexy times are the last thing on your mind when you’re on ayahuasca. But what was unsettling was the fact that your mind is completely aware of everything that’s going on, but you can’t move. So if something bad did happen, I do wonder if I would’ve been able to react appropriately.
My stomach felt severely gross and I felt nauseous. The shaman came over and blew cigarette smoke on me again and I thought I was going to vomit.
He came back again later and pulled my shirt open to blow cigarette smoke down my shirt and then he pulled up my skirt and pulled my underwear to blow cigarette smoke. I feebly brushed his arm away and made an attempt to shift my body. This still makes me feel so furious, disgusted and violated.
Later, the shaman asked me if I wanted to go to my own bed. I looked around and everyone else was gone, which really freaked me out because I don’t know how I didn’t notice everyone had left and I did not want to be alone with the shaman. He had to help me to my hut because you stumble around like a drunken buffoon without any balance. It was about 10 times worse than being blackout drunk.
I didn’t really sleep that night.
THE MORNING AFTER
I did not feel good, I didn’t sleep at all and I still felt incredibly messed up. I could barely sit up in bed and I could barely walk. When I tried to walk to the bathroom, I still stumbled around like I was out of control drunk. I was told you wouldn’t feel anything the day after doing ayahuasca, but this was easily a hundred times worse than any hangover I’ve ever had. I couldn’t function.
I felt like vomiting. It took me about an hour just to get the energy to get up and go to the bathroom every time I had to go. I felt like a junkie. I really wanted to leave my Amazon tour early and go back to Iquitos, but I couldn’t even get out of bed, so that wasn’t looking overly realistic. Feeling like a junkie was depressing on its own, but the thought of being stuck there, alone in bed, for the next few days was unbearable.
I was stuck in bed, alone in my negative thoughts and time was standing still. I tried to get up and stay up a few times, with hopes that once I was up, I’d feel better. But I couldn’t even sit up in bed.
I wanted to try eat, not that I felt like eating, but I hoped it would give me the energy I needed to get the hell out of there. But I didn’t want to go to the common area and have to talk to the guides or see the shaman.
Later, I forced myself to get up for lunch. The two girls in my room, who did not do ayahuasca, were leaving for Iquitos after lunch, so I needed to see if I was capable of walking and making it to the boat. I was good enough, so it was go time. We were all so happy to leave because they didn’t like the tour either. Literally no one liked this Amazon tour.
The creepy, tiny shaman had to carry my bag all the way to the boat, which was very satisfying.
I felt unwell for a few days after the ayahuasca.
CONCLUSION
I vividly remember everything that happened during my ayahuasca experience because my mind was very much awake and aware; however, I absolutely hated how my voice and my body were more or less unresponsive. It’s a very unsettling feeling and it’s a very unsafe feeling when you’re in an unsafe environment.
I wish the ayahuasca made me vomit because I probably would’ve felt much better. However, I have a good stomach and it takes a lot for me to get sick. Everyone is different.
I do not regret my ayahuasca experience, but it took me a few years to have the desire to give it a chance again in the future, but under safer and more comfortable circumstances, and with the right people.
However, I do very much regret not having the name of the tour company to report and advise against so that other travelers can avoid it, but I was extremely out of it for a few days after the ayahuasca.
I also did not have any good experiences in the very seedy, sketchy town of Iquitos and I cannot recommend visiting it. There were fake tours everywhere (i.e. where they sell you a tour and take your money, but the tour doesn’t exist). If you want to see the Amazon, I would avoid Iquitos because there are far better places to see it.
The night before I left Iquitos, I ran into the other traveler who did ayahuasca with us. He said he didn’t hallucinate or vomit the first time either, but he stayed and did it a few more times (like I was supposed to) and had the proper ayahuasca experience the next time. But he also said he probably should’ve left when I did.
Pingback: The Peruvian Amazon | THE TRAVELING GYPSY
Ayshuasca is something that me and my boyf are desperate to try out when we’re in SA but there are so many bad trip stories. Maybe its like all drugs… The experience is partly dependent on your mood, company and environment?
Yeah I definitely don’t want to say to not try it because I met a few people who enjoyed it and yes, you’re totally right, as with any drugs, your experience is dependent on your mood, company and environment. It’s more of a cautionary tale to make sure you find a reputable company. It was low season when I was there, so that was the only choice for doing ayahuasca.