Ayahuasca in Ecuador

After leaving the farm, I took a bus to Santo Domingo, and then the next morning made my way to the land of the Tsachilas, accompanied by Eliza and Julie (friends from Wisdom Forest). Tsachilas are a spiritual people of the Ecuadorian orient. 

We arrived in time to help them build a Temascal for that evening, in preparation for the ayahuasca ceremony the following evening. We spend about an hour collecting the large, partially burned, big, fan leaves for the roof, and the long, split and stripped bamboo poles for the frame, from all around the woods. We started by drawing a circle with an approximate 4 meter diameter with a stick and vine compass, and clear and level the space. Then made a frame out of the bamboo, and then made the roof with the big, fan leaves (layering them in a way that the heat wouldn't escape and rain wouldn't enter... (See photos).

That evening we did a Tamascal ceremony. With the Tsachilas it was much more ceremonial and spiritual with vented waters, songs, spirit calling, etc., rather than hot, and physically challenging and cleaning like at Wisdom Forest.

That night we got to sleep at a beautiful Eco House high up on a jungle hill, surrounded by tropical fruit and cacao trees. It down-poured all night long, and we woke up in the fresh, wet, and sunny paradise, looking down over a big spread of jungle.

That day we are fruit for breakfast and nothing else all day to prepare our bodies for the ayahuasca we were going to drink in the evening. At around 21hr we did another Tamascal for one final cleansing, and then at 23hr our Shaman performed the Ayahuasca ceremony. First we inhaled a squirt of strong tobacco tea in each nostril (supposed to give us a bit of a high), and then took tuns going to the shaman for our ayahuasca drinking. 

Once we drank the strong, bitter liquid, we all sat around in a cleared space in the forest. There was a dwindling fire there which acted as a good source of light for us to each get to a comfortable space, and warmth for when some of us got the sensation of extreme cold during the trip. 

It was all an interesting experience, and I could describe all the dirty details of the hours of nonstop puking and diarrhea I and most everyone else experienced, and the paranoia and visions I experienced, etc. I am glad I did it, and grateful I had the opportunity to do it with this tribe, but it'll be a while until I am ready to try it again.

The next morning I woke up feeling extremely hung over: dizzy, nauseous, tired, feverish, irritable, etc. The shaman took us down to the river and performed another ceremony, this one using rose water, and other scented alcoholic waters that he put in his mouth and spat out in a misty spray, to "cleanse" us, and then we took a fried gourd and used it to pour the sacred waters of the stream over ourselves. It felt sooo good to be cooled off by the icy water!