An Ayahuasca Journey in the Amazon
It had been a hard year. Many changes in my life had left me feeling exhausted, confused, and sad. I had left my family and loved ones behind in Australia to pursue a business opportunity for my tech startup in Colombia. And on top of that, the stress of running a startup was starting to make me feel like all I was doing with my life was working 24/7.
I had taken Ayahuasca once before and found it very beneficial in reconnecting with my body, with nature, with my heart, with my spirit, and with helping guide me towards my true purpose in life. So often in this busy world and in modern culture we start to think that the rational mind is all there is, and that productivity is all that matters.
A friend of mine, a Colombian guy who had lived in Australia for 15 years, moved back to Colombia a few years ago to pursue his own vision: bringing people to the most remote regions of his war, crime, and poverty-stricken country and showing them how beautiful it was. Connecting them with indigenous cultures and with nature, with medicinal ceremonies like Yagé (Ayahuasca), and at the end of the day, with themselves.
Hernán had invited me a number of times to come with him to the Putumayo, the Colombian Amazon, known for its natural beauty but also for its guerrilla and narcotraficantes, being one of the country’s largest coca production areas.
To be honest I had been afraid. The last time I had been to that region (back in 1996) I had been detained for 4 days by the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) at the young age of 20. Still one of the scariest experiences of my life. But that will have to be a story for another post!
Finally I overcame my fear. The guerrilla activity in Colombia has changed A LOT since 1996 (thankfully) and now the region is much better known for its eco-tourism and, more importantly, for its connection to the sacred plant medicine known as Yagé.
Legend tells it that Yagé, used widely throughout the Amazonian indigenous populations of Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia, originated in the Putumayo region.
Seeking a feeling of greater inner peace and connection, as I’m sure many people in this frantic world are, I took up Hernán’s invitation and accompanied him and a small group of people to explore the natural wonders of this area and to meet Jaime, a local Taita (medicine man) who would be our guide on two ayahuasca journeys during our 4 days there.
Day 1
The day started off magnificently, and the plan was to walk to Hornoyaco, a waterfall in the middle of dense Amazonian jungle. With the sounds of birds, monkeys, insects and water all around us, we sweated a few hours through lush forest paths until we came upon the cool green haven of a pool of crystal clear water in the middle of deep gullies.
We swam, watched huge blue butterflies, green upon green upon more green as plants piled on top of one another, and got to know each other as a group. There was Simona, a Swiss doctor studying hallucinogenic medicine for her work with cancer patients, Jimena, a young product manager from Colombia who lived in San Francisco working on a tech startup for NGOs, Marcela, Laya, Hernán, Jaime, and myself.
After our long walk through the forest we were more than ready for lunch, and after returning to the town we went back to Jaime’s modest but very welcoming abode near the edge of the river Mocoa where his wife Gladys served us a delicious meal of Sancocho, a local soup with rice, chicken, and root vegetables.
That afternoon we left our gear in a small hut near Jaime’s house and walked up the hill to where we found Jaime’s Maloca (ancestral long house), the place where he held his ceremonies.
We prepared a fire nearby, rested, meditated, and generally prepared ourselves for the night ahead.
Jaime spent a long time telling us stories of the jungle, such as the time he confronted two jaguars in the middle of the forest and had to hold his ground while they eyed him up and down.
He had been walking along, minding his own business, when suddenly he felt an unusual silence sweep across the entire forest. He looked up and saw some monkeys hiding behind branches, but they weren’t looking at him… He followed their gaze to where a large jaguar sat, staring straight at him. His body froze and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, as did those on the back of the majestic cat’s. They stood there, locked in an embrace of wills, for more than a minute.
Jaime remembered an old grandfather (“abuelo” as they refer to their elderly) telling him that if he ever met a big cat then he should never show fear. Well, it was very hard not to be afraid, but he did his best not to show it. He put his hand on the machete which hung by his waist. In the middle of this battle of wills, the big cat looked sideways, and he followed its gaze to where he realised the majestic animal’s mate was standing, and now he was confronted with two sets of eyes, staring at him and wondering if he might make a good meal or not…
He held his ground long enough and held their gaze tightly, until eventually the first one turned turned his nose up at him, obviously deciding he wasn’t going to make the tastiest meal, turned around and walked off into the forest nonchalantly. The second one followed close by.
Jaime’s heart beat a million miles a minute and he started puffing like he’d run a marathon, but eventually his body unfroze and he continued on his way through the forest.
He told us stories of Yagé, how it had come into the hands of humans, and how it had originated in the Putumayo, and stories of some of the people who had come to him to do ceremony.
That night we took turns in drinking from the cup, with Jaime choosing the correct dose for each of us and telling us we were welcome to ask for more if we felt he hadn’t given us enough. I think he erred on the side of caution, which was appreciated, and his yagé preparation was so sweet and loving (a bit like him) that I was sure he had rarely (if ever) given anyone a dose that was too much for them.
We sat back by the fire or in the hammocks or on the small mattresses that Hernán had prepared for all of us, waiting for the medicine to set in. People often vomit or even get diarrea with Yagé, and it is considered part of the process. There are toilets nearby for just that purpose. The previous time I had taken it I had vomited on a number of occasions, but weirdly, it is not an unpleasant kind of vomiting. It’s a vomiting which leaves you feeling like you have just released a heavy weight from your soul, and which leaves you feeling clean and refreshed. This time however I neither vomited nor got the runs, probably in part due to Jaime’s careful moderate dosing and the gentle nature of his preparation.
We spent the first few hours all in our separate dreams. Taking Yagé is a bit like having a dream while you are awake. It takes you through your own psyche, visiting each of the people and things that you hold most dear, or events which have affected you strongly and which continue to have an impact on you. Its called a healer because, more than anything, it helps you to make peace with your own soul. It helps bring love and understanding to all of those areas of yourself which are out of balance. And, like a dream, it teaches you lessons in a very symbolic language.
One large part of my journey was with the image of a scalpel in front of me. It was my scalpel, and I realised how it represented the logical, rational part of my mind. Like many westerners, I use this part of my mind for absolutely everything, and it is sharpened to a hard point. I am proud of my rational intelligence. But, at the same time, I am disconnected from my heart, from my intuition and gut feeling, and from all those other parts of my being that have great value and yet are not really well understood or revered in our culture as there is little scientific explanation for them.
The Yagé told me to put my scalpel aside for a while. To always carry it with me, as reason and rationality were needed for many decisions in life, but not to always hold it front and centre and apply it to every single little moment of my life. To relax, let go, feel my way into life rather than thinking my way into everything.
The night wore on and we each came out of our individual reveries, and I spent some time talking to Hernán about all manner of things, very openly and very honestly.
Eventually we slept, and the next day I felt peaceful, open, my energy clean, clear and fresh.
Day 2 — The Children
It was just a few days before Christmas, and Jaime and his wife had organised an event at their house for all the under-priveleged children in the area. There were 30 kids in total, from broken families, some with no parents at all.
I have never stopped being amazed by the capacity of the poorest people in the world to often be the most generous. They understand need and suffering more than anyone else, and when they see it in others, they try their best to alleviate it.
Jaime and Gladys had invited the children and their mothers to their house, and prepared small gifts of clothing and food for them all. Throughout that afternoon we all played games, danced, ate, chatted, and got to know each other.
Getting to know some of those kids, how their parents had died, how they had lost homes and family to the avalanche which had swept through the town and killed thousands a few years earlier, how appreciative they were for the simplest things in life (a pair of shoes, a shirt, a hot meal) was both heartbreaking and filled me with a sense of love and purpose at the same time.
Day 3-Second Ceremony
On the third day we awoke with a feeling of love and gratitude in our hearts from the day before, and expectation for our second yagé ceremony. This one would be during the daytime, something none of us had done before. A daytime ceremony is often lighter and easier on the body than a nighttime ceremony, Jaime explained, as we could get a good night’s sleep afterwards.
We drank the medicine around late morning and again settled back to wait for it to take effect. I lay back in a hammock and closed my eyes and listened to the calls of all the birds of the forest and felt the breeze caressing my skin as I felt the soft veil of the medicine settle over me. My body started relaxing and my eyes no longer wanted to open, and I felt as if I was falling slowly through a deep pool of water filled with ferns and flowers and plants of the jungle.
This time I went further afield, exploring not just the people and places I knew in this world but what felt like places outside even out of our solar system. The NOW, I realised, was everywhere. Everyone I ever knew, everyone I would know, was here right now this second. There was no space, no time, just one huge now which we interpreted as a series of separate events.
I won’t go too deep into my own journey, as everyone has their own, but during multiple occasions Jaime would come over with a special fan that he used to fan me with while he sang to me and cleared away any energy blockages, leaving me feeling light and free in a way that I have not felt for many years. Him, Hernán and Laya played traditional medicine songs on guitar and drums and harmonica, Layas sweet voice serenading us and the forest around us, connecting us with the place and with our own spirits.
I felt free from many of the issues that had been plaguing me for months or years, and felt at peace with myself and the world in a way that I hardly remembered was even possible.
Day 4 — The End of the World
On day 4 we did one final hike to one of the most famous waterfalls in the area, El Fin del Mundo (The end of the world). It is a fifty meter high waterfall deep in the jungle, with pools and cascades leading down to it where you can drink and swim and even eat at a restaurant hidden in a cave overlooking a pool of crystal clear water.
It was the perfect end to an amazing journey, to one of the most beautiful places on the planet, meeting lovely people, an amazing medicine, and most importantly, meeting with the deepest, most peaceful, most loving part of my own soul.
If you would like to visit this amazing part of the world and experience Ayahuasca in its original homeland with a person of deep traditional knowledge, then I highly recommend you contact Hernán through his website HERE and get in touch.
Guaranteed to be one of the most amazing experiences of your life.
