Trippin in Ecuador

Tripping in Ecuador

I flew into Quito and stayed at a hotel near Plaza Santo Domingo and spent a few days
exploring the old colonial section of town -- considered by many to be the most
impressive remnants of colonialism in South America. I then took a bus on a four-hour
ride to Banos, an interesting and pleasant town about 100 miles south of Quito with a
population of 20,000 sitting on the banks of the Rio Pastaza and nestled in a valley at the
foot of the volcano Tungurahua which periodically erupts forcing evacuations. The river
Pastaza flows rapidly down the eastern slope of the Andes to eventually join the Amazon.
Quito, a city of about two million is the capital of Ecuador at an altitude of about 9,500
feet... high enough to cause mild altitude sickness for some. For me this meant a little
difficulty sleeping and early fatigue when climbing stairs or inclines. Banos is at 5,900 feet
with little to no altitude effects and a mild climate year round much like San Francisco in
the summer.

After enjoying Banos for several days I took a bus on a five hour tortuous ride to Tena (a
town of 20,000 nestled in the Amazon rim) and then another easy one hour ride to the
small town of Misahualli on the Napo River at the end of the road. The Napo is another
tributary to the Amazon a few hundred miles downstream. The road out of Banos follows
the river along a canyon while dropping about 5,000 feet. It is partially paved but has long
stretches of rock, gravel, and mud with portions under reconstruction due to ongoing rock
and mud-slides and washouts. The canyon below appeared to drop for a thousand feet,
and with the tires of the bus sometimes approaching within a couple feet of the edge I
looked for signs of wreckage at the bottom. Seeing none gave me some assurance. The
bus was crowded and I was crammed standing at the back as it swayed and bumped along
while going through maybe a half dozen tunnels. It was one of the hardest rides of my life.

Misahualli is a town of a few hundred with a frontier atmosphere and a few shops and bars
surrounding an unpaved central square. A few beggar monkeys romp in the trees scanning
for handouts. By email I had connected with a young woman named Zoraida who manages
the small hotel Alberque Espanol in conjunction with a family owned lodge and cabins and
a couple nature preserves located about 30 miles down river. Z was born and raised in the
area and the facilities had been part of her family for many years. Her parents were
currently living in Spain and she was assuming hotel/ tour management responsibilities in
addition to studying business at a university in Quito. It was my plan to meet her at the
hotel and discuss options for visiting the lodge and nearby indigenous communities with
the goal of getting a general feeling for the area and some of the social and ecological
problems facing the people and the land in what is said to be the most richly bio-diverse
area on the planet. It was my first trip to the Amazon.

Ecuador is one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in South America,
and has one of the highest birth rates. It is rather intensely Catholic and the church
discourages family planning and seems to effectively pressure the government from making
such services free and available. So family planning facilities are relatively few and their
services cost to the extent they are often unaffordable to the people who need them the
most. Also education in Ecuador is not free. Since it takes an education break the cycle of
poverty many are left in a sort of "catch 22" economically stressed quandary without an
exit. The new national president, Rafael Correa, assumed power early in 2007 and has
reportedly professed interest and desire to change some policies. Like many other places
vested interests and cultural resistance will make it difficult. Ecuador has had something
like a dozen presidents in the last decade so optimism is tempered with caution.

Early the day after arriving we left by motorized canoe on a two-hour downriver trip to the
lodge. The "we" included Z and a friend of hers from Quito (a young Parisian named
Pierre studying labor law in Quito) and an Indian guide named Leonardo. Leonardo could
speak Quechua and Spanish and Z and Pierre could speak fairly good English and Spanish
and I struggled with my Spanglish. It was also the first visit to the Amazon for Pierre. As
we canoed down the river the beauty exceeded expectations. The river broadens and
narrows with occasional rapids generating two to three foot waves. Leonardo turned out to
be an excellent navigator and managed the rapids and about everything else, including our
hikes in the jungle, with a competence and energy that continually amazed me. He could
walk for hours in a steamy jungle over and under fallen trees and other obstacles, clearing
bush with a machete and seldom showing signs of fatigue or even perspiration. Pierre (who
helped with translation) and I sweated profusely during these hikes and periodically had to
take brief rests due to heat exhaustion. During one rest I mentioned I was low on water and
in what seemed like seconds Leonardo returned with a cut section of vine telling me it
contained good water which would restore my energy. About a pint of pleasant tasting
water flowed out of it and it did seem to restore some energy. On one hike he accidentally
brushed a thorn tree and had a several inch bleeding scratch on his arm. He made a couple
small gashes in a nearby tree and quickly applied a couple drops of reddish sap to the
lesion and announced it would seal, disinfect, and heal the scratch without further attention.
It did.

On the first day after arrival at the lodge and after a two-hour jungle hike followed by lunch
and a siesta, we took the canoe in mid afternoon five to ten miles further down the river to
an indigenous community spread out on the opposite bank. We proceeded up a half-mile
path to a traditional looking thatched roof house on stilts occupied by the community
doctor or shaman. Fortunately the shaman was at home. He has served the people in the
area for years making routine visits to houses strung out through the woods by a network
of paths. The visits often take a week or two and it was not certain he would be home.
With no electricity or phones it was impossible to check in advance. The shaman was a
friend of the lodge family and had worked with them in the past offering samples of food
and brief tours of his native plant resources in the nearby forest. Although probably in his
60's he looked very aged and young at the same time. His feet were spread out and looked
like shoes themselves from years of never wearing them. The rest of us wore boots
extending almost to the knee when hiking in the woods which of course exacerbated the
effects of the heat.

We took a brief tour around his house with the shaman showing us the many plants with
medicinal qualities seemingly good for about any ailment imaginable. After a while of this
he approached a bush with a small stack of about one foot segments of a vine maybe an
inch or two in diameter. The shaman explained that this was ayahuasca and the leaves of
the bush were used along with it as part of a two component hallucinogenic and cleansing
ceremony. I had read about ayahuasca and had mentioned via interpreters that I would be
interested in trying the potion if the shaman would be willing to do a ceremony for me and
any others interested. At first he did not reply, so I assumed he had rejected the idea. He
then invited us into his house and we sat on stools while he and his wife laid out various
samples of food on a palm leaf - various cooked vegetables and some small animals such
as grubs and snails. All were foods easily available from surrounding jungle. The water
snails are found in abundance after being stranded by changes in the level of the river
which fluctuated as much as several feet in less than a day.

His house consisted of a large room with a cooking fire in the middle and a small pot with
a smoldering termite nest to the side. The smoke from the nest was used to keep bugs
away and maybe other pests as well. The smoke in the house from the two sources was
thick and had a unique, fairly pungent odor, but it was not unpleasant. We tried maybe ten
foods he was able to readily prepare. The ones I did not find appealing I simply threw out
the open space over my shoulder to the jungle when no one was looking while expressing
approval and showing gratitude for the hospitality. It was getting to be late in the day and
when we rose to exit to canoe back to the lodge, the shaman mentioned that he would be
willing to accompany us back to the lodge where he would prepare the ayahuasca and
perform the ceremony.

When we arrived at the lodge the shaman said I should not eat anything that evening but
could drink fluids including a beer, and that the preparations would be complete about 9
pm. It is said to be customary for the shaman to provide the necessary ingredients to a
woman who then prepares the potion. The method used by his wife was a volume
reduction using a vigorous boil over a period of several hours. Maybe this explains why
his wife accompanied us to the lodge, prepared the potion, and then seemed to disappear.
The central lodge had a spacious kitchen, a serving area with several tables for seating up
to 30 or 40 guests, and included an unlit fireplace at the center with a small bathroom off to
the side. The building was elevated about six feet on stilts, the roof was thatched, and the
large serving area was open air and the home of numerous bats.

While waiting for the preparation, I decided to walk to my cabin about 100 yards down a
path towards the river. When I left the lodge and entered the darkness I was struck by the
star lit sky. Other than being on a remote mountaintop, I had never seen such a vivid
display. In fact the clarity of the air in the region was one of the many surprises. Even
during the day it seemed like you could clearly see the definition of each cloud all the way
to the horizon. Another surprise was the comfortable climate. In the jungle the air was still
and stifling with high humidity and temperatures feeling like the high 80's. Along with
crawling under and over things and up and down inclines, the effects of the heat seemed at
times oppressive and I occasionally felt the dizziness from heat exhaustion. But just a short
way out and into a clearing there would be a breeze and the humidity seemed to drop, and
when resting or walking in the plentiful shade, it was comfortable. Also unexpected was the
lack of insects. I had brought DEET loaded bug/ mosquito repellant but ended up not
using it. I did not notice any insect bites throughout the trip nor recall anyone else
mentioning it.

I sat overlooking the river drinking a beer and gazing at the stars and then took an hour nap
to awaken naturally just prior to 9 pm. I walked to the lodge and the shaman and others
seemed to be ready to start the ceremony. Pierre had decided to join me in the experience.
Z, Leonardo, and a couple of Indian helpers stayed to watch - maybe due to the curiosity
arising from seeing foreigners partake in one of their ceremonies. There were numerous
bats of all sizes circling above us and sometimes close enough to feel the air movement
from their wings. (The Amazon is home to hundreds of species of bats and their numbers
probably account for the unexpected lack of flying insects.) Otherwise it was quiet and
completely dark. We all sat in a circle while the shaman began a chant describing how he
entered into his relationship with the vine. He then poured about an inch of liquid into a
glass and drank. He poured a smaller amount and passed it to me and did the same for
Pierre. After about 15 minutes of Quechua chanting he asked that I sit on the floor in front
of him. He resumed chanting while brushing my head with a small clutch of leaves.
Occasionally, he would inhale smoke from something resembling a cigar and blow it in
bursts onto the top of my head. After a number of repetitions of all this he announced that
whatever problems I had were now gone and that I would be cleansed. I said thanks and
he repeated the ritual with Pierre.

After about a half hour I began to have vivid visions and a detached feeling and then a
dizziness accompanied by nausea. The nausea soon became intense and I made repeated
visits to an adjoining bathroom. It is common to experience nausea when first drinking
ayahuasca so I was not surprised. But the repeated bouts were unexpected. I felt at once
dizzy and weak and shaky while sweating profusely all interspersed with repeating intense
visions and bouts of nausea. I was sicker than I can ever recall experiencing. Pierre
vomited once about an hour after ingesting and felt a bit dizzy with some unexceptional
reoccurring visions for several hours. The visions I saw were vivid and popped up without
warning. Although none were threatening or frightening, they seemed meaningless and
without any connection to anything I could imagine. In one that kept appearing there were
middle aged men a bit on the heavy side wearing only something like loin cloths and hats
that looked ceremonial. They were marching single file down an incline into a misty
chamber, which I could not see. There seemed to be some rhythmic chanting or music
accompanying their descent. I wanted to see where they were going but could not. Other
visions were of naked and expressionless people groping each other and faces popping
out of random patterns. I could make no sense of any of them. The visions or
hallucinations I remember occurring with the use of other psychedelics like peyote or
mushrooms were more like distortions of things in my immediate presence such as plants
or animals. These visions seemed totally disconnected to anything around me or in my
past. Why I had such an intense nausea experience with this stuff I will never know.

The cyclical periods of nausea interspersed with the visions continued until a little after
midnight and after a brief bout of diarrhea as a finale I slowly began to feel life returning to
my body. In another half hour I did my daily dental rituals and slept soundly. The next day
my clothes reeked of sweat and smoke but I felt sort of serene or blissful. I was a bit
washed out from the convulsions of the night before but I had enough energy to take a
challenging jungle hike and visit another indigenous community. This group was
experiencing more of the impacts of modernity. A road followed by electricity had recently
been extended to their community of maybe a couple hundred and it was interesting to see
the changes these amenities of modernity had brought. Some basic commercial items such
as canned foods and bottled beverages were available in a couple of small stores, the
government had subsidized construction of a small school, a community recreation center,
a small health facility, and electronic music could be heard pulsing from a couple of the
houses. Of course the road would also eventually enable entry for other things like logging
equipment, pumps for gold mining of the river banks, and the inevitable slash and burn
agriculture.

A day later my strength had completely returned and I felt a continuing sense of serenity
and clarity... like I had been completely disassembled and put back together without some
of the garbage. I have long suffered from occasional allergies most pronounced in the
mornings and evenings. I noticed these effects were lessened. A couple of weeks later I
still felt the reduced presence of the allergies and the feeling of a mild serenity. If I were
asked whether I would repeat the experience I would say that I currently have no plans to
do so. But if the question were whether I was glad I did it, I would reply positively. It was
something I wanted to do and seemed to be headed toward, and, on some level, something
I seemingly "needed" for my journey in life. In addition it seemed like I was being guided in
that direction by an alignment of events and circumstances. In the relatively distant past I
had previous experiences with psychedelics such as LSD, mushrooms, and peyote. But
the vine is in a world of its own and the lingering after effects are unique. They are subtle
and pleasant and seem to last in subtle ways. They are not only unique for what they are,
but that they even exist. I do not recall any significant after-affects stemming from the use
of any other psychedelic drug. There is much information available regarding ayahuasca,
and anyone interested should certainly educate themselves as completely as possible and
make the effort to arrange for the proper setting with the guidance of someone
knowledgeable in the collection and preparation of the ingredients.

Ecuador is a beautiful country and one of the few places I have visited where when leaving
I knew I would likely return. There are more diverse peoples, cultures, ecological zones,
and types of beauty in relatively close proximity (the country is just slightly larger than New
Zealand or Colorado) than anywhere else in the world. When we returned to Misahualli, I
spent one night in the hotel and took a bus to Tena, a town about the size of Banos but
with a more frontier atmosphere and a shabbier appearance. But it was a very comfortable
and mellow place to enjoy for a few days before busing to Quito via Baeza and the hot
springs at Pappallacta. All in all, the Ecuadorean people seemed more helpful and friendly
than any other place I have visited. Maybe it is inherent in the culture, or maybe because
international tourism is just beginning to come to the country and they are not yet jaded by
the impacts. Fewer people seem to speak English than in most other Latino countries but
that also seems to be changing. English is being promoted in the schools and people who
desire to reap the benefits of tourism are making the effort to learn.

Ecuador will no doubt see increasing tourism - particularly if the politics stabilize in a way
that enhances road and social safety and facilitates access. The development pressures in
the country will also become more intense. Of course it all begins with a road which opens
the door for some comfort amenities but also the trucks and bulldozers of the extraction
industries. Sluice mining for gold using pumps and front-end loaders will increasingly
replace the traditional swirling wooden pan. There will be more oil drilling, logging,
agricultural land clearing, and the taking of rare flora and fauna for export. The roads to
support all these activities and to provide the services to the communities that will want
them will irreversibly change the indigenous ways of life. And, of course, population
pressures in the country will no doubt continue fueling the fires of development. But now it
is still a beautiful and interesting place to visit and, for me, it was one of the more
rewarding trips I have ever taken.