Latinalicious: The South America Diaries

by Becky Wicks

  There’s definitely some magic at work around here. I can’t deny that any more than I can deny the stench wafting out from some of my new friends’ armpits. It’s just a shame that shamans and ayahuasca can’t banish the sand flies like they can the evil demons in people. I’m itching so badly right now I’m in danger of scratching my own limbs off.

  3/12

  A demonic rumble in the jungle …

  On the third night at Kapitari there was no ayahuasca ceremony, but weird things were happening all over the place. After the dark energy force that tried to attach itself to Don Lucho’s wife, Jeannie saw clearly what most of us were feeling: a number of spirits hanging around, both good and bad, which apparently is quite typical when people are healing. All the negativity comes out and it’s the shaman’s job to get rid of it once and for all … another reason why you should never do ayahuasca with a phoney shaman!

  Still, it really threw the balance off at ‘ayahuasca camp’, as did the bizarre behaviour of one guy I’ll call Ryan.

  Ryan’s the kind of guy who always has to be centre of attention, the kind who talks over everyone else and, more often than not, talks for the sake of making a noise. He’s in his thirties but has this macho, bad-boy arrogance about him that, in a close environment like this, can tend to do your head in. Most people, including myself, have been trying to stay away from him, and Don Lucho, sensing without being told that Ryan has had some, shall we say, issues with addictive substances in the past, put him on a strict plant diet, including tobacco.

  To accelerate the expulsion of his demons, Ryan’s been having to drink a jug of tobacco every day, which is basically like drinking the contents of a giant ashtray mixed with water. It’s highly toxic. The sound of his vomiting can probably be heard for miles. It hasn’t stopped him smoking, however. Most people at Kapitari have been chain smoking since they arrived. I find it quite bizarre that such spiritual, health-conscious people insist on inhaling such repugnant filth. I’ve spent more time passive smoking on this jungle retreat than breathing fresh air.

  On the fourth afternoon, Ryan got a few harsh words from those he’s been pissing off. Things were weird, tension was high. Everyone was hot, bothered, bitten to shreds and hungry. I felt like I was trapped in an episode of Survivor and there was no way I was going into the maloca feeling so negative, so I passed on the ceremony. But while I was reading my Kindle in my cabin, I had the strongest urge to sleep, and some five minutes later — I swear I’m not making this up — I felt myself about to be dragged off my mattress!

  You might call it sleep paralysis — you know, when your mind wakes up before your body and you can’t move? But it felt so real and when I flung open my eyes I’m a hundred per cent positive I saw a dark shadow over me subside and then disappear. I freaked out, as you can imagine. But there was nowhere I could go, because literally everyone else was in the maloca, tripping.

  Weirdly, the next morning at the meeting, Jeannie said she’d felt the exact same thing happen to her as she lay on her mattress in the maloca, and she’d felt it at the same time as I had. Another dark spirit was apparently trying to make its mark.

  Jeannie, as I’ve mentioned, has been seeing spirits since she was five years old. She’s also been able to detect illnesses in other people and, sometimes, cure them. As a teenager in Sydney, Jeannie detected terminal cancer in a woman and later healed her but, not knowing back then how to dispel it afterwards, she contracted it herself. Given months to live, with an untreatable type of lymphatic cancer known as lymphangioma sarcoma growing up her arm, Jeannie asked her dad to take her camping so she could finally see her favourite animals, crocodiles.

  Ever since she was small, Jeannie has been visited in her dreams by a middle-aged Indian man in a feathered headdress who would often show her crocodiles and tell her never to fear them. As her dad slept in their tent just outside of Kakadu National Park, the teenage Jeannie wandered off into the lake, where logic went out the window and she decided to go swimming. She touched several crocs before anything happened, but finally one grabbed her, performed the death roll and promptly chomped off her right arm.

  When she awoke four days later in the hospital, having lost over two pints of blood, Jeannie’s dad told her she’d shown up back at the tent, bloodied and bewildered, asking where the Indian man who’d saved her had gone. He’d appeared to her once again at the bottom of the lake and, once again, told her not to be afraid of crocodiles.

  Amazingly, with the disappearance of her arm, the terminal cancer completely vanished, leaving no trace. Could it be that the crocodiles were supposed to save her all along? And isn’t that the most extraordinary story you’ve ever heard? Seriously, someone should make a movie of this lady’s life.

  Jeannie finally made it to the Amazon years later and knew instantly that this was her home. She now lives in a small village near Iquitos called Padre Coche and, while she hasn’t formally followed the shamanic path, she does use her gifts to help people and does a whole lot of great stuff for the local community, including paying for all the kids to get hot chocolate and cookies at Christmas. I’ve loved getting to know her, actually.

  Anyway, with my time at Camp Crazy coming to an end, I decided to participate in the fourth ayahuasca ceremony. Ryan puked more than anyone, which didn’t surprise any of us, but as far as my own ‘healing’ is concerned, Mother Ayahuasca decided to make an award-winning appearance, perhaps even better than the last time.

  To begin with, I saw the face of a jaguar right up close, practically stamped on the back of my eyelids. I later recalled that the jaguar is considered a protective animal, as are crickets and praying mantises when they appear in your visions, apparently. Snakes are a symbol of rebirth, and I saw many, many snakes this time, too.

  I felt a buzzing current through my body like before, but this time the visions were intense and much clearer, sometimes almost cartoon-like. I saw animals I can’t describe and creatures you’d usually only see in fantasy films running through the jungle, leading me to distant shores. But every vision was ephemeral and catapulted into the next. It was almost as though the ayahuasca knew she only had me for a limited time and wanted me to see as much as possible.

  I saw people from my past, and people who I’ve never seen before in my life, including a dark-haired man who I can’t picture now, but I remember he had the most beautiful smile. I saw Ryan across the room floating in mid-air with his legs crossed as though he was praying in a monastery (and later learned he used to do just that all the time, in Japan). And then I was shown the entire plot of a book. I even saw the cover being waved in front of me by a pair of invisible hands, which were actually more like beams of light. I’m not going to tell you what it was about, but it sounds quite exciting. If I ever get round to writing it, I’ll probably have to lie a bit about how I got the inspiration. ‘I was lying on a mattress in the Amazon rainforest, tripping my tits off when it struck me,’ probably wouldn’t make the most satisfactory explanation for some.

  I still didn’t see any aliens as such, but again I felt the sense of being everything and nothing, at one with nature and the world. At one point, I became aware of an almost uncomfortable heat in my right ear. I vaguely remember shifting positions and ‘seeing’ a glow around it. And you know what? Afterwards, I wasn’t deaf in that ear anymore. I swear to God, the ear that’s been troubling me on and off since the salt flats tour in Bolivia was suddenly completely fixed.

  I think it was the most powerful ceremony yet for all of us, actually. Another guy here said he’s been walking with a slightly twisted foot for years and, during his fourth session, he saw a giant lotus flower open up above his head and two alien beings emerge, one of which emitted a beam of light that lifted his leg into the air and sent a high frequency pulsing through it. The next morning, his foot, just like my ear, was absolutely fine. He literally walked out of the jungle with zero trouble. It can’t just have been the high-pitched hum of the cicadas in the trees and our DMT influen
ced minds that did all that, can it?

  I’m aware now that I may have lost you several paragraphs ago. Do I sound crazy? Do I sound like a hippy who’s about to say, ‘Sod the world, I’m going to grow my armpit hair really long and move to Peru, where I will live in a hut and practise astral travel with my new invisible jaguar?’

  Well, I’m not going to do that, and I’m not crazy. I don’t think. But wow, that was a weird, weird, weeeeeeird experience. Way weirder than anything I ever did in Bali. I can’t deny the things I saw and felt any more than I can explain them without sounding like a looney. Some things just are, I suppose.

  Back to Ryan. We knew from the start he had a troubled and disruptive spirit but now that I’m back in Iquitos I’ve since learned he went a bit mad at Jeannie’s house last night and ran off into the jungle. He must have got hold of some drugs somehow and slipped back into his old ways, which is sad. I guess for ayahuasca to help you heal, a part of you has to want to change.

  You’re supposed to go into every session with an intention, or a question, and pretty much everyone else who went to Kapitari has come away with the answers they were looking for. Gary, the ex-army guy who saw the aliens on the first night, labelled it as the most profound and life-changing experience he’s ever had. For someone who’s been in the army, that’s pretty huge, and he had come wanting something to make him ‘feel’ again. Another girl, a beautiful, bubbly Southern girl called Jennifer, also admitted she’ll view things differently after vomiting up negative thoughts about broken friendships and people from her past. She felt a lot of love from the people who’ve stayed in her life, which has reassured her that it’s OK to let the others go.

  I personally asked for direction, seeing as I never bloody know where I’m going next. I feel as though I was told that I’m doing the right thing just living in the moment. The here and now is all that exists. Tomorrow isn’t even real.

  When you switch off the mobile phones, laptops, thoughts of money, shopping, work, cars, all the other stuff that clouds and crowds our heads and hearts, this is all we have, I guess. The earth. The trees, the sky, each other. At the end of the day, when you consider everything we still don’t know about this universe, it isn’t really so hard to believe that plant spirits exist and can actually help us channel our higher, better selves; or that they’ve actually been talking to those who care to listen for centuries in the world’s most incomprehensible yet open pharmacy.

  Sitting back in the Karma Cafe tonight, reflecting on what has surely been the most bizarre, enlightening experience of my life, I looked down and saw a giant green cricket perching on the arm of my chair, just watching me, like Jiminy about to break into song. There were no plants for miles, nothing but madness and motocarros outside. I have no idea where he came from. Perhaps he was a final gift from Mother Ayahuasca, seeing as a jaguar wouldn’t have been appropriate for a busy cafe?

  I’ll never forget my ayahuasca experience, or Don Lucho and his tireless work at Kapitari. Or Andy, or Gary, or Ryan, or the others who’ve all shared their incredible experiences and time this week. Oh, and if you want to go and stay in the wonderful Jeannie’s house in the jungle when your turn comes for enlightenment in Iquitos, you are also more than welcome. She opens her home to open-hearted people and, who knows, she might even be able to help you heal, along with your shaman. Get in touch, get some mozzie repellant (for God’s sake, get a ton of the stuff, I look like a leper right now) and get ready to go a little bit hippy on the world.

  6/12

  Pirates, the Caribbean and some crepes and waffles …

  I love Cartagena! I can’t say this loudly or enthusiastically enough in written form, but picture me jumping on a sofa Tom Cruise style in front of Oprah shouting, ‘I love Cartagena!’ and you’ve got the right idea. I think I’ve been looking forward to Colombia the most, ever since Farzana told me how hot the boys were, how sunny the coast was, how much everyone welcomed her in wherever she went.

  Of course, it wasn’t so long ago that Colombia was one of the planet’s black holes as far as travelling was concerned: a lawless country full of drugs and crime, torn to shreds by civil war, the kind of place that, should you tell your parents you were about to visit, would induce a shaking of the head and a stern talking to about safety. Buses were, and occasionally still are, hijacked.

  Drug cartels continue to control small towns, and the country is still the world’s largest producer of cocaine (although some might argue that Bolivia still produces more) in spite of ‘Plan Colombia’ — a US policy aimed at drug smuggling and left-wing guerrillas — driving the violence off the main tourist trail. Most people I’ve met so far who’ve been mugged in South America have had it happen in Colombia, but even still it remains most people’s favourite country on the well-worn Gringo Trail and tourism is booming year-by-year.

  To get to Cartagena I took the ten-hour speedboat from Iquitos to Leticia, where I had to stay overnight, and then an afternoon flight to Bogota, which was cold, dark and depressingly rainy when I arrived. The next morning I flew Copa Airlines to Cartagena and as soon as I stepped off the plane into the muggy sunshine I knew I’d made the right decision. I made my way in a yellow cab to a hostel called Casa Nativa in the walled city, where I was shown to my bed in an air-conditioned dorm by a cute, ponytailed guy called Carlos. My bed, a bottom bunk, had a curtain around it for privacy, as did all the others, which I haven’t seen in any other hostels on my travels. It’s such a great idea, right? Sleeping in bunk beds in shared dorms does tend to make you feel a little cheap, not to mention exposed. Why don’t all hostels put curtains around them?

  The bunks here at Casa Nativa are all custom built and bolted to the walls, like someone’s dad’s been in with a measuring stick and some chunks of wood and power tools, which only adds to the charm.

  After ditching Winnie in the dorm and playing with my private, sliding curtain in my bunk like a kid who’d just been built a tree house, I met a Canadian called Michelle and an Aussie called Naomi sitting in the common area, sweating under a fan with their laptops. Upon learning of my hunger, they marched me out through the maze of narrow streets to a soundtrack of salsa, horse hooves and carriages on cobblestones and pearly-toothed black men shouting, ‘Dulce de coco para los locos!’ and on to a place called Crepes & Waffles. My God. Where has this been all my life?

  It occurred to me, sitting in air-conditioned bliss, feeding my face with an artery-clogging whipped cream and almond concoction, that even if I never saw anything else in Cartagena, I could leave happy for having discovered my bunk bed and Crepes & Waffles. Granted, Crepes & Waffles is not the most authentic choice for dining in a uniquely preserved UNESCO World Heritage site but when you’ve been subsisting on unsalted rice and hallucinogenic tree sap in the Amazon rainforest for the past six days you tend to think, ‘Screw it.’ I was instantly grateful.

  With full bellies, Michelle, Naomi and I set off back to the hostel, but it took us literally two hours to make it. The streets were even more alive as dusk crept in and, after taking in a streaky pink sunset from the wall overlooking the crashing Caribbean Sea, I swear, we stopped at least nine times to talk to various people, all of whom wanted to sell us stuff, but who also just wanted a nice chat.

  I was introduced to the arepa — a delicious and addictive grilled corn patty stuffed with butter and cheese that may just be the greatest food item on earth. We bought beers for 4000 COP ($2) from a vendor and walked along, chatting with others selling coconuts and mango chunks sprinkled with salt, as well as other tourists, butlers outside hotels beckoning potential customers inside, and buxom black ladies with cleavages spilling out of frilled red dresses … we even got our tarot cards read by a hilarious guy called Ricky, who pulled out one card for each of us and then proceeded to read the meaning word-for-word from a tatty book, in bad English.

  We tipped Ricky extra because, after informing us of our decidedly generic destinies, he went on to tell us about some great places to visit
in the vicinity and we all sat round on the street together drinking wine from a box. In a city that looks as though a secret gem could be sparkling behind each humongous, colonial bolted door, you definitely need a few tips from the locals. You can do without the wine in a box here, though, to be honest. It’s not great. Stick with the $2 beer.

  Cartagena’s history has inspired many an artist, author and movie-maker over the years. Walking through the Plaza de los Coches, I was reminded that this was the spot in which more than a million Africans were once sold into slavery. I also thought how, unless you read up on the topic, or made an extra special effort to read every plaque in this tantalising tourist trap, positively bursting at the seams with five-star dining opportunities, boutique hotels and bougainvillea, you’d never know it now.

  This Spanish colonial town was a major maritime hub for ships that would offload African slaves to work in gold mines and on cattle ranches, sugarcane plantations and large haciendas. The Spaniards would then sail back to Spain, full of exciting stories of pirates and pillage, dripping with the glorious riches of the New World.

  Such riches created a land that was rife with violence, of course. Long before cocaine production came into play, Colombia’s wealth of gold, silver, exotic birds and tropical fruits caused pirates to loiter with intent around the neighbouring Caribbean islands, attacking at random and trying their best to take what they could from the Spanish, who, poor things, had tried their best to take what they could from the natives already (karma, anyone?).

  When England’s Sir Francis Drake came onto the scene with a ho ho ho and a bottle of rum and possibly a talking parrot, the Spanish kings, sick to the back teeth of his antics, ordered the construction of the city walls and fortifications, which cost a fortune and took more than two hundred years to complete. Imagine! King Charles III, when informed of the ridiculous costs for this project halfway through, whipped out a telescope and proclaimed, ‘This is outrageous! For this price, the castles should be seen from Madrid!’