Tag Archives: South American countries

Lima Interlude During the Multiple Inti-Raymi’s of Imbabura Province

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Preface: I had written this piece at the beginning of the month (June 4th) and then after I returned to Quito a number of events crowded out the time to post it in it’s rightful order. Now I’m thinking that rather than trash it, I’ll wedge it into the Otavalo/Inti-Raymi postings and disrupt them too. Since I’ve left my comfort cocoon I see that each day is bringing me nonstop experiences. Until now I had been collecting and perfecting them for larger posts, but that presents its own problems.

With so much daily input I could end up waiting forever for the perfect wrap. A wrap that really, will never come. So rather than try to bring organization, a totally foreign concept in my life, I will henceforth spew shorter but more frequent postings. Let’s see how this works for me. For you, fractionally more e-mail. At least for those who “Follow” and therefore receive notifications.

Cement, Sand, and Gravel

I’ve been in Lima now for 2 days and I can find some interesting differences between here and Quito. For one, more people I meet seem to know at least some English and are willing to switch languages for my benefit; even when I’d rather continue speaking Spanish. Maybe that’s a hint that my Spanish is worse than I’d like to think. If so, I’ll just refuse the hint and keep on butchering the language.

Perhaps the first thing I noticed is that they seem to know how to pour (AKA “place” in the trades) concrete here. After 20yrs in construction culminating in a general contractor’s license, I do know a thing or 2 about mixing cement, sand, and gravel with a bit of water. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Ecuadorian construction.

I’ve already suffered from poor pours by breaking a bone in my foot stepping on broken concrete pieces a few months back. The sidewalks in Quito are deplorable and inexcusable. And I have stood there and watched new pours and lived in Quito enough months to judge the results of those same pours: the crap they place is so badly mixed that it’s decomposing almost as soon as it cures. COME ON FOLKS: concrete mixtures are not a lost art; 3 components plus water, it ain’t that complex!!

Thing is, when I was working in the trades, it was a given that whatever you built, you did so with the expectation that it would last for generations. Nothing was more devastating to a tradesman than to have his (and now, thankfully with gender liberalization, hers too!) work fail. When you built something, by God that construct was going to outlast your grandchildren!

I can’t begin to tell you the feeling of pride I got when I revisited something I built 30 years later and saw it looked as solid as when I put it up back in the late 60’s. You don’t see that as much as I’d expect with so many projects in Ecuador. I’d love to meet an Ecuadorian builder for some in-depth discussions about this. I love the country and its people so very deeply but I cannot fathom its construction practices. By contrast, I truly appreciate the sidewalks I’ve seen in Lima so far.

Yeah, well I never claimed to be normal, anyway. You have your loves, I have mine.

One puzzling issue twixt these 2 Andean countries is economics, and I have no recollections as to whether its micro- or macro-economics that I’m talking about. My college econ courses were too many years ago to remember now which was which. But everything I read and hear says that Peru is a poor country. OK, I get that. Then why are things more expensive here than they are in Ecuador?

It’s a given, at least to everyone who talks to me, that the cost of living is higher in Perú than in Ecuador, but why? Please, all you closet economists out there: I’ll buy you a beer if you can enlighten me. Food costs, taxis, hotels and hostels are noticeably higher and I have no clue how that is related to a country being designated as “poor.” Somebody, help me!

Chicklet Seller, Lima

Chicklet Seller, Lima

Another major difference between the 2 capitals is the climate. With Quito kissing the Equator one might expect it to be far warmer than it is. Not so, amigos. Many’s the time I’ve been bundled up in long-johns, a fleece jacket and wool watch-cap, and still feelin’ the chill. Of course sitting on a valley floor at more than 9,000 feet above the sea, surrounded by 16,000 foot volcanoes does have a mitigating effect.

Quiteños never tire of reminding me that June is the best month for weather in their city. But, except for 2 days next week, I’ll miss being able to verify that claim. By the middle of the month I will have “closed shop” in the capital and moved on. Perhaps Quito really does have great weather then, but I can say that the first 5 months of the year were less than appealing, with changes every 10 minutes, from sun to clouds to rain to cold and back to sun all over again. The city itself is endlessly fascinating, but the climate is not my favorite to be sure.

And yet what I hear about the climate of Lima is also not attractive at first blush. I’m here during the heavy cloud-cover time. It can be downright cool at night and even though my eyes are troubled by bright days (glaucoma), I can leave both my hat and my sunglasses back at the hostel. The clouds never seem to leave and the overcast is very complete and persistent. And when it does get sunny (December to February), it is also hot and humid, which seems like an unpleasant time too. I’ll have to wait and see because the hot season is when I think that I’ll be back for an extended stay.

I discovered my “traveling style” while in Quito. Initially planning to be there for a month, I was seduced by its charms, its noise and chaos, and just simply wandering its streets watching it work. So that month became five. I expect the same will happen here in Lima. During an initial meeting with the SAEX/Lima director, Michael Goldsworthy, I learned that the Club has a number of ways for the newcomer to ease into the capital.

They publish a hard copy guide to services and attractions of interest to travelers and have updated it regularly. As opportunities arise, Michael invites local experts to present talks about the arts and politics of both the city and the country. There is a Spanish language teacher who includes “hands-on Lima” classes that visit markets, examine how to ride public transport (no simple skill with a completely private “system” of buses, renegade taxis, vans, minivans, etc.), and other immersive activities which are so vital when landing in a capital of a new country and culture. I’ll be ready for those field-trips to be sure.

This past Friday evening I attended a Machu Picchu lecture at the Club. The overall theme, delivered by an explorer who has an intimate 40+ year history with the ruins, seemed to be that a great conspiracy exists. This collusion I’m told, wants to keep the “truth” of Machu Picchu from the rest of us through some apparent Indiana Jones machinations. Entertaining to be sure, but I was actually more drawn to the expat characters who made up the bulk of the audience. The youngest seemed to be from early-middle aged (whatever that category is in these changing days) while the oldest seems to have been on intimate terms with Hiram (the “discoverer” of Machu Picchu) Bingham’s youngest son. This Club, the oldest branch of SAEX, demands further investigation. I’ve accepted the assignment.

And I’ve also accepted Michael’s invitation to apply for a room at the club when I do return. Like each of the SAEX branches, Lima has rooms for both short-term and longer stays. It has a kitchen large enough for several travelers at a time, a common area with a large map table and a very large lending library with a separate book exchange.Michael tells me that soon they will also inhabit the downstairs and begin hosting monthly socials like the successful ones held in Quito. This should be in effect before I return.

In Which Our Traveler Finds Natem and Also Finds That He Doesn’t Feel So Good

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Natemamu, Part II: A Strange Brew

So what is it that makes people willingly take a glass-full of a bitter, thick liquid when they know that they will probably be bent over an hour later, purging not only their last few meals, but what the shamans believe are negative energies? Why subject oneself to this knowingly and repeatedly? That was something that certainly ran through my mind as I was bent over mid-way through the introductory ceremony. People not only pay money for this, but they actually come back and do it again? And again?

Chris Kilham, more famously known as the Medicine Hunter, and senior health editor for Fox News, regards this plant brew as the most potent healing agent in the world. And since, by his own admission, he’s participated in several dozen ceremonies, Kilham is positioned well to hold this opinion. He now leads groups to the Amazon to experience for themselves the healing powers of this amazing plant.

Known to the Shuar as natem, to others as ayahuasca, yagé, daime, la purga and many other names, this concoction has been in use for thousands of years in the Amazon basin. Now it is undergoing many clinical trials in South American countries following rigorous laboratory protocols.

Kilham, investigating medicinal plants for more than 30 years and a tenured professor at UMass-Amherst, believes (as do I and thousands of others) that natem unlocks a spirit world and permits us to enter this world in a highly personal way. He also goes on to say that those who criticize, those who disbelieve the existence of this spirit world are invariably those who have never attended such a ceremony. Like the Medicine Hunter, I’ve always believed that it is so very easy to have an opinion, and a very strong one at that, of something about which someone knows nothing.

The only thing that I knew, mid-way through that first ceremony, was that morning couldn’t come soon enough. Within 45 minutes of drinking my first cup of natem, I began seeing some interesting geometric hallucinations. They were tiny, moving lights forming a kind of spider-web pattern overlaid on my “normal” vision. Having experienced LSD many times more that 40 years previously, these hallucinations were actually pretty tame in comparison. I was expecting some of the pure terror that often accompanied LSD “trips” but natem is far kinder in its greeting.

My biggest problem with this first experience, and as it turned out, for the next several nights worth of ceremonies, was that most of the energy of the natem was focused on very stern, almost violent body reactions. This first venture was for me almost completely dominated by heavy twitching and shaking of my lower extremities. My legs were reacting as if I had just completed a marathon. There was no pain, and I was very lucid, but at that point my main concern was that my shaking and jerking about would disturb others around me. While they were making contact with this spirit world, each in his or her own way (and silently, dammit!), I was laying back on my mat behaving as if someone had inserted electrodes into both legs.

As I lay there on the mat, flat on my back, I bent my knees and placed my feet flat on the mat. This slowed down the twitching and my motions were less noticeable to myself and others. The geometric patterns were gone by then, but I was developing a serious headache and some nausea. I found out later that having some water, and frequently drinking same would easily mitigate these reactions. But man, that nausea!

Over the years I have been plagued with nausea to such a degree that I’ve almost become a connoisseur. Almost, but not quite. From heavy and painfully frequent doses of motion sickness as a child, to more recent and regular daily bouts, nausea and I are no strangers. Diagnosed as suffering from intractable nausea 4 or 5 years ago, I even went so far as to register, first in New Mexico and then in Hawai’i, as a medical cannabis patient to fight off daily, and often multiple times a day bouts of nausea. Standard anti-nausea medication would either put me to sleep completely or leave me semi-comatose and unable to function. At least with the cannabis (a personal friend of many years) I could walk and chew gum at the same time.

Well the morning after my first natem ceremony I was so heavily nauseated that I knew that I was going to leave the ceremonies, leave the retreat, and somehow stumble my way back to Quito. This first morning, after having no sleep the night before, was enveloped in one of the strongest, most vicious encounters with nausea that I had ever had. After 6 decades of nausea, that’s saying something. And I was saying something too.

Having a picnic by the river and getting ready for a Ceremony

Having a picnic by the river and getting ready for a Ceremony

Ursula, the German woman who earlier told me that after 80 previous encounters with natem, she was now ready to do some serious personal work, was laying on her sleeping bag to my right. I was explaining to her, while others were slowly dealing with dawn and their own journeys, that I was probably done. I needed to see Paul and back out of this retreat as gracefully as I could. It was fortunate for me that she happened to be next to me, or maybe she planned it that way.

The 2 of us were older than the rest of the group by a full generation, and I am about ½ dozen years older than she is. In Catemayo, while waiting for the taxis, we began talking and resonated quite well. Though chronologically younger, as time went on she became my older sister and her help throughout the time we were all together for nearly 3 weeks, proved invaluable. And of all the help she provided, the most valuable was during that first morning.

She explained that since the nausea was the strongest experience that I took away from that first ceremony, then nausea was my target, was my subject. Ursula believes that nothing is an accident and my initial encounter was my personal message to return to the nausea that second night and ask why. Somehow I believed her. And with her German precision she would hear of no talk of backing out. It was inconceivable and therefore impossible to discuss leaving. Get up, get dressed, we are climbing those cobblestone steps, all 163 of them, for breakfast.

Thank you so much Ursula. You were, of course, correct.

I did make it up those steps. I had breakfast and felt fractionally better. And as the day slowly moved by and I was able to grab an hour’s sleep I realized that I really did owe it to myself to stay for a second night and maybe I could gain some benefit. After all, I had been reading about the amazing properties of ayahuasca for years, and really, a substantial reason for finally coming to South America was to drink the brew.

I had known for some time that ayahuasca is a healing enigma on the grandest scale. In the Andean countries and Brazil, many researchers, both psychiatric/psychological and medical have been deeply involved in trying to find out just how this mysterious plant works. It is, of course, an illegal substance in North America and all of Europe, as defined by the finest minds in politics. But down here, where people take a more rational view of the individual in relation to the environment, one can purchase the vine in an indigenous market a 10-minute walk from my room in Quito.

The term ayahuasca is loosely interchanged with both the vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, and the brew, which varies by country, by region, by shaman, and by what the particular shaman wants to accomplish for a particular ceremony. I refer the interested back to the Medicine Hunter for as much detail as you might like for these variations. His website, the Erowid website, and many others offer truly informative material for the truly open seeker of healing.

In my personal case, some years back I was in a losing battle with what finally was diagnosed as clinical, or major depression. But fortunately my primary care doctor put me in contact with a psychiatrist who is vehemently opposed to pharmaceuticals. She, along with a number of other renegade psychiatrists, were working at the time with the University of New Mexico’s Medical School, studying the effects of DMT as a healing agent.

DMT, from another crucial plant often referred to as chacruna, happens to play a critical role in the ayahuasca brew. My older sister Ursula would argue that none of this is an accident: my having depression, connecting with a scientifically curious psychiatrist, UNM/Med-School research, a plane flight to Ecuador, etc.

Now DMT, you must understand, has also been classified in the USA as a dangerous drug of no medical value. Along with cannabis. These classifications were determined to be true through rigorous medical research conducted by, wait for it: YES!, politicians. Aren’t we happy that they are protecting us from ourselves? Umm, no, not really.

With all of this information rolling around in my mind, there could be no debate. Following another tasty lunch and a shower, I came back to my mat, cleaned up some of the surrounding area, and got ready for the second, or Opening Ceremony. This turned out to be a brew of different proportions and, to put it in a most melodramatic way, it really did change my life.