huancayo, peru

i feel like i´ve putting this off, putting this off, nagged by my knowinginkling neccesity it is to write about my experience but feeling overwhelmed by all the possible combinations of words and phrases, like beading a piece of jewellery of string that i will never see the end of, and wanting poetry of my bones over journalistic accounts of my doings and happenings of the mind and body interactions with world of creatures and energy. beautiful moments of peace and an unknown clarity that accompany full breaths of deep knowing i can´t touch what is deepest, but content, just simply to breathe. i feel close to my spirit. my future is full of love. reveling childlike grin in my love creations often repeated over many years of future self and partners, but real, then in near empty bus cruising headfirst into darkness, knowing what love is, and i love that i am now.
to get an idea of my past week, i´ll spit up some entries from my own journal.
morning i arrived in iquitos, i was totally bummed when i discovered a real scummy guy, who rushed onto board as passengers were disembarking, brushing up against people´s sides, doing this thing with his arms crossed in such a way to try to disguise fingers wiggling at any opportunity to grab, he´d got a little side pocket on my backpack halfway unzipped before i stepped onto the plank of wood. i saw this and i felt so disgusted, and hurt by it. even if his attempt had been successful, he would only have walked away with a little bottle of hand sanitizer, but this is not the point. i felt the same way i did when i got a woman with her hand in the front pocket of my bag in ibarra. it made me feel betrayed, as a human being. i tried to let it go on my way to the ´hobo hideout´s traveller´s hostal´, and a while later i was having a good satisfying breakfast at an american style restaurant (real coffee at last!). after paying my bill i walked over to the waterfront´s pedestrian stip a block away. very lowkey, nothing like the chaotic docks in pucallpa. large faded walkways with a few remaining flecks of peeling paint, zigzagging down to the swampy area of still water and distant wilderness, untouched, enchanting the view. i was approached by a young local guy who, after greeting me, told me first off he´d like to practice his english with me. i was, a little to my own surprise, totally warm, open, and accepting of him right away. he explained that he had just dropped off some documents for his sister that he had to pick up at the end of the afternoon and he had all day to kill, suggesting we walk towards the neighborhood of belen, ¨the venice of peru´, he said, which it truly is. a poor neighborhood which, during the high water season (now) is only navigatable by boat. it´s made up of hundreds of ´floating houses´. i waited in the market while he arranged for a canoe for us, watching women hunt for clothes at tables piled with clothes for only 1 sole a piece. then i was seated in the back of the old wooden canoe, while some guy paddled us around, and i took some amazing (fingers crossed!) photos. it was great to see, and i couldn´t have pictured that morning going any better. it was something i´d read about and was interested in doing, but felt unsure of the steps needed to make it happen. i consciously thanked, whatever you want to name it, mother aya! god! universe! thanks! because i felt like i was recieving the type of ´travel´that i have wanted, like i was ´in´the current. afterwards, we explored the market a little bit, which was absolute insanity. i thought it was so sweet, when in a serious, and accented, tone, he said, ¨i think, if you don´t mind please, i should hold your hand while we are here, because there are lots of bad boys.¨so i obliged. after emmerging from the bustling crowded blocks of market, where anything can be purchased, from medicinal barks to raw meat, he suggested we go to the zoo, where we´d be able to see a bunch of monkeys, birds and even jaguars. we caught a chicken bus and i enjoyed the 20 minute ride out of the city, observing the street life. i think he felt really important being able to knowledgeably tell me about different animal species as we wandered from cage to cage. my first sight was an amusing display of turtles sunbathing in singular file down a log. i was practically squealing at each animal we passed by. i felt a bit rushed by hime though, who was acting almost a little too formally as a guide, even saying things like, ok, let´s continue, after he thought sufficient time had passed at one spot. i swear, i could watch a cage full of monkeys for hours on end without feeling bored. i don´t know if i even like the concept of wild animals being locked up in cages for display, but i can´t lie and say i don´t enjoy watching them. i was vibrating. i felt like i was communicating the entire morning with wilson so openly, so articulately, clearly. my throat was buzzing. i was being me! there was a nice lake included within the zoo and we swam and i tanned, for a few hours. now i´m gonna have to whine a little bit. i guess he was very taken by me, and although he was generally a respectful guy, he became persistently whiney while we were swimming, because i didn´t want to be close to him. ok, our conversation was pretty funny, and i was amused by him, but he just wasn´t listening to me. oh kristina, i like you so much! ohh, ahgghh, whine whine. when we got back into central iquitos we went into the tour agency where some friends of his worked. he wanted to take me there because he thought he could get me a discount. and before i knew it, i had paid for a 3 day trip into the jungle that i´d be embarking on the following morning at 9. it sounded like everything i´d had in mind. i was a little uncertain how i´d find a group to join for a tour, since it´s not possible to go as one person, and it is low tourist season, so i felt lucky when i found out there was a couple going, from peru. not only that, but i did recieve a very generous discount through wilson. trying to seperate with him at the end of the day proved to be just as aggravating as i´d worried it would be. finally i told him there was a man that i love in canada. why didn´t you say so before? he said, exasperated. well, i didn´t think of it. it hit me that my entire day, or at least, following his first attempts to bring me into his arms in a little too more-than-friendly way, could have been radically different if i´d just been able to tell a little lie and say i had a boyfriend in canada. so simple, but i just can´t. so anyway, at least i can say this and not feel bad about it, it´s true! there are several men i love in canada! (i avoided mentioning that it was not romantically).

Feb.28
i´m here at the lodge now. it´s made up of a series of simple, but nice, wood cabins. soon i, our guide, who has turned out to be far more gentle and knowledgable that i expected, and the older couple, who also, turns out, brought along their little daughter as well, will be visiting an indigenous community as included in the package. we did a short walk around the area and were shown many interesting things by ashuco, with his machete in hand, he continued to impress us by his knowledge of the uses, medicinal, gastronomical, and recreational, of different types of plants and fruits that lined the trail. he demonstrated how, in a certain large flat type of leaf, you were actually able to write or draw on it, with a certain type of bark, which he quickly shaved, even with the massive blade of the machete, into fine points to be used as pencils. it was like magic. he made a few marks on the leaf, and at first, nothing. 30 seconds later the color appeared and the mark was clearly visible! a beautiful shade of fushia, he gave us each one and on mine, later, i etched, AMOR (love) into it. now i think i will use it as a bookmark. later on he stabbed a tree, and a thick white liquied began pouring out of the stab wound and down the trunk. he let it dribble over his finger and then raised it to his mouth to slurp it up. the name of the tree was actually, milk tree! we did the same, and it actually had a nice taste, kind of sweet.
i feel myself connecting with nature on a familiar but amplified level. while i followed behind ashuco, i felt myself expand totally with joy and wonder while i looked at everything around me. every blade of grass a mircale, an expression of love, a mystery. i was connected. i think this will be a very quiet time for me, perhaps this is a good opportunity for me to practice stillness, with the beautiful energy here acting as my guide. i love the jungle! already thoughts have leapt forth, almost in a tone of urgency, of being here for a long time. if i could just meet me ´teacher´, i thought, i could see myself living and learning here, as there is so much this immaculate jungle can teach, about life, love, and healing.

mar. 2
i am now back in iquitos. i´ve just got a room at a real rundown looking place (an attraction in my eye) that wilson pointed out to me on our day together. it seems to me, often owners of hotels, restaurants, agencies, who know one another, kind of work together, each recommending the other. it´s only 2 soles cheaper than the other hostal i was at, but the cheaper the better, i suppose, when as long as i have a clean bed and a decent atmosphere, i´m happy. today i feel extremelely low on energy, but i´m trying to accept it as the current state i´m in and not let myself get frustrated by it. my enthusiasm dwindled the second day of the trip. i didnt feel the same connection with my surroundings, and communication was, felt, really off with ashuco, our guide. i found myself getting very impatient with his pidgin english, and wished he would just stick to speaking spanish, but i think he was under the impression that my spanish level was lower than it actually is, and that he was being a ´good guide´by making the effort to speak in my language. i wished i had been able to express myself totally in my own language, in which i also feel i can be more responsive, open, and relaxed. communication in spanish is still a challenge for me because it requires concentration, memory, what not and it´s easy for me to become withdrawn. i never even spoke with the couple from arequipa, aside from some very general acknowledglements of each other´s presence, i´m thinking about how i might feel differently right now if i´d given myself that little push to connect-if possibly i´d have more energy.
i felt kind of bad about it, but i was getting tired of all the silences between us, and i was growing more and more annoyed at him, in general. because the couple and daughter were there as their own family, it sort of left me and him together often, like during all our meals, which we had in the main lodge room. i didn´t enjoy the trip to the village, which you actually see almost none of. this was an indigenous tribe, that, for tourists, dress up in their traditional dress, which was skirts and tops made of long flat grass or something. the main guy did a demonstration with his huge blow dart, traditionally used for hunting, and we each got a turn. then, the most important part, of course, where we wondered around the circle of huts set up for selling mostly jewellary and other knicknacks, and were expected to buy stuff. this just pìsses me off and maybe i´m being insensitive but i just don´t believe this is a positive exchange, not when it´s set up like that. and then i feel guilty, when i have so much money, in comparison, and them so little. i sat down on the bench and was glad that at least i felt the pressure was off of me, since they could focus their attention on the little girl who was definitely going to be getting anything she wanted. i was further aggravated when the little kids chased after us while we were leaving whispering, tip! tip! (why were they whispering?) and i guiltily gave him some change, not knowing if this was expected or not. agh, everyone here expects a tip for anything. i am frustrated by this because i feel that the element of money can so easily taint an exchange between one another.
the next day was a little better, i got to see a portion of the rainforest that better fit how i had envisioned the amazon, and we were able to see a sloth, a giant tree iquana, and a little marmiset monkey, and some absolutely stunning butterflies. i got paddled around a little bit by ashuco in a portion of jungle engulfed in water. we glided through dark still water, showing glassy reflections of viney trees, with flowing skirts of leaves brushing the surface and shielding us from the sun above. it would have been so peaceful if i hadn´t been swatting away fierce mosquitos.
the next morning, we went on 3 hour walk down a trail that begun from the lodge. at this point i was feeling tired and not all that enthusiastic, but i made it through, forcing myself to say the pleasant things he was expecting, yes, you are a very good guide. thankyou very much. it was difficult to smile. i was glad when i was finally back in iquitos. ashuko talked to me about a ´very good´shaman in nauta, a village a few hours away from here, and that was another thing i´d intended to while in iquitos, so i thought. well, my connection with wilson led me to the watery streets of belen, through the market, to the zoo, and to a travel agency, the tour being the second thing i had intended to do. so that happened, and through the agency, i have met ashuco, who could lead me to a native shaman for another ceremony. but i told him i would think about it.

mar. 4
well, tonight i will be taking ayahuasca for the second time. the circumstances today feel less secure than they did for that first experience, and i did a little scrambling in my decision because there were options that i could have pursued, (scramling is bad! it means i´m looking too hard) but the way the day unfolded, ashuco happened to be the first person i saw, and i made a quick decision and we arranged to do this today. i felt bad about having been annoyed with him. i will be meeting the shaman in the evening. i see no reason for me not to trust ashuco, but i think because i haven´t been able to communicate with him as well as i´d like, it´s been difficult to really get a good feel for who he is, and i´ve been having paranoid thoughts. i was annoyed (ah, again!) when it became clear that i would be paying for everything on this little trip-which was not understood by me when we talked about costs. i reminded myself that i felt amazing after only being in the house of the shaman for a very brief time, where we were met by some girls i presume were his daughters, who were warm and friendly, and informed us we´d have to come back since he wasn´t there at the moment. afterterwards, in the pouring rain, we walked to the pond, homing many turtles and several huge and handsome fish. he wanted to show me that you could feed the turtles bread, so i bought some at a little store nearby-a class case positioned in a doorway accompanied by a standup chalkboard sign with ´hay pan´(there is bread) scribbled on it. i handed him the bag of buns and we stood there under the shelter of the overhang for about 10 minutes before the rain got a bit lighter, and soon we were seated on a wooden bench beneath a thatched roof of the pond´s bodega thing. i was annoyed at the way he was ripping off big chunks of bun and whipping them onto the surface of the water, bam bam bam, and that he got rid of the entire bag of bread without even asking me if i wanted a turn! not that i was really looking forward to it anyway, i don´t see bread being a very healthy thing for the stomach of a turtle (they´re accustomed to it! he had said, when i expressed my concern) but still. so anyway, sure enough, soon every turtle in the pond was dancing and nibbling. i discovered the rain on the surface of the water to be a more interesting point of ovservation. i forget about everything else, feeling beauty miracles of creation-sky water meets water of the earth in a connection of sound and image, bubbles spring up like diamonds and then pop! disappear, each drop of rain creating moving circles, so alive was the great pattern of movement! i thought about how i´ve been realizing that ´the language in which the sun speaks to the earth´that i had previously written about wanting to understand, is love! lovelovelove...i want to understand more of this existence, the world which is not visible to the eye. this is my intention for tonight.

..to be continued. sorry.