La Dieta


A lot has happened since I’ve last updated this. I’m back in Cusco, sitting in my new apartment, sipping coca tea trying to figure out where to start... I arrived in Peru at the end of January and within a week was off to the Amazon to begin my first “Dieta”. A plant dieta is traditionally how an Ayahuasquero(a) receives their icaros, or the songs they sing during ceremonies. The idea is to ally yourself with certain plant teachers. Some plants offer strength, some offer protection, others the ability to heal in certain ways, etc.

So for long periods of time, you go into isolation. You abstain from certain foods and activities. No salt, sugar, spice of any kind, red meat, oil/fat, fermented foods, caffeine, alcohol, sex/masturbation or distracting stimulation. So it’s not most people’s idea of a good time.The thought of spending over two weeks in the jungle, mostly alone, eating only fish and bananas without coffee or masturbation seemed rather daunting. But it’s something I’d been anticipating for a while, and I was eager to try. Jessica told me the first five days would be the hardest, and that it would get easier from that point.  
Getting there was a trial in and of itself. Our flight to Lima was initially delayed and then cancelled entirely. We managed to board a later flight the next day, then spent a night in Lima with one of Jessica’s friends. This pushed our trip back by two days. When we finally landed in Pucallpa we were met by the “Doctor” Pedro, a Shipibo ayahuasquero with twinkling eyes and a sly smile. We hopped in a motocar (essentially a sawed-off motorcycle attached to a cart) and were off.
Once at Pedro’s house, I was introduced to Machine another ayahuasquero who would be joining us, along with Pedro's large family. I also met much of the extended family living in the attached buildings on the lot. They were a lively bunch, full of mirth and booming laughter. They would effortlessly switch back and forth between Shipibo and Spanish.


I’d sit quietly, trying to follow along as best as I could. Shy and hesitant to speak broken Spanish. Jessica and Pedro discussed this issue. Pedro proposed a solution. The lake at Isa Sina (the center we were heading to) contained black caiman, piranha, and anaconda. I could pick one, and they would dangle me above the creatures until I started speaking Spanish. I chose the anaconda.


We left Pedro’s and went further into Pucallpa looking for gumboots and mapacho. On the way we got a cup of orange-colored juice made from this strange fruit called aguaje that looked like little dragon’s eggs. It was thick and sweet and tasted like butterscotch. When we returned lunch was ready, fried “piti” or fish, plantains, and rice. I suppose I was already being eased into the dieta.
We relaxed in some hammocks until later that night Pedro instructed us to retrieve “a drop of ayahuasca” from the man who makes it. We biked to his shop with Pedro’s son and brother, and waited for the brew-master, but he never arrived. So we gave up on getting fresh ayahuasca, and went back to Pedro’s to drink some of his older stock.
The experience was very mild, almost imperceptible. About a quarter of my experiences have been, thus far. I saw some glowing cat eyes looking back at me, but not much beyond that. I spent the next day sleeping and relaxing. In the living room Pedro’s young daughter, perhaps only 6, started drawing on scrap paper. She handed it to me and I drew a cartoon cat. She glanced at it, then gave me an almost patronizing smile, before going back to her sketching. She drew three intricate designs, which resembled dream- catchers. Strangely artistic and abstract for such a young child. The ayahuasca ceremony that night was cancelled. Everyone talked and ate dinner, and I was introduced to Pia, a woman who would be joining us for the dieta.  


I awoke to the worst case of Montezuma’s Revenge I’ve ever had. Seriously concerned about our 2 hour boat ride, I was assured there would be a bathroom, and told that we were taking the “rapido” so we would get there quickly. Once at the port in Pucallpa I started throwing up, and dizzily stumbled up the small plank onto the boat. The boat was cramped and sweaty, full of people heading deeper into the jungle. An endless stream of merchants came and went, selling their goods. The engine wasn’t working, so we were docked for at least an hour, pressed against other crowded sweaty boats on both sides. I puked repeatedly through the narrow crack into the water, inches from a man in the next ship over.

Finally we departed up the Ucayali river, but had to stop and get gas. After that, the engine copped out several times. If this was the “fast boat”, then I shudder to think what the slow boat was like. It did have a bathroom, a filthy seatless toilet, in a stall so short I had to watch the boats occupants, all 15 times I went in there to shit.
We ended up in a small town deep in the jungle. One long dirt road, lined with small wooden houses on each side. It was blisteringly hot, and we made our way to Pedro’s brother’s house to rest. Pedro joked about the giant bottle of water I was drinking from almost continuously, as I tried to replace the fluids I’d lost that morning. He nicknamed me Loco Pata or Crazy Duck. Near the house, tarps were laid out with chacruna leaves drying in the sun.
After resting a bit we began the hike to Isa Sina. It was a painfully long walk, and in my fevered dizzy state it felt like 3 or 4 miles. We hiked through marshes where the water overflowed into our gumboots, through slippery mud and clouds upon clouds of mosquitoes. They were ruthless and bit everywhere, even through my clothes.
I practically collapsed when we arrived at our destination. A maloca, two reasonably sized tambos, and a kitchen all on stilts at the edge of a sprawling lagoon. A black caiman peaked out at us. I took a nap in what was to be my room for the next two weeks. After a hot, sticky sleep I awoke and went to take a bath to cool down. The setup involved stripping down to your underwear, grabbing a bucket and going into a canoe docked at the edge of the lake, then basically pouring lake water on yourself. Something rustled around in the thicket as I dipped the pail down, and I prayed a caiman wasn’t about to leap out and grab my hand.


I went into the kitchen where Jessica explained that in addition to the dieta, we would be fasting every other day. I’d never fasted before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the prospect of not eating concerned me. The ceremony that night was again nearly imperceptible. I was disappointed. I was hoping it would strengthen my resolve for the dieta, but I purged early, still a little nauseous, and could immediately tell it hadn’t had enough time to set into my system. I kicked myself that I couldn’t hold it down longer. At one point when Pedro came over to sing, I saw vague Shipibo patterns, but that was about it.


The next day, I went to hang up my clothes on one of the ropes holding up a mosquito net. It moved a wooden beam revealing a cockroach as big as my hand. I tried to get him to leave, but he was pretty determined to stay so I gave up. He ended up being my roommate for the whole 2 week period. Later, I was informed that there would be ANOTHER ceremony that night, possibly because neither me nor Pia had much of an effect the night before. I still felt a little queasy and was nervous about being able to hold it down.
The night sky was clear and I saw a shooting star as I walked through the jungle to the maloca. Before the ceremony started, Pedro gave me three bottles of the plant concoction I’d be dieting with; Ajo Sacha. After the ceremony, I was to drink a little to kick off the dieta, and then again every morning, afternoon and night until it was gone. Machine, the other shaman from Pucallpa had arrived that day, and shortly after we drank, burst into an energetic icaro.


After what felt like long time trying not to overthink myself into another non-experience, I could slowly feel her coming on. I imagined myself knocking on her door, pleading to come in. Then I realized it was more about “opening my door” so to speak, and inviting HER in. So I did. “Hello Grandmother, please come in, make yourself at home! Would you like a cup of tea?” Mentally offering a cup of tea to a cup of tea…

While overall, it was a very pleasant experience, there was some rather dark imagery. Including seeing my old haunt San Francisco as a swirling whirlpool, sucking people into a black abyss. Maybe some can surf the edge, but I was almost pulled into the vortex, and am grateful I was able to leave when I did.


I also saw how the companies/institutions/organizations who profit off of “pain killing” substances, are largely responsible for creating that pain in the first place. From pharmaceutical companies with industrial grade opioids, to syndicated drug cartels, to the alcohol industry. Anyone with a vested interest in temporarily alleviating pain, will work to ensure that the pain continues. No pain, no fiscal gain so to speak. Because ayahuasca addresses the root cause of pain itself, it is perhaps one of the greatest enemies of those evil fuckers.


I repeatedly saw a black otorongo. Eyes, face, body. I flexed my hands over and over, feeling the ease of the big cat extending and retracting its claws. It felt as if I was being welcomed back with open arms. At one point Pedro gave me a full body massage. When he was working on my back I kept hearing him make noises of amazement? Amusement? Jessica came over and asked him quietly about the status of her “secretary”. Chuckling, they talked about me, as I lay there trying not to groan, turning into a puddle.


It was a fascinating way to come back to baseline. I didn’t purge, and the effects lasted an incredibly long time. Towards the end of the night I was instructed to drink the Ajo Sacha, which to my surprise/delight was garlic! Wild garlic. I already love garlic, so befriending it seemed like a great idea. Plus, supposedly eating a lot of it helps ward off mosquitos so it was a win-win right? I knew the dieta was going to test my strength, endurance and dedication to this path. But I was reassured that night that I could, in fact do it. I wouldn’t be there if I couldn’t.


I awoke to the first “official” day of the diet. Rice, boiled green plantains, and smoked lake fish. Without any salt, sugar or spice, it was one of the blandest meals I’d ever had. It was ungodly hot, with no wind or clouds, and the kitchen was full of fat biting flies. After lunch I went to take a bath, and once in the canoe, a giant yellow and black spider started crawling up my hand. I freaked out a little dropping the bucket and pale, partially crushing the spider inside. I quickly dumped the little monster into the lake.


As Pedro was fixing the broken door on my room, I sat with Pia on the bones of the tambo-in-progress next to mine, where we smoked and talked. She spoke a fair amount of English, and I learned that she was from Argentina but was currently living in both Barcelona and Switzerland. She had never tried ayahuasca before coming to Isa Sina, and was attempting the dieta as a sort of cleanse, instead of doing it for an apprenticeship. She also told me the night before she found a tarantula INSIDE her mosquito net, on her bed. After that, I made a pointed effort to seal mine off as much as humanly possible.


I slept almost 12 hours straight that night, with some very vivid and peculiar dreams. The next day we fasted. I was still feeling a little sick, so it wasn’t particularly hard to go without eating that day. I found a tarantula in my room, and got it to reluctantly leave by blowing mapacho smoke at it.
I started to fall into a routine of sorts, where I would take a bath at the hottest part of the day, around 2pm, then go out onto the tambo-in-progress to catch whatever breeze there was, and smoke with Pia. The biting flies were horrid, and while they didn’t leave a welt like the mosquitos, they stung and took a tiny chunk of flesh with them. The 99% deet repellent I used, didn’t dissuade them either. Pia said in Patagonia they can kill horses. We talked about the effects of the Ajo Sacha, and she commented that she was able to remember more of her dreams. I agreed.
Breakfast was more of the same the next day. While I had been hungry during the fast, I couldn’t bring myself to eat much, and I was already growing a little tired of fish and bananas. In the kitchen Pedro asked me if my dreams were changing. I told him that I could remember them better, but that they didn’t seem particularly significant. Jessica advised me not to dismiss them so easily. I started writing them down, beginning with the night prior.


I was trying to get my schedule for the first day of high school, the usual anxiety dream. But upon getting to the front office, I had to fill out a huge stack of paperwork, personality tests, etc. all sponsored by the Shipibo-Conibo people. Another, I was lounging in a chair, casually explaining ayahuasca and the dieta to (*cough* someone I used to be interested in), completely topless without a hint of self-consciousness. He pulled out a roll of cookie dough, offering to bake me cookies, but I declined because of the dieta. Pretty significant huh?


We were told that we would be sitting in a ceremony Sunday night, without drinking. When I went to take a bath that day I grabbed my towel off the line and a tarantula fell out into my bucket, drowning. Not a day had gone by without seeing one.


Riding in a highly futuristic, egg shaped, “Flight of the Navigator” type U.F.O. that glowed blue on the inside, with a benevolent child-like robotic alien. Being in some sort of mad scientist laboratory conducting experiments on an actual guinea pig. Slowly and vividly eating a piece of carrot cake my friend gave me, her grandmother’s recipe. Going to the white house with nana and papa to look at christmas decorations. Exploring the ruins of Pompei with mom and dad. Seeing smoke on the horizon, getting in a car to flee. The wake of destruction after the volcano erupted. Riding bareback on a horse through a countryside.


I never remember my dreams. Maybe bits and pieces, or the very last dream. But I was starting to remember details from all of them. The days we fasted seemed to go by slower than the days we didn’t. One morning the lake looked about fifty feet closer than the day before, and I realized that the reed grass was actually floating around the lake, drifting about depending on the wind. I walked out to the bridge we crossed when we first got there, and saw a tiny grey monkey in the trees, no bigger than a squirrel. A general fatigue had started to set in.


Trying to move back in to the Berkeley house. Taking the BART and nearly missing it. Being at the house in Scottsdale, this old man pointing a gun at me telling me to get out. Baking cookies with Alexa in a hot car. Somehow getting on the Joe Rogan show and not talking about the podcast. Being at the house in Phoenix, Uncle Charlie and the crew there. Smoking mapacho out of a giant rifle shaped bong. Asking mom why they moved back to Phoenix, her telling me it was better for her painting. Driving through Phoenix talking to Alexa about how weird it was to be back. At some sort of Dennis McKenna lecture which warped into a bizarre club kid fashion show.


I went to get food the next morning, Jessica was outside. I asked her if it was ready, she said I could eat whatever was in there. When I got into the kitchen all the pots were empty. There was no smoked fish, no rice, no plantains, no tea. All except one pot with a cold greyish fish soup. It reminded me of a scene from the film James and the Giant Peach, and felt like a cruel joke. I scooped a fish out and it glared up at me. Upon closer inspection I realized it was an angry looking piranha. Pia asked me if I liked it, and I told her honestly that I didn’t (after all Pedro and Jessica were outside and out of earshot).


When I went to dump the remainder of my bowl into the lake Pedro asked how I was doing. When I didn’t answer Jessica repeated it in English. “Ok!” I called back in a shaky voice, trying not to cry. “Estas segura?” “Are you sure?” “Yes!” my voice squeaked like a pre-pubescent boy.

Back in the tambo I had a good cry. I wondered if I was really cut out for this. I wondered why the fuck I was there. I wondered if Jessica cared about me, after all she had barely spoken to me since the dieta started, and seemed to be ignoring me completely. I felt an overwhelming slew of irrational emotion, I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager. A lot of “I hate this place! I wanna go home!”
I walked out to the bridge to decompress. After a while I looked back and saw something about the size of a dog standing in the path looking at me. I pulled out my monocular, it was a giant otter! He stared at me for a few seconds before bounding off into the grass.


Around midday Jessica called over to tell me there was more food. I took some mashed plantains and rice, but avoided both the fish, and eye contact with everyone in the room. Pedro made some sort of comment about how I was getting weaker every day and that he could tell from my eyes. Gee thanks for pointing it out dude. I stared angrily into my bowl, not answering. He walked over and said something else. Jessica translated, saying he would boil an egg for me if I didn’t want fish. I politely declined not wanting to break the diet. I started crying openly, overwhelmed with emotion again. Embarrassed I took my bowl and finished eating in the tambo.


We sat in ceremony that night but didn’t drink. We were only there for an hour or so before we were told we could go to bed. I wasn’t sure what all the singing and smoke blowing would do, but I was glad that the day was finally over.
Alexa and I in a huge skyscraper in SF during a massive earthquake. The building toppling over, freefalling, wondering when we were going to crash. In a pet store in SF playing with a bunch of puppies. Walking “back” and noticed two little kids with a fluffy white puppy named Krystal. Suddenly the puppy was dangling from a rope off a crane as they tried to get it back into their apartment. Kept walking “back”, harassed by a crazy old man who kept calling me a hippy, following me down the street. Back on a street near our old house in Phoenix, confused but kept walking, ended up in SF again. Some strange dream about being on a roadtrip with Alexa and Jaron, riding a motorcycle.


The next day I did feel oddly better after the ceremony, like something had been released. I wondered if I had cried out all my angst the day before. Or perhaps Jessica was right and the first five days WERE the hardest. Then I realized I had started my period in the early morning hours. It explained the irrational emotional outburst. Still, it was peculiar timing.


A strange sort of calm came over me. While I still felt a little weak physically, the restless energy of the past week seemed to have receded. I went to the bridge but didn’t see any wildlife except for a brilliantly colored iridescent harlequin beetle, which I happened to film right as it shit, or laid an egg.
It was another fasting day, and I started to realize how much of my time, energy and mental life I devote to food. I saw a huge lizard (a golden Tagu), and I snapped a blurry photo. Pia told me that Pedro was going to be gone most of the week, for a family emergency.  


A shipibo family docked at the shore, right as as storm blew in. It started pouring, and they took shelter in the kitchen. I grabbed my soap, went into the clearing near my tambo, stripped down completely naked and took a shower in the rain. I figured the rain was probably cleaner than the brownish lake water I’d been using.
Later Pia invited me to go out fishing with her and Machine. It ended up being the first bit of fun I’d had since getting there, and a nice way to end the day. It was tricky paddling out through the thicket. The reeds did move, but only begrudgingly, and they were filled with spiders. Once we got past them it was an amazing view of the lake, and awesome to see Isa Sina from that perspective.
The sun was heading down, and I got some nice photos of Pia and Machine. The fishing net was huge, perhaps a hundred feet long and it took a while to unravel. It was great to see where the fish came from, and gave me a new appreciation for the hard work that went into getting them. As we paddled to shore the sun set behind the horizon. The shape reminded me of the head of a giant anaconda, eyes blazing with the last spark of daylight. The cosmic serpent.
When we got back, I went into the kitchen to get more water. The Shipibo family was inside. Pia called me over to look at the textile the woman was working on. It was an incredibly complex and beautiful design. The woman carefully explained the time and energy that went into making one. Her eyes shone with pride. Her baby, held by a little girl, was staring at me like I was from outer space. It felt like a very special if not sacred moment.


Don’t remember many of my dreams last night but one stood out to me. I was walking down Clarion Alley in SF but all of the murals had been painted over with white paint. Last night as I was half asleep the smallest and softest snippet of a song came to me. It didn’t feel like I made it up either. As soon as I acknowledged it, I woke up and it stopped. I can’t remember it now, but I hope it comes back to me.


Pia brought me two little green fruit we were given the ok to eat. The skin, which you peel off with your teeth had a bit of a pouperii citrus aroma to it. The actual fruit inside was mostly a bunch of tiny seeds, but had an unusual almost apple-like flavor and texture. I was grateful to get it, as I hadn’t had any vitamin-c in a long time. We were midway through the diet and there was a ceremony that night which we were going to participate in.


As Pia and I ate lunch we discussed the blandness of the food. I wondered aloud whether eating it was actually sharpening our senses. She told me she read that the diet is supposed to make us more “Oneiro” a Spanish word that describes when life becomes more and more dream-like, to the point where you can’t tell the difference between dreams and reality. She asked me what the English translation was, I told her there wasn’t one, but should be. I thought of the children’s book Alexa and I wrote about lucid dreaming, which revolves around the concept of oneironauts or dream voyagers. My life has always felt dream-like, but the dieta had definitely taken it to a new level.


It was another strange night with the ayahuasca, and it amazed me how radically different the experiences could be. The brew tasted odd, exceptionally sour. Perhaps because I was becoming more sensitive to extreme tastes? While it wasn’t particularly visual, I could feel it in me strongly. It felt like it was activating an less-used part of my brain. Pedro was gone, so Machine led the ceremony. I got very dizzy and had to lay my head on the floor. It felt as if the maloca was spinning around like a carousel. I tried to “invite the grandmother in” but kept getting this image of telling someone to come in while simultaneously blocking the door. I knew I was blocking myself from fully experiencing it. Eventually I did relax, and she came to me playful and teasing as always. I expressed my love for her, but it reminded me of how my actual grandmother frequently asks “do you know how much I love you?” Of course. It flows both ways. And it doesn’t have to be spoken. I thanked her for bringing this giant Pablo Amaringo art exhibit to my grandparents town in Florida a few months prior. It gave them a way to see, in a sense, what it is that I’m trying to do. Legitimizing it. It had felt like a cosmic coincidence that this amazing exhibit ended up in the small culture-less town that my parents and grandparents live in. But of course it wasn’t.
The next day Machine also left for Pucallpa to get more supplies. I went the entire day without speaking to anyone. The next day it rained heavily, and I struggled to get up the slippery muddy steps into the kitchen. Out on the lake were hundreds if not thousands of white cranes. There were lentils, rice, and mashed plantains for breakfast, along with some old funky smelling fish which I passed on. It was a strange combination, but I was grateful for the food and ate slowly so as not to make myself sick.


I went to put some of my dried clothes away, a task I had been dreading since there always seemed to be things living on them. A largish spider had crawled into a nook on my backpack, and tried to hold down the fort. After a long battle involving vigorous shaking and blowing mapacho smoke I eventually got it off. Once it was on the stairs I took some photos of it to identify it later. I’m still not sure what it was.
A millipede had taken up residence on one of my socks. And a little frog was on my towell. I carefully carried him into the light so I could get a better look. I filmed him right as he let out the tiniest pee onto my towell. But how could I get mad at something so adorable?
Being in the jungle requires an extra level of mindfulness. You can’t run on auto-pilot mode or you’re going to get stung/bit/step on something/ eat something gross or alive. Awareness is key at all times. It made falling into a meditative state all the more difficult. I missed talking with Jessica. It was strange not being able to tell her about my ayahuasca experiences. Or the song I had heard. Or to ask her advice on how to hear it again.


As the sun was setting I looked back into my tambo and to my horror a tarantula about 3-4 times bigger than the one I had kicked out earlier was sitting on my mosquito net. I chased it around the net for an hour, trying to get it off, without letting it crawl inside to where my bed was. It bared its fangs threateningly at me. Eventually it leapt off and I trapped it under the pitcher I had been using to bath myself with. I put something heavy on it, and wearily went to bed.


Climbing these bright red stone stairs carved into Sedona like mountains. I was with my favorite teacher Mr. Foster and a whole group of students on some sort of DMT tour. As we climbed a speaker played a recording, tracing the history of DMT usage, even mentioning how an apprenticing ayahuasquero is supposed to make reality more “oneiro”. The disembodied voice was narrating the dream, like we were in the Disney World Hall of Presidents. As we walked we were building to the current and future usage of DMT, which instinctively I knew was about interdimensional space travel. At first I was leading at the front of the group, but I turned around and realized I was alone and had gone the wrong way. I retraced my steps, following a woman who was making the climb very pregnant. She turned around and looked at me.


The whole dream this strange flute music was playing behind the narration. I woke up and instantly recorded the melody into my phone. I don’t know if it was an icaro, but I’ve never recalled a specific song from a dream before. And this finally felt like a significant dream.   


I lay in bed thinking about the meaning behind it. About how even though I was at the front of the group, I wasn’t leading anyone. The path was set. That’s why when I went the wrong way no one followed. Also seeing the pregnant woman climbing; I often wonder if it’s possible for me to be both an ayahuasquera and a mother. I want both things to happen, in the future. The dream seemed to show me that while it’ll be a harder path to climb, it’s definitely possible.


I went to check on the giant spider, but it had somehow escaped the pitcher. I looked around the room frantically until I found it crouched in the center of the tambo. Carefully I dropped the pitcher back over it, but it didn’t move. The beast was dead.
The hypnagogic half-sleep state I found myself in every night was strange. Perhaps because I was getting so much sleep, I was in-and-out of it for almost 12 hours. I mused that sleeping half of your life away could be a method of becoming oneiro. I thought about how I had tried to sleep my life away in San Francisco, but for a completely different reason. One night I awoke on the brink of orgasm. I purposefully stopped myself, taking the “no masturbation” rule as seriously as possible, even in the dream state.


The last day we were supposed to close the dieta with a final ceremony. However, the ayahuasca supply was low and we were waiting for Pedro to return with more. He was originally due back two days earlier, but hadn’t showed up. I asked Jessica over lunch what plan B was, should Pedro not return at all. Machine procured an old bottle of ayahuasca, blew some dust off it and opened it. It fizzed like soda. The muddy liquid inside looked thicker than pudding. He said if he could combine this old bottle with what was left in the maloca we would probably have enough to hold the ceremony without Pedro. My stomach turned a little.
Out at the bridge I saw an amazingly colorful grasshopper. The grasshopper is the insect representation of ayahuasca. I chased it around until I got a clear photo. A giant blue morpho butterfly kept fluttering around, too fast to film or photograph. I wondered about the etymology of the word morpho, and morpheus the Greek God of dreams.


I spent the day deep in thought. I wondered how my family and friends were doing. I wondered how many mass shootings had happened in the U.S. while I was off the grid. Not if, but how many. I reflected on the dieta as a whole. The process had been incredibly hard on my body and mind, but I felt like I was stronger from it. I tried to mentally prepare for the ceremony. Pedro finally returned late that afternoon.


I waited under the mosquito net after dark to be summoned by Jessica for the ceremony. A little after 8 Pia came by, asking where everyone was. I told her I didn’t know. She returned a few minutes later angrily grumbling that everyone had gone to sleep. Confused, I went to go tell Jessica, but she, Machine and Pedro were asleep in the kitchen. Quietly I prodded them, “Uh la ceremonia es este noche?” Half awake, they told me to go wait in the maloca.


The medicine was absolutely putrid, much worse than normal. Later I learned that even though Pedro had returned, we STILL drank Machine’s nasty combo brew. It was hard to hold it down, and I purged relatively early. It took an incredibly long time for anyone to start singing, to the point where I wondered if they’d gone back to sleep.


Pedro gave me another massage, working for a long time on this strangely painful spot on my stomach. I’m still not sure why it hurt so much, but despite the mild effects from the ayahuasca I felt much better the next morning.


We packed up the next day. I shook one final tarantula off my over-shirt, and put it on. Pedro made breakfast which was pasta with french fries, garlic and fried onions. A bizarre combo and two things I rarely eat, but tasting salt again for the first time in two weeks was a phenomenal experience.
I took off with Pia back down the path. She assured me it wasn’t nearly as long as I remembered it being. We caught up to one of Pedro’s many brothers, who helped her knock some cocoa pods off a tree. The river had risen far up the path, so he loaded our bags into a small tippy-looking canoe, told me to get in and told Pia to start walking.
I filmed some of the very precarious, epic looking journey, as he paddled us through the forest. When we got to the end I got off with the bags, and he went back for Pia. When she arrived, we smoked as he went back for Jessica. Then the three of us started walking towards town. We waited for Pedro’s brother to bring the canoe to cross the final neck-deep stretch of water. Pedro and Machine stripped down and swam across, calling for me to follow. I opted for the canoe.
The whole town was flooded when we arrived. We waited there a few hours for the boat. A little dejectedly, I asked Jessica if she had received an icaro from her first dieta, feeling like perhaps I had failed. She told me that she hadn’t and wasn’t expecting me to get one on the first try either. That it takes a lot of time, and practice, and patience to coax a song out of a plant. I told her about the song from my dream, and she confirmed that I was definitely on the right track. I asked her what was the longest she had dieted for, and she said that once, she had done it for an entire year.
Pia located the Shipibo woman who had taken shelter at Isa Sina the previous week. She had finished the textile, and Pia gladly purchased it from her. The boat arrived, and this one had two functional motors and actually was “rapido”. We made it back to Pedro’s at a reasonable hour, and I convinced Jessica to go get food with me. We went to a delicious smelling restaurant we’d passed on the motocar ride to Pedro’s, where women were grilling a bunch of tasty things on the side of the street. I got some salty grilled chicken which I ate like one of the ravenous street dogs. To my astonishment, Jessica ordered fish and plantains!


It was wonderful to talk with her again. After two weeks we slipped right back into our usual joking banter. She confirmed that yes, she had been avoiding me, as we were dieting with different plants. As Pia and I were both connecting to Ajo Sancha it was ok for the two of us to speak. We caught up on the past two weeks, then went back to Pedro’s. We sat in his living room and talked. I asked her if she ever gets nervous before a ceremony. Even after drinking it 24 times, I was still a little anxious for the ceremony that night. She told me that yes, she gets nervous every single time she drinks. Not only that, but the feeling increases every time you drink it. I asked her about getting dizzy during the mid-diet ceremony that Machine led. She said it was because the icaro Machine uses is literally a whirlwind. That’s it’s intended to move energy around the room, in a spiraling tornado-like motion. One of the side effects is that it can make people dizzy.
Pia came over to say goodbye and tell us she wasn’t going to participate in the ceremony. It was only Pedro, Machine, Jessica and I drinking the ayahuasca that night. It was a nice, remarkably relaxing experience, mild visuals, but nothing too noteworthy. The next morning Pedro’s son Douglas took us around Pucallpa to various markets, so Jessica could pick up some supplies. We went back to the port and I bought a skewer of roasted nuts called Macambo a relative of cocoa. They were amazing, flakey, delicious, perhaps the best nuts I’ve ever had. We went to a Shipibo collective, so that Jessica could look at pipes. I bought a small textile there, then ran across the street to take a picture of a cool mural.
We left Pucallpa the next day. Compared to the trip there, the trip back went remarkably smooth. The flights were basically on time, and apart from a rough landing in Cusco it was fine. There’s a lot more I could say about the dieta, but this post is already long enough. It was not an easy couple of weeks. I wasn’t expecting it to be. I'm glad I did it, and I know in time I’ll try again.

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more." -Byron 






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