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A32 FEATURE
Saturday 9 June 2018
Psychedelic tourism thrives in Peru despite recent killing

By FRANKLIN BRICENO Ginsberg described feeling
NUEVO EGIPTO, Peru (AP) like a “snake vomiting out
— Sitting on a mattress the universe” after trying
strewn across the floor with ayahuasca in the rainfor-
white sheets, Pamela Mo- est a short boat ride from
ronci closes her eyes while Nuevo Egipto.
a traditional healer starts More recently, it has won
to chant in the indigenous devotees among the rich
Shipibo language. and famous despite its rep-
In a straw hut, engulfed by utation for an all-consuming
the nighttime cacophony high that for many people
of the Amazon rainforest, leads to violent vomiting
a shaman inhales a potent and diarrhea. Troubled ac-
tobacco from a pipe and tress Lindsay Lohan credits
blows smoke on Moronci’s ayahuasca with changing
head to cleanse her, be- her life, singer Sting said it
fore she takes her place in was his only ever “genuine
a sacred ayahuasca cer- religious experience,” and
emony. He offers the Ital- Netflix is currently distrib-
ian woman a plastic cup uting two documentaries
with three ounces of a bit- on the mind-tripping drink
ter, muddy brew made of with big-name backers like
psychedelic vines. Moronci Leonardo DiCaprio and
drinks it, coughs and smiles In this May 6, 2018 photo, Shaman Pablo Flores concentrates after drinking ayahuasca during a Chelsea Handler.
despite its unpleasant taste. session in Nuevo Egipto, a remote village in the Peruvian Amazon. Charles Grob, a psychiatrist
“There is a really strong en- Associated Press at the Harbor-UCLA Medi-
ergy here,” she says, be- cal Center in Los Angeles
fore falling asleep, amid Over the past decade at a gun he purchased. Now Rio Grande do Norte in Bra- who has studied ayahuas-
the chirping of crickets and least 11 tourists have been they are investigating what zil, who spent more than a ca, says that the plants’
thundering rain. killed in incidents linked could have led him to pull year in the jungle research- effects are mostly benign.
Every year thousands of to traditional medicine in the trigger. ing ayahuasca and its uses. In 1993, he conducted a
tourists visit jungle retreats South America, according “The most likely scenario is “To some extent, shamanic study on ayahuasca users in
in Peru, Colombia and Ec- to news reports, including that it was a dispute over tourism is replicating this Brazil, finding that subjects
uador to try ayahuasca, a a California man who was money,” says Ricardo Ji- savage logic of extractive who attended a church
hallucinogenic elixir made buried secretly by a sha- menez, the lead prosecu- industries where people that reveres ayahuasca
of native plants that is man after he died in an tor in the case. and nature have little pro- were mentally healthy.
thought to heal some men- ayahuasca ceremony in In 2015, a former Goldman tection,” she said. “A number of our subjects
tal illnesses. But while Mo- Peru. The latest killing took Sachs analyst got hold of a Ayahuasca in the Que- had strong histories of al-
ronci and others say they place in April, not far from knife during an ayahuasca chua language means the cohol abuse that entirely
have found peace and the Peruvian village of Nue- ceremony at a retreat cen- vine of the soul — or death, ceased,” after they joined
enlightenment, for a few vo Egipto, where Sebastian ter in Peru and attacked a depending on the trans- the Uniao do Vegetal
seekers the experience has Woodroffe, a 41-year-old Canadian man who was lation — and it has been church and took ayahuas-
been fatal. Canadian man studying with him. He was killed by used for hundreds of years ca twice a month, Grob
And as more Westerners medicinal plants, was blud- the Canadian, who acted by indigenous communi- said.
seek out the legendary cu- geoned in broad daylight in self-defense. In 2014, ties throughout the Ama- But Grob adds that there
rative, commercialization by an angry mob in retali- a 19-year-old British man zon basin, mostly in religious are risks in taking the plant,
has taken over as profit- ation for him allegedly kill- died in Colombia after he rituals. especially in places where
seeking impostors pop up ing a revered traditional passed out during an aya- The gringo trail to the spiri- there is no medical facili-
among the dozens of legiti- healer. huasca ritual. tual El Dorado took off with ties or proper oversight. The
mate ayahuasca centers Peruvian investigators later Anthropologists say the re- the publication in 1963 plant contains DMT, an al-
that have emerged over concluded Woodroffe shot gion’s history of violence of “The Yage Letters,” in kaloid that causes strong
the years. healer Olivia Arevalo with and lawlessness could be which beatnik poet Allen hallucinations.q
replicating itself in the vir-
tually unregulated aya-
huasca industry. In back-
water towns like Iquitos or
Pucallpa, aggressive Eng-
lish-speaking touts offering
ayahuasca ceremonies
greet tourists literally as they
come off the boat, while in
indigenous markets a liter-
size bottle of the power-
ful tea fetches as much as
$100.
“The Amazon has long had
a frontier economy, based
on the exploitation of its
In this May 6, 2018 photo, Italian national Pamela Moronci at- natural resources,” said In this May 4, 2018 photo, supplies for ayahuasca and Santeria
tends an ayahuasca session in Nuevo Egipto, at a remote vil- Ana Echazu-Boschemeier, rituals, are displayed for sale in the Pucallpa market, deep in the
lage in the Peruvian Amazon. an anthropology professor Amazonian jungle of Peru.
Associated Press at the Federal University of Associated Press