I have spent over 10 years travelling on and off in mostly Latin America and Asia. I pretty much have ticked most of the "must see and do" travel boxes, but still had the Ayahuasca box to tick. So this became one of the things i chose to do on a 1 month trip to Peru, i have just returned from. Luckily, Olympus mon was in Peru doing some ceremonies, and gave me some helpful guidance. I had quite a few options to choose from, and heard great things about another Curandero called Don Marcial. But after a lot of dithering i made it to Curandero Don Mateo's place in the Shipibo village of San Francisco, on the basis that it was both easier to get to, and that OM as well as other good people were staying there, so at least i had some good company. Which curandero should i choose??, there was only one way to find out....Only by actively trying out Don Mateo would i be able to make a realisation. Thinking it out was not the answer!

First ceremony: Wow, the molokka feels like such a special place, and the air is filled with Mapacho smoke..What have i let myself into, i asked?? I drank the slightly fermented brew, all one cup of it. The lights went out, and i waited. When the Ayahuasca was starting to work, the shamen started singing their icaros songs. These helped drive the Ayahuasca visions, and "spread them out". It was truly a beautiful experience of visions of jungle animals guided by the ever present snake, either boa, or anaconda. In the midst of all these visions , and in the next ceremonies was a central part to the visions where i saw animals with human eyes. I later realised that these were the "matrix central" realms where the Shamen had also entered, and could see into my thoughts.
This Ceremony left me in Awe, and i then realised why this molokka had been constructed. I had great respect for the Shaman, and thought "what a fantastic job it must be to work as a Shaman, such positive vibes"etc...

Second ceremony: This ceremony was much more powerful as i chose to drink 1 and 1/2 cups of a new brew which OM told me was chakruna heavy. It was very visual, and too much at times. I saw classic 3D DMT visuals, as well as clowns and visuals that magically descended from the ceiling. Dna type visuals floating in the air and Snakes were everywhere, and the malokka was full of spirits. During this ceremony it was a cross between the nauseaus mapacho smoke, icaros, and of course stronger Ayahuasca dose that had me Purging my guts out. I was right to assume that it was gonna be a strong and horrid purge, but at least i got to understand the purge and even nastier acidic Aya throat taste, and it helped calm things down quite a bit. During this ceremony i had some negative thoughts about someone who had treated my mother badly, although i chose to address this issue outside the ceremony as it had no place in this otherwise positive ceremony. It was during this ceremony that it became clear that our good parents love us from the moment we are born to the day they die, and that anything else in life was just either essentials, or "padding", and that we should return this gratitude back to our Parents.

>The day after this ceremony, i was shocked when one of the shamen told me, "so you wanna kill the shamen!!". I then realised that he was talking about this negative vision that the shamen also had access to. I then realised that he had misunderstood this vision because this person i had this issue with was Tunisian, and had a similar appearance to the shamen in terms of looks. The shamen told me that sometimes they get the interpretation wrong, although because i don't think i explained the similarity in looks part i still have doubts if he really truly believed me. Quite scary really when you realise that they can misunderstand such things, and that when they are in your Aya matrix that they can pretty much do what they wish to you, since this is their well known "playing field" territory of which i was a newcomer.....

Third ceremony: This ceremony the Ayahuasca was rather weak. Although i only drank one cup, i should have at least had a level of visions similar to the first ceremony. Eventually i did get visions, but they were negative and horrible ones. This really made me think that the shamen were trying to battle with me, (after the last ceremonies misunderstanding on their part). It could also have been connected to a "Demon" being released from an Argentinian guy who had some Drugs problems. When i eventually got to sleep i had a rather incredible vivid dream of an Indian Sadhu with massive thick dreads and both driving a mercedes car, and remote control driving it from Ancient wall ramparts of a modern European city??

Fourth ceremony: This was the last ceremony. To be honest, i was tired, but unfortunately the Ayahuasca was EVEN weaker than last time, even though the shamen told me it should be a better "mix"?. this ceremony i got almost no visuals at all from the one cup i drank, but did see some Incan faces on my mozzie net as i struggled to try to sleep in the early hours, later on!. ( I could not be bothered with drinking more Ayahuasca later and prolonging the journey till i found a "sweet spot", and eventually assisted myself to purge. When purging the Aya seemed a lot thinner than the first time i purged, and this made me feel the Aya was "watered down". A disappointing end, although i could have also chosed to have drank more and was also in all fairness quite tired from lack of good sleep ). Still, i think to this moment that the Ayahuasca was the major problem. Without a decent Ayahuasca, the connection to the central "matrix" cannot be made and icaros are meaningless....

>>Overall views:

1. To do an Ayahuasca ceremony should be a "must do" on any travellers itinery in Latin America. The first ceremony left me in awe, and gave me a great respect for shamanism. I'll admit i thought of trying Ayahuasca alone in my hotel room, but i'm glad i instead did so in a Ceremony. Ayahuasca alone is really missing a lot in terms of having shamen there to create a safe and protected environment, icaros, curation, and the mapacho, etc. Not only that but it's simply a magical group experience when done in a ceremony. It made me realise that every special experience in life is a ceremony, or should be..

2. I did Ayahuasca out of curiosity, rather than for "curing" as i did not feel i needed any. However it did give me some reaffirmation on certain thoughts, and this was all positive stuff. I met many westerners doing Aya for various reasons. Some were dealing with mental issues which were making them suicidal, etc. Others were doing it for reasons like myself, or trying to make a television documentary, etc. Although most of them were nice people, and very into their Ayahuasca, had taken it for years and stuff, this didn't mean they were positive in all life areas as i realised when see'ing some woman talking to her son like he was dog dirt, etc... > so obviously whilst Ayahuasca can help in it's way, we also have to actively make positive change in our lives to finalise the insights gained, or it's just rather aimless. Ayahuasca can help us in some ways, but we must do the rest. It is not the cure all, we are also our own medicine.:idea:

3. It was a pity the Ayahuasca was "all over the place". I thought there was no excuse for this because making Ayahuasca is as easy as ABC. And expected better than the Aya i got. I felt like i had gone to a top class restaurant and recieved a crappy street burger the last 2 ceremonies!

4. To end, i'm glad i did the ceremonies even though they hit the spot only 50% of the time. If i never would have tried Don Mateo, i would never have known. Now i can speak from experience, and know what to look out for, ask about next time, etc. I would agree with an Australian couple i met, that 3 good ceremonies in a week should be more than enough for MOST of us, and especially for the shamen who need a rest as well. It's something i would someday like to repeat, although i would also like to try different Curanderos, because although i thought that Don Mateo was a good introduction, and the company was great, the rest was pretty average, especially the Ayahuasca.

Kind regards, Christian.

nice report, although I actaully do feel that your expectations of super strong or DMT heavy ayahuasca in traditional ceremonies is not necessarily realistic. There is alot of evidence to suggest that ayahuasca is not always used to "trip" like that traditionally..even mckenna talked about this. When he was staying with curranderos and they did group ceremonies with the locals the brews were always week and they would just sort of skim the surface. They drank stronger brews alone with the curranderos to "go to school" as they called it..but in normal group ceremonies where people are being worked on etc, it does seem like perhaps what we here seek in terms of visionary potential etc is not always what the locals are seeking.

If you talk to alot of the people on the aya forums that have lived with tribes down there you start to hear many stories where very little admixture is even added to the brews and instead lots of vine and tobacco are added. Of course there are also stories of super potent admix heavy brews that send people way way out there so I am not sure there is really a standard one can go to south america with in terms of what ayahuasca should or should not be.

I think often people romanticise about far off exotic jungle shamans etc and get the wrong idea or something in their heads about all of it...I have had people that apprenticed in peru that do ceremonies here say that I cant drink aya at home and be healed and all this stuff, that I need a shaman etc..well I dunno..I have never been to peru but I think this is rediculous idealization that gives away our own power and only serves the ego and not the true self..there are just so many different paths out there and all roads are valid..

The fact that these people can get all caught up in the idea of you wanting to kill them etc is a perfect example to me of all of this..hangups occur anywhere and everwhere becasue we are all just humans..even if you are some guy or girl called a shaman..

I think you misunderstood my point..I did not say that the brews are strong and that you did not have strong visons for some other reason..I am saying they probly are weak, but that amongst people of the amazon that is often normal becasue they are not going for deep DMT experiences. Mckenna talked about this very situation before about the brews curranderos were using for groups were in fact weaker ayahuasca brews.

Uhhh okay??..

did you even read my post?

"Jaimie, believe me, you will KNOW when you have ingested a strong AYa brew!!..Nuff said, good night!! "

Yeah I have drunk extremely strong ayahuasca enough times..what does that have to do with anything I said?

I'm very sorry Jamie, last night i drank 1/2 a bottle of red wine, followed by 1/2 a litre of Vodka i bought in the airport duty free, and was both extremely tired and drunk by the time of sending the last two posts, and today have little recollection of doing so!! ..

Reading what you wrote today makes perfect sense, and was very informative, thanks. I apologise for my last two posts which were quite rude in tone and made little sense at all! Pretty embarressing for me to do that, after spending ages writing my first ever Aya trip report, and especially after you were kind enough to have complimented me on my post!! I hope you can forgive me for that intoxicated episode of forum madness!!

> Regarding the weak Ayahuasca, i admit that there's a lot i don't know about Ayahuasca. But i do know that San Pedro cactus is usually given in sub visual doses, so it makes sense that this can also happen with Ayahuasca. However when the Ayahuasca was strong the first two Ceremonies, it made perfect sense to me, with the icaros spreading and moving the visions, and the mapacho sort of helping the connection too, etc. When the Ayahuasca was weak, especially the very last ceremony, it kinda was a bummer because there was no "connection" to the central matrix. I saw extremely weak visuals. To me anyway, it seemed rather pointless to be doing a ceremony with such weak Ayahuasca, and was quite "boring". To me it felt like a lot of the Aya potential was lost because of those factors.



I used to think exactly like you do, Jamie. But i have since been told that the Shamen use Ayahuasca to help diagnose illness, and use specific medicinal plants as a cure. so by this understanding Ayahuasca is only part of the cure, and not a cure itself, (even if it may help with psychological issues and purging out negativities). Based on this reasoning, then you cannot cure any ill's yourself by simply drinking Ayahuasca alone, but also need the correct medicinal plants to use, and only a trained shaman will know which are the right ones for your particular situation. And the medicinal plants are used for their good spirits as well as bad ones, and the icaros help too with the curing.

When i started to think about this, i realised just how deep an art Shamanism really is, and that Shamen are working at an energetic level of plant spirits....and just how little i know.

Of course i'm not saying that drinking Ayahuasca alone isn't curative to a degree, or that you don't have the ability to cure yourself in general, but i have to admit that i believe that a properly trained Shamen does have an ability to cure some ill's that may not be otherwise cureable, and will be able to positively heal receptive individuals.

"I used to think exactly like you do, Jamie. But i have since been told that the Shamen use Ayahuasca to help diagnose illness, and use specific medicinal plants as a cure. so by this understanding Ayahuasca is only part of the cure, and not a cure itself, (even if it may help with psychological issues and purging out negativities). Based on this reasoning, then you cannot cure any ill's yourself by simply drinking Ayahuasca alone, but also need the correct medicinal plants to use, and only a trained shaman will know which are the right ones for your particular situation. And the medicinal plants are used for their good spirits as well as bad ones, and the icaros help too with the curing."

I agree with this completely. I feel that ayahuasca use at home by westerners is best when combined with a health supporting diet and knowledge of herbalist traditions and use of those herbs.

Caapi is itself a medecinal plant along with a visionary "deviner"s type of magic (if used to diagnosis, like salvia divinorum is or mushrooms in mazatec tradition ; cf Maria Sabina).
But using those visionnary plants may open some to the plethora of medecinal plants.
And also to more awereness toward the lifestyle heath.

I think that is a wise statement Jamie, and certainly will help make a "home alone" Ayahuasca experience better. However, when it comes to curing, i think that this "may or may not" be rather limiting without the prescence of a trained Shaman. Certainly, if you know what your problems are, you should know what medicinal plants to take if you have this knowledge, and fresh supply. But i'm led to believe that part of the cure also includes the use of curing icaros as well, etc, etc.

I might be wrong, however.



Yes, i agree that these visionary plants can provide plant knowledge to those especially who have spent time in the nature on a restrictive diet, and then become Shamen, etc. This is the kind of edge that a good Shaman will have over someone who simply drinks Ayahuasca in their home, etc. A good shaman's life is pretty much a non stop "dieta" anyhow. That alone is something most of us westerners would struggle with, living in our stressful modern day lifestyles, and all the junk that goes with it. And that's why many of us westerners get ill in the first place, etc. Some people are however ingrained with problems that have seriously manifested as illness i'm sure. And i think these people "may or may not" be more suited to the help of a good Shaman, who charges local prices (very reasonable).
Personally, i think i can sort my own problems out myself and don't need any curing or shaman, however some people can't seem to step out from themselves, and some people really are very messed up indeed and certainly could do with some good outside help, even if simply a break from regular life is required with the knowledge that that person tried to do something positive for their condition. I think that alone can be very empowering in itself.

The purge happens also to poeple or shamen that do this often apparently.
Sometimes when you don't purge doesn't necessarily means you're "dirty" or "toxic" but that you hold on your toxins, emotionnal garbage.

Yes, the purge is certainly a positive action in removing negativity, and is certainly part of a curing process... But only part.