I’d arrived in Iquitos after spending a week exploring the Amazon Rainforest from Leticia, Colombia. I’d come to experience the natural wonders — the world’s largest river, the sprawling rainforest, the pink dolphins and the arapaima, a prehistoric-looking fish that can grow up to 15 feet in length.
It was in Leticia that I first heard talk of Ayahuasca and the stories of spiritual awakening at the hands of healing shamans. Backpackers had stumbled into my hostel one night, looking wary and sleep deprived, having just returned from an Ayahuasca ceremony.
“It was crazy shit,” was all they could summon.
In a flurry of research, I learned that Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic concoction used for healing purposes by the native people of Northern Peru and the surrounding Amazon region. It’s made by mixing chacruna leaves, which contain the hallucinogenic drug dimethyltryptamine (DMT), with the ayahuasca vine. Ayahuasca has been used to achieve spiritual clarity and healing by shamans and their followers for centuries. In the past few decades, its popularity has been spreading well beyond the thick jungle walls.
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