Chapter 19: Back in Iquitos

I stayed in the Rainbow family a week more, but then health problem started: I first hit my little toe during the treasure hunt for my birthday, and after getting infected I lost the nail; also the infection spread to some mosquito bites on my feet. But everyone was struggling with that problem since humidity in the jungle makes it really hard to dry and heal such cuts. Soon after, while we were on the way back to the community after a big flood, we had to walk in the water to belly button height for a good while; I think it was during that episode that I got a virus infecting my blood, something like a staphylococcus. I started antibiotics, but again, that jungle climate just didn't want me to heal. At that time it was already really hard to walk, my feet had troll size... But Tom heard about my state and came from the city to rescue me from the jungle! My superhero!

Back to Iquitos, we thought the best would be to find a boat for Ecuador directly, so I could spend the boat trip healing and relaxing. I had heard one would leave on Monday or Tuesday. A bit rapid, but well, that was OK. Going back to the boat the next day, we learn that we are not going before Saturday... Perfect for us! I could come on the boat from Thursday and Tom could make a last good by party on Friday. Awesome. Perfect timing. But... on Saturday the departure was again postponed... to the next Monday! And Monday... to Tuesday! And Tuesday to … the next Saturday again! So now, Tom being quite sick qs well, we just came back to the city centre for a couple of nights of comfort before we (hopefully) leave on Saturday for a 6-8 days boat trip to Ecuador! Hopefully we'll get there with full health!

Belen, popular neighborhood in Iquitos...

...with its huge market...

... and its mapacho, tobacco of the jungle.

Chapter 18: Ayahuasca Experience

 Here is my Ayahuasca Experience. Tom's one can be found on his facebook here.

The community offers recently Ayahuasca ceremonies led by 2 amazing mamitas, a mum and a daughter, very talented. We agreed with Tom to do separate ceremonies for more space, so he left to town to do some work during the weekend while I would celebrate and heal, and vice-versa I would leave him space to do his ceremony in Padreqotcha, a tiny village where he had friends.

The ceremony took place on a Friday, first night of a new moon. It was a special ceremony, the last one led by the mamitas until 2 months, and the end of a big circle and beginning of a new one for many people of the group. The blow of the horn gathered us around 8pm in the Templo Sagrado, everyone took a place in the circle... I felt the excitement in me, and even though I was the only 1st-timer in a group of 25 people, I'm pretty sure I was not the only one; the excitement was not in me, it was in the air, almost palpable!

We all introduced ourselves and expressed to the mamitas our reasons to take the medicine that night, and then everyone in turn would come and sit in front of them to receive the healing potion. When everyone was done, they started to sing... How beautiful singing, reaching you straight and deep in the heart! They sang one or 2 songs together, and then started to go around the circle to sing individually to people. She would come, spit on the floor, sit down in front of you, blow mapacho smoke to you (mapacho is the pure tobacco of the jungle, its smoke is meant to protect you from bad spirits during your trip), start to share rhythmically a fan made of leaves, and gradually add her song, from whisper to intense singing, and after what seemed ages but was probably only minutes, back to whispering again, before going to the next person. When they went all around the circle, they gathered once more for a last good bye song... It sounded like the birth of a new world to me!

I have to say, after 2 glasses of the potion that didn't affect me, I went for a 3^rd one, and only then started my trip... The time had already passed and at the moment of this last song I was totally travelling. It was first like if the landscape (which in reality was totally dark, at night, without moon and just ambers in the fire) started to flicker, like if someone would turn on the TV of your mind. Then visions started, fractal designs of graceful shapes dancing in front of me, showing me the way to the tunnel; started to go faster and faster in the tunnel, then the tunnel became a snake, and the snake would enter the bumhole of the dead body of a baby rat (I tried to save a litter of baby rats during the same week, but failed). I interpreted it in that way that I was attending the reincarnation of my dead baby rats. Interesting.

Not much more to say about the visions, I think I had a small dose of the drink. But when the intense visions had passed, I felt so light, clear, every little problem I had would seem so easily solvable, nothing would distract my spirit and mind from a growing unconditional love. After the mamitas left, the ceremony turned into a big jam sessions, where guys would play music and sing in harmony with girls dancing like demons! What a beautiful sight! Everyone was so full of love, gathering an amazing energy to send to Oneness! It lasted all night, and the intensity of mosquitoes forced us back to bad in the early morning, peaceful and again, so full of love! I felt so blessed to get my first Ayahuasca experience in such an amazing context, surrounded by a loving family! Thank you Rainbow Family in Iquitos, Thank you Arnaud, thank you Ayahuasca, thank you Oneness!

The family cooking the medicine

Chapter 17: Rainbow Family in the jungle

I was so blessed to be welcome by my loving Tom soon after I arrived... actually less that an hour after our landing... After a month being away! So nice to be together again =)

We went to a 5-soles-hammock-hostel (less than £2) and met a really nice group of people, who told us that the couchsurfer we were about to stay at was actually a conman! They just came back from the place and got stolen money! They were also all heading to a place called Comunidad Arco Iris... But wait, that sound a lot like the rainbow family in Iquitos that Felipe told us about, no? Yes, of course, arco iris = rainbow in Spanish hehe

Life there was like paradise! Eating 2 of the healthiest meals ever per day (porridge and exotic fruit salads for breakfast, and huge stews made of numerous beans, seeds and vegetables from the jungle for lunch), living with such a huge respect for environment (carbon filter in order to use the water from the river, using ashes and lemon for dish, clothes and body washing – even the teeth! -, dried toilet to reuse as compost in the garden, plantation of fruit trees like papayas, bananas and cocos, as well as vegetables, sugar cane, etc...), and of course, no electricity.

For my birthday, which happened during the first week, I decided to do was I do the best: organise games! And then the whole community turned into a big holiday camp: little games in the circle before meals, killer game throughout day, treasure hunt in the different places of the land... SO much fun =)

A little bit about the history of the place. It is owned by a French guy, Arnaud, who came in Iquitos 10 years ago; he was then 22, and bought 80 hectares of Amazonian forest for only 10 000€! (By the way, there is 40 hectares to buy next land, for the same price – yep, price doubled in 10 years!-, for those who want to do an eco-friendly investment... Knowing that they are about to cut 30 000 HECTARES in Iquitos area, just for the sake of a f**king ridiculous palm tree plantation to produce palm oil for a Malaysian company!).

He is living there since then, offering a wonderful place for a rainbow family to happen (permanent rainbow gathering with some adaptation, that means that the spirit is the same, but for the sake of a permanency, some modification are brought to the system, like paying for a short stay). Well, my first rainbow experience was a success!

We stayed there 2 weeks together, feeling as light as feathers and spending a lot of time appreciating Nature in our own ways. We were blessed to get a private casa with the only double bed on site (again, what luck!), casa de Krishna.

The kitchen

The rio, to wash dishes, clothes... and body!

Our clay cooker

David, from Canada

The living room

The ladies washing...

Dany, Soul of a godess

Manu & Agustin

Eileen & Gaston

Eileen & Audrey

Arnaud & Tom

Shamanic art

Casa Krishna, our home home with double bed

Mystic fruits of the jungle...

Our jungle cat, Huanbisa

Jungle rats and mouse story:

I was recently missing the presence of animals, and especially rats that I use to have and cherish. One day I found a nest of rats next to the food shed, a lovely grey young mum and a litter of 5 2-days-old baby rats. We had to remove them from the food shed, but the mum got scared and I was worried that she wouldn't come back for the babies. Indeed, the next day, even though we tried to leave the nest as intact as possible, the babies were still here, pink like prawns and eyes not yet opened. The following days, I tried my best to save them, building a cage to protect them from bigger animals, feeding them with milk through the corner of a plastic bag... but it failed, and one after the other they died.

It was very interesting experience, to give as much love as possible to save these little creatures but fighting no to get attached because of the high risk of death, and finally fully accepting their death as part of life, with nothing negative in it... to the point where I could just give the little dead bodies to the cats without excessive grief. I'm grateful for that experience.

The day before leaving, while I was cooking, something fell from the ceiling just next to me. It was a tiny mouse! She didn't move, just stayed there, staring at me. So I took it, and she just stayed on me, hiding in my clothes! I finally got the partner I asked for! But it didn't last long before she went over the shock and escape from my care. It made me quite sad, and I still miss my rats and hope I have the opportunity soon to get a new one.

Chapter 16: Trip Cusco-Iquitos

My trip to Iquitos was a nightmare. I knew that the shortest would be a 24h ride to Lima plus a 20h bus to Pucallpa, then 5 days boat trip to Iquitos. I was fine with the boat part, but 2 days in a bus? No way!

Then I discovered that the Amazon river, going to Iquitos, has an affluent in Urubamba, an hour away from Cusco! But we were too high in the mountains. So I decided to go straight North, following the river, in order to take a boat either in Ayacucho or for sure in Huancayo.

The first bus ride was actually 12h just to get middle way to Ayacucho, followed by a 2-flat-tyres-12h-more-bus to the actual town. 24h. In Ayacucho, the Peruvian precision about space and time made me miss the bus station... the bus was actually going directly to Lima! What the hell? I end up staying in the bus for another... 12h to Lima! 36h in a row! Started to get insane, but no way I would stay a night in Lima, so took the first bus to Pucallpa. 55h. Just that. Believe me, that open air 5 days boat trip was more than welcome!!

Living on a boat for 4 days was amazing, spending most of your time making sure that your hammock is balancing because of the heat, relaxing, admiring the landscape... I loved it. Not much to tell about though, but that one night we had to stop because of heavy fog; that the following night the captain and some guys of the crew came back with 2 water turtles to eat later on the land; and that the ports and boats in the jungle have the highest rate of gay people! Such a warm atmosphere!

On the boat I met an Italian photographer, Guiseppe Bartuccio (www.gbarte.com) who gave me the honour of using his photos for the blog because I lost my camera during the trip... (all rights reserved). Have a look:

The legend of the pink dolphin:

At many confluences of the Amazon river, where lots of fish congregate, you can see beautiful pink dolphins! Yeah, you can actually find dolphins in a river!

The legend said they are kind of “mermen”, transforming into attractive young men at night in order to seduce girls on the river banks.

The little Rosita, 18, who use to wash clothes in the river everyday, once fell asleep and woke up at night lying next to a handsome young man pretending he was a fisherman. After several night spent together, she said to her dad she was in love and wanted to get married. He accepted and also offered the boy to stay at their place. Mysteriously, the boy would always disappear before dawn and never come back before sunset. One fateful morning, he slept in, and Rosita woke up next to something wet and cold... a pink dolphin! She screamed, and her dad, in panic, shot the animal.

The young fishermen never came to visit Rosita after that day and was never seen again.

Rosita, who discovered soon after that she was pregnant, was heartbroken and could never believe that her lover left her.

But another part of the legend is that some bad dolphins would drown people to bring them to their underwater world.

I just red an article in the newspaper telling the story of Roxanne, a passionate for dolphins, who came in 1982 to observe them. She was in a canoe with her guide at a place where you can find them, and soon they started to circle the canoe and dance around flapping their paddles and splashing with their blow-holes. Dolphins are very friendly animals, so totally exited she jumped in the water and swam with them... until she got hit by something! She hurried back into the canoe and saw twilling in the water for a moment, then all was calm. The dolphins had made the predator go away and saved her! Later, she got told she was attacked by a bull shark. Yeah, shark also can live in big rivers! But apparently at that time, even local people wouldn't believe her. This can explain this other part of the legend accusing the dolphins of drowning people.