When I’ve come home from my trips to the Amazon in the past, a lot of my friends have noticed significant changes in myself and a few express interest in traveling down themselves. I have a terrible habit that once I’m back home I forget how hard and uncomfortable I was in the process, and paint a rather pretty picture of the experience when I talk to someone. The good results that I bring home with me, tend to cloud over the memories of being in the Amazon, and that it was the hardest and most challenging thing I have ever done in my life. Though I’ve never had children, I equate this phenomenon to what happens after childbirth; at the time very painful but the end result (and some hormones) make you forget the bad parts. So here while its fresh in my mind, I’ll share some of the day to day challenges of jungle life. I’ll save talking about the challenges of taking ayahuasca, as that warrants a blog post of its own.

After my arrival at the center, I got settled into my room. Being a veteran traveler to the Amazon, I came well prepared with plastic ziplock bags and deet insect repellent to arm my room and personal belongings from the termite invasions, rats, cockroaches, and inevitable mold growing on everything in the heat and humidity. In my prior trips I had come back to my room to find termites swarming my shoes, pages of my books eaten by rats, and cockroaches nesting in my backpack. The creatures of the amazon rainforest are relentless and savvy. I put everything that would fit into plastic bags, spraying down the rest that wouldn’t fit as well as any cracks in the floorboards, the bed posts, mosquito netting, and desk with deet. I had the upper hand this time around… Or so I thought. The next morning I awoke absolutely covered with bug bites, and my skin resembled that of a dalmatian except instead of white and black, I was tan and purple. Combined with a case of mild heat stroke from the hike in, I was off to a great start.

Bugs and heat aside, working with the shamans and plants brings its own set of unique discomforts. Any reputable center and shaman requires participants follow a very strict diet, with limitations not only on what you eat but also what products you use on your body. A typical diet means no red meat, no dairy, no sugar, no oils, no spices, no salt… It’s probably easier to put what I could eat at the center; cucumber, lettuce, green beans, rice, oatmeal, potatoes, and a certain type of vegetarian river fish. This is the very strict diet the shaman recommended me to follow, usually other people are allowed a bit more variety on the vegetables and can have some fruit, eggs, and occasionally chicken. This diet usually has to be followed 2 weeks before arrival and for a month after you leave as well.

The diet extends past just food, and it is also recommended not to use any type of chemical product on your body including soaps, toothpastes, deodorant, and bug sprays. Luckily beforehand I had gotten into the habit of making my own toothpaste out of natural ingredients, but the no shampoo and soap I struggled (and cheated) with! By the end of a couple weeks though everything just starts to smell like the jungle, and you start to not notice if you smell or not. Oh, and did I mention no sex? Like no sex, not even by yourself. Zip, zero, nada. Sometimes its funny how the moment you are told you can’t do something, you get a strong desire to do it.

If that hasn’t sold you on coming down to the Amazon, the “vomitivo” might! The vomitivo entails exactly what it sounds like. Vomiting, and a lot of it. This is often recommended by the shaman before or just after your first ceremony, to help cleanse the body of  any remaining trace of non-diet food in the digestive system and it also helps loosen energetic blockages. The exact composition of the vomitivo drink varies center to center, with the main plant used usually being tobacco. After drinking, the person will have to drink as much water as possible inducing vomiting, then drink and vomit subsequent times until the shaman decides you have done enough. After vomiting, people may find another purge happening just the opposite direction, and from start to completion the vomitivo effects may last up to 4 hrs. Luckily (or unluckily as next post will describe) for me, the vomitivo was not recommended as I was physically and energetically too weak for the process to be beneficial.

A bit insane right?? And I haven’t even scratched the surface of the insane part. As I said in the beginning, its like childbirth. Indescribably painful during the process, but the results make you forget that it all happened and maybe even willing to do it all over again.

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