Peru and Ayahuasca Diaries
13th of August Sunday — Arrival in Pucallpa and the First Evening at Ronin Sina
Local time, 01:00; Turkey time, 07:00. I’m at Sao Paulo Airport. The most critical and belated realization of mine is that people are wearing jackets and coats because it’s winter in this hemisphere. Hopefully, what I brought with me will be sufficient; otherwise, I’ll have to buy a coat or poncho there.
I’ll spend 8 hours at the airport, using the THY blanket I swiped. After that, I’ll catch a LATAM flight to Lima. I hope my luggage arrives in Lima too. This inter-airline connection doesn’t make me feel confident at all.
It’s 18:00 in Pucallpa — Ronin Sina
I’m writing these words from my hut in the Amazon, with my throbbing hand which was stung by a bee. As part of the welcoming ceremony, the bees stung both my right chest under the tit and my finger simultaneously.
Let me start from the Pucallpa Airport.
First of all, when you arrive from Lima to Pucallpa, the world truly changes. All those airports, the well-dressed people, fancy city views from above, and the silhouettes of buildings, all slowly give way to more modest sights once you board the tiny and old plane of Latin American Airlines.
Pucallpa is truly a small city in the Amazon. It’s like those tiny tropical villages I’ve seen a bit of in India, Cambodia, and Thailand, with small houses and mainly tuc-tucs for transportation. This excited me greatly beginning with when I saw it from above just before landing. The crazy greenery, bursting nature from everywhere, the giant versions of the plants which we try to grow in pots at home, that smell sometimes spicy, sometimes as if a fire had just been lit, hot and humid air — all of these made me feel grateful and amazed at my journey.
I’ve been checking the weather for a while now from my phone. Fortunately, today will be the last one of the rainy days.
I was picked up by a vehicle that I later learned was a taxi. I believe it was Emilio’s youngest brother.
We also picked up Sina, who I later learned was Emilio’s father the most experienced shaman of the family, and a young boy a little further ahead. We also picked up a little girl who is the cook and an even younger girl. So, there were three children and a total of seven people in the car. The car is an old, beaten-up thing, covered in dirt and mud. No one speaks English, so we continued the journey in silence. The little boy fell asleep with his head on my shoulder on our way. The rain in the last few days had created deep potholes in the dirt road. Many waterlogged areas had deep pits, and we saw vehicles stuck in the water along the way. The driver managed to get the wretched car, with seven people inside, to the village without getting stuck or hitting the bottom in about half an hour, and he did it as well as a Camel Trophy pilot. I commended him by saying “Perfecto driver” and at the end of the journey, I had to pay 70 SOL (approximately 500 TL) despite my commendation. I also paid for the week I’m going to spend here, to Sina. This includes four ceremonies, accommodation, and meals, a total of 400 USD.
As soon as we arrived, I asked where I could drink water. Sina looked around to find something that I could use, and I was given a muddy plastic bottle to fill from the faucets used in the kitchen. I washed the outside a bit, filled it with water, and that plastic bottle would be with me throughout this week.
Emilio’s brother showed me to my room. My room is a wooden hut enclosed by wire mesh. It’s equipped with a ground mattress, mosquito net, a hammock, a small table, and a stool. It’s quite cute and perfectly enough for me. As I mentioned before, there’s no electricity here. As I write this journey it’s 18:17 now, and I can’t see what I’m writing very well anymore. In this case, our days will start and end early in harmony with the daylight.
We’re in a vast plain. Emilio and his family don’t stay here, and the girls who work in the kitchen do neither. Only the people who come for treatment or the experience stay here. In the house allocated for the family, usually one or two people stay to ensure the safety of the place on alternate during the night.
It’s served two or three meals a day, depending on whether it’s ceremony day or not. Breakfast is at 8 a.m., and lunch is at 12:00. There’s no dinner when there’s a ceremony in the evening. Otherwise, dinner is at 5 p.m., and soon after that, it gets dark.
Every participant has their own hut, and these huts are spread across a fairly wide area. In the center of the area, there’s a large wooden structure called “Maloca” where ceremonies are held. At the back, there are showers and toilets. I was very pleased to find familiar Western-style toilets, toilet paper, and even a sink with soap. My friend Tulay, who recommended this place to me, told me that four years ago, the toilet was just a hole. There are shower cabins, but the water is cold. They say it’s cold during the day as well, but taking a cold shower seems quite appealing, because of the hot climate.
As for Ayahuasca, there are three of us here, including myself. One is an American man around my age, and the other is a young Swiss girl. Finding out that there are some people other than me is a great relief. This way, I’ll have someone to talk to during this week. There’s another person who’s been on the “dieta” (**) and hasn’t participated in the ceremonies. He’s usually in his hut during the day and nobody knows what he’s doing all day.
After a 38-hour journey, I feel completely dumb, and I’ve even forgotten the names of all these people. But we’ll spend quite some time together until the weekend and get to know each other well probably.
The girl’s Ayahuasca experience has been quite challenging. She described it as very intense, difficult, and scary. Her first sentence to me was “It seems like I’ve underestimated ayahuasca”. The man has apparently participated in ceremonies before, and he has been here for six weeks this year.
They told me that they spend their days reading books and going for walks. The walks are between the hut and the kitchen. The ceremonies are on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday are off days. Both have chosen this Center after extensive online research because they said people here are much more careful compared to other places and the program here doesn’t involve tourist nonsense. “The days without ceremonies get quite boring, so after having the last ceremony this week on Friday, we’ll leave the place Saturday morning,” they said. My flight to Cusco is on Sunday, but without the internet and no phone signal here rescheduling my flight and hotel reservation would be extremely challenging. So I’ll probably follow the original plan and stay until Sunday.
(**) “Dieta” is a special dietary program for therapeutic purposes, organized by shamans.
What I mostly fear about Ayahuasca is the fear itself. Apparently, the other two people had very scary experiences in the ceremonies they attended.
Tomorrow is the first ceremony. By the way, it’s 18:34 now and it’s pitch black here. I used my phone’s light for the last part of this message. I’m turning it off and going to sleep.
01:05
I woke up half an hour ago because I needed to pee. I wanted to hold it at first, but it’s still a long time until morning. I thought about going to the toilet, but it may not be a good idea indeed, because I wouldn’t be able to find the toilet in the dark, and even if I did, I couldn’t find my way back even with my torch. So, I went out and peed on the grass somewhere around my cabin. It’s pitch dark, and the nearest hut is so far away. In that case, the most sensible thing seemed to be to pee somewhere around. During the dinner yesterday, they talked a lot about their pain and the things that haunted them during the ceremonies. First, before peeing I thought, “Is it an insult to the universe to urinate there? Will it cause some trouble for me during the ceremony?” Nevertheless, the animals wandering around in those areas seem to be doing the same thing, and with so much rain, there shouldn’t be much filth either. I decided to solve my late-night pee needs like this.
I haven’t seen my puke bucket yet; it is not in my room. By the way, during dinner, they told us not to touch the other people or even the animals during the week of the retreat. Contacting other creatures could cause our energy fields to merge with them, and that could lead the person you touch to appear in your visions during the ceremony. So just because you pet a dog, you wouldn’t want to deal with it throughout the ceremony, they said. Nevertheless, the American guy says all this and goes on touching and petting the dogs. I can probably abide by this no-contact rule since the dogs are quite dirty and infested with fleas.
Last night, our dinner was a soup with vegetables, lots of ginger, and one boiled egg. It wasn’t too bad. I ate as much as I could and left some. We share the leftover food with the dogs. So even if I don’t do it, the others feed the dogs from their own bowls. Then everyone washes their own dishes without using soap. So, we ended up sharing the same plate with the dogs. Moreover, I also drink my water from a muddy plastic bottle as you know.
So, as it stands, with bee-sting-induced throbbing wounds, a tired body after my flight, and many questions in my mind, I’m here, in an open, thatch-roofed hut in the middle of nature. We are on a flat plain, and my closest neighbor is many meters away. The night sky is covered in stars and looks infinite. It’s the real darkness and only the light of the stars. This means, in this universe, whatever there is, right here on this plain and under the sky, in all dimensions, physical or metaphysical, everything and I are together here and now.
Normally I fear horror movies, and sometimes the dark. If I become very curious and watch something scary, I quickly try to change the subject by watching something that will make me forget the previous one before going to bed. But right now, on the Earth, at this point where I am, in this dimension or in all dimensions, whether physical or metaphysical, everything that exists, and I, are all together. Some of the things I’m not aware of right now might become visible to me after ayahuasca. Like now, I won’t have any tools to change the subject, no television to switch channels at that time. But anyway, all these beings that I see or don’t see have always been here. At the same time, they are in the city, in the office, in the room where my TV is, and in the bedroom where I light up with a bedside lamp when I’m scared. But on the other hand, there is nothing but this. I’m here with everything that exists in the universe, all souls, all beings, right here, on this plain, under the sky, in the presence of beautiful scents and the sounds of insects.
Here we are…
