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 beautiful and impressive remnants of colonial Spain in South America. I left via 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 between a volcano which last blew in 1998 and some mountains. Although the eruption lasted only several days with minimal damage, the town was evacuated for a couple months. The Pastaza is a rapidly flowing river that drains on down the eastern slope of the Andes to 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 - which for me 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 climate much like San Francisco in the summer, but all year round. In other words almost perfect. After spending several days enjoying Banos, I took the bus for a five hour tortuous ride to the small town of Misahualli at the end of a road on the Rio Napo in the Amazonian basin. The road out of Banos follows the river along a canyon while dropping about 5,000 feet. It was partially paved but had long stretches of rock, gravel, and mud with portions under reconstruction due to numerous 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, and the hillside showing signs of recent instabilities, 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 longest bus rides of my life. Since there are no direct buses to Misahualli, a transfer must be made in Tena for an additional hour ride. But this road is smoother and relatively flat and the bus was less crowded so the hour went quickly. Misahualli is a small mellow Amazonian rim town 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 lodge and cabins and a couple nature preserves all 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 pursuing studies in 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, and, of course, it takes an education to make money and break the cycle of poverty. Thus, many are left in a sort of "catch 22" economically disenfranchised quandary without a way out. The new national president, Rafael Correa, assumed power early in 2007 and has reportedly professed the interest and desire to more favorably represent the best interests of all the people. Most people are giving him positive marks so far. But Ecuador has had something like a dozen presidents in the last decade, so any optimism is held with a bit of caution. Early the next day 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 French man 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 Spanish. It was also the first visit to the Amazon for Pierre. As we canoed down the river the beauty exceeded my 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 his ever-present machete, never 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 a section of a vine telling me it contained good water which would restore my energy. When tilted to the vertical about a half pint of pleasant tasting water flowed out of it and it did seem to offer a burst of 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 within a minute or two a couple drops of reddish sap appeared. He smeared it on the lesion and announced that 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 medicine man 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 that he would be home. With no electricity or phone system yet reaching the area 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 in themselves from years of never wearing them. The rest of us always wore boots extending almost to the knee when hiking in the jungle, which of course exacerbated the effects of the heat. He took us on a tour around his house and in a brief period of time showed us 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 a good bit about ayahuasca and via interpreters mentioned that I would be interested in trying the potion and questioned whether the shaman would be willing to do a ceremony for me and anyone else who might be interested. At first he did not reply, so I assumed that he did not like the idea. He then invited us into his house and we sat on stools while he 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 appeared after being stranded by a recent high surge in the river level, which could fluctuate as much as several feet in less than a day. His house consisted of one 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 potion 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 with high humidity, and with 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 very comfortable. Also unexpected was the lack of insects. I had brought one of the best DEET loaded repellants I could find 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 said you are welcome. He repeated the ritual with Pierre. I returned to my seat and about ten minutes later began to feel dizzy and nauseas while beginning to see visions pop up without warning. 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 dizzy, weak and shaky while sweating profusely all interspersed with intense visions and bouts of nausea. I was sicker than I can ever recall in my life. 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. 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 enable entry for everything else from bulldozers the A day later my strength had completely returned and I felt a continuing sense of a type of serene detachment - sort of 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 and I still feel the reduced presence of the allergies and the seemingly mild serenity. If I were asked if 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" to do 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 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 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.