Cusco II

The day I was quite looking forward to, one of the reasons of visiting Peru was definitely trying out Ayahuasca and after an underwhelming experience of Bufo Alvarius in Mexico, I had wanted to experience something worthwhile. I ate a light breakfast and got picked up by the driver that took me to the Healing Tree Center’s retreat house up in the mountains. The way towards was very beautiful, surrounded by mountains and fields, to be able to do Ayahuasca in such a place and to have a one-on-one with a Shaman was as Andres said, an honor.

There was an older man and a woman from Russia when I entered. I got served tea, turns out the woman really enjoyed her trip and booked another one. Before my actual ayahuasca ceremony, I had some other ceremonies to do with the shaman. We did the Kuti ceremony first, which is something like letting go and being forgiven and then inside the ceremony room, we smoked tabacco while the shaman gave me a coca leaf reading. I asked how would it be if my work in the future would involve animals and plants and the leaves showed that the affinity was very good.

Now came the time for me to drink, I was a bit cheeky and asked for more but I had forgotten I was still battling altitude sickness. I chugged it down and so did the shaman. As in we are in synch, the moment I started feeling it, that's also when the shaman started to hum a bit, going for a crescendo when I started to feel nauseaous and puked. He was singing most of the time, ikaro they called it. It helped ground me, I was definitely having a hard time, all the vomitting made my dehydrated. Hannan gave me perfume to ground me more, it was difficult. I did not feel good at all, my vision of a giant serpent entity, with vines and snakes tangling each other, lasted the whole trip. At one point, I was simply waiting for the trip to be over, trying my best to ground myself and survive. Soon it did end. We did the pacha mama ceremony to thank Mother Earth, I contributed my obsidian. The one I got from Mexico. I didn't realize they were gonna burn it but oh well. We went outside to burn it, my vision still trippy but the world was beautiful. After burning it, we went back inside to have some soup. I really needed it. Hannan and I exchanged some interesting stories, I learned something interesting from the Peruvian beliefs that they believe the dead are now living in the future while we are still living in the past, not the opposite. I went home still a bit dazed and tired, had a nice rest in my hostel and I also watched the Kimetsu no Yaiba movie while eating some bananas.Read more