Mas Aventuras

As my family well knows- I cannot go on a trip without incurring a serious infection (eg Dengue Fever) or a serious natural disaster (like a rogue wave or an avalanche). I wasn't about to disappoint with this trip, but I wasn't expecting it to come so early. I suspected with my luck that perhaps something could come of my ayahuasca experience (see part 2), but thankfully that was not the case.
Part One: The jungle in all its moist deliciousness is an ideal environment for life of all kinds, including a crazy assortment of fungi and bacteria. Basically if you have a wound, it will become infected. Because of this, the blisters which I received playing soccer the day I got here (which I could have more correctly identified as absesses), turned into little pockets of excrutiating infection on the soles of my feet, that I felt with each movement of my foot. I was hesitant to go to the doctor here, knowing from my experience working in a clinic in Cajamarca that the care here is ¨unresearched¨ at best, dangerous at worst. But when I couldn't sleep a couple nights ago, my friend Oscar dragged me to the clinic.
The clinic in reality was a modified store front. We knocked on the door and a secretary answered. She called the doctor who was in plain clothes and had me take a seat in the one-room office. I undid my bandages for him to see, to which he remarked, ¨Puta madre,¨ which is sort of like saying ¨son of bitch,¨ but a little more crude. With ungloved hands, he washed it off and applied some more gauze. He then gave me a shot in the butt of Pennicillin G and a steroid. The whole thing took about 10 minutes and cost about $10! The same thing would have cost at least a few hundred dollars in the US.
Hooray for getting sick...but not too sick thank god (may I never have to be hospitalized here; I would rather be in a US teaching hospital in July...which if you've never worked in a hospital is the time when the new residents come on board and it can be a little scary). I am happy to report that with the magic of systemic antibiotics and steroids, I am back to freely walking about, and I even went to a disco with Oscar last night, which invloved watching a bunch of 18-year-olds grinding on each other to reggaton.

Part 2: The reason I came to Pucallpa was to drink Ayahuasca, which is a mix of hallucinogenic and purgative jungle herbs which has been taken for hundreds of years by tribes in the Amazon as a sort of super medicine to cure all that ails you, from parasites to cancer to depression, and to help you connect with the spiritual world. Many books and articles have been written about the curative effects of Ayahuasca, and there is actually a research and rehabiltation facility in Tarapoto that specializes in rehabilitating drug addicts, alcoholics, and criminals using ayahuaska and psychotherapy. I had wanted to experience it the last time I was here, but I met someone who told me I should wait until Ayahuasca came to me instead of seek it out. So when I had the opportunity to drink it with my friend who is from the area, who has done it several times before, and who is acquainted with a well known (and non-touristic) shaman, I couldn't pass it up. I am going to write a whole other article about my experience, but I will not post it publically, so if you're interested in reading it, email me. I invite anyone to read it, but I don't want it to be out in the public realm, so really, if you have interest in learning about my experience or Ayahuasca in general, simply send me an email at Rachel.Olsson@gmail.com and I will send it to you when I finish writing.

That's it for now! much love de la selva (the jungle)
RO