Five Weeks in the Amazon - #true #story

Chapter 12 - Making Medicine

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10

8:30pm, my tambo

When I woke up this morning, I was sore again. The sun was just coming up and I listened to the birds warm up their voices and find their harmony. Steam rose from the plants where the sun's warmth melted the night's wetness. And what started out dark lightened and the sad, painful, parts in me seemed to evaporate with it. 

The sunlight becoming more intense and the day already heating up, I went and rinsed off in the watering hole, then came back to my room to write and find some shade.

I was lying in my hammock when I heard the crack of an axe echo through the jungle clearing. I threw on a T-shirt, brushed my hammock aside, and walked out of my tambo to see what was happening. There was a man standing with his back to me under the open-roomed building at the top edge of the property. I hadn't walked up to it yet because it was still being built.

When I walked up, I saw the man's coal gray T-shirt had a stripe of sweat running down the spine of it. Under the raised building, he had two small fires smoldering underneath two massive stainless-steel pots. From my online research, I knew he was preparing a batch of Ayahuasca, which meant it was going to be brewing for up to 24 more hours. 

He was standing next to what looked like long branches and using the axe to split them into smaller, two-foot sections. When he was done, he piled the pieces on the ground next to a small blue tarp that had a rock holding down each corner. He sat down on a log next to one of the edges of the tarp and motioned for me to sit down on a log opposite him.

I hesitated to get closer, unsure if I was disrupting the Ayahuasca-making ritual. I wondered whether I was an impure gringo. Do I have to be "cleansed" before sitting down (like when I have a plant bath before a ceremony)? Will the batch be tainted from my dirty presence? 

I thought about it for a second and then thought, fuck it. With a smile and an outstretched hand, I approached him the same way I approach every stranger.

"Hola," I said.

"Buenos dias," he responded. 

"Mi nombre es Sean."

"Hola John, mucho gusto." He reached out his hand and introduced himself as Nino.

I sat down across from him on the log and watched him bash a two-foot section of thick vine with a stronger thick branch. His grin was filled with such perfect white teeth, you'd think he was raised by a dentist in the city, not a shaman in the jungle. After he'd smashed the section of branch about 20 times, its internals were torn open. Then he threw it on top of the blue tarp and the plant's nectar oozed from its tender meat. 

"Ayahuasca," he said pointing to the chopped pile next to him.

"Si." I nodded at him, the purpose of this mysterious activity now confirmed. 

A flashback from last night popped into my head. After the ceremony, I had been walking up the hill and seen a fire flickering right where we're sitting now. There were the sounds of a man singing in Spanish, and it was gently wafting through the thick night air. He must have been making more than one batch and been here all night tending to the fires. 

I wondered what would happen if you didn't brew it properly. Maybe a bad trip? One thing's for sure, Ayahuasca couldn't taste any worse no matter how you brewed it.

I gestured and half-asked in Spanish if he wanted me to help him smash up the pile of vine pieces. Smiling back at me, he reached behind his seat and passed me a hard stick for me to use. I leaned forward and grabbed a meaty piece of vine. I noticed it was wet where it had been cut at the ends and was about three to four inches in circumference.