Sometimes in the strangest of places we get shown the light...

On Sat May 20th I drank the Ayahuasca jungle juice. This is a coctail that is much revered by the Quecha culture and a potion that is reserved for the Quechan shaman. The Quecha culture is what has survived from the Incan times. The shaman ritually drinks the Ayahuasca, which puts him into a pyschedelic, halucinogenic trance. Ayahuasca has medicinal properties that are very similar to mescaline. While the shaman is under the spell of the Ayahuasca, he is able to see future events; such as crop cycles and other information that will be important for his tribe. The famous Beatnick authors, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, ventured to Peru to experience the effects of Ayahuasca.

I went to the San Pedro market in Cusco and bought the Ayahuasca mix from a Quechan woman for about $12 US dollars. My classmate Rafael, from London, was interested in trying the concoction with me. We drank the concoction on that Saturday afternoon. I would describe the Ayahuasca as tasting like ¨cactus juice.¨ The taste was very earthy. About 30 minutes after drinking the juice we began to feel light headed and noticed that our vision was becoming wavy. It was beatiful afternoon, so we headed to San Blas, a plaza which offers one of the best views of Cusco. The beautiful Andean mtns in front of me began to look like an amazing painting. I also could hears echoes of the conversations that were going on around me. While we were on San Blas both of us noted having intense thoughts and a mesh of thoughts that were connected to past, present, and future events. The effects of the Ayahuasca lasted for about two hours.