Hello fellow Nexians,

I am travelling to Iquitos in december and will stay for several months.
My main motivation for this journey is to get to know the tropical climate and the rainforest and to come in contact with a culture, that is openly practicing use of psychedelics for healing and spiritual development. I want to learn to navigate the the spiritual worlds, to communicate with the plant spirits, to sing icaros, to find sources of a sickness and remove it or find a plant that is usefull against it. And I want to find inspiration and courage to do the work that I know I have to do. Hopefully I will find a teacher there, who understands what I want to learn and my motivation behind it.
My first stop will be a permaculture project, where I can help with the work for food, shelter and and where I will have a place to arrive and to connect with people.

Since there are a few people here who are familiar with that area and are walking a similar path, I was hoping to get some advise about Iquitos surroundings, the culture, what to do, where to go, what to avoid... I appreciate any input.

I will probably start a blog to document the journey and I will also add to this thread to document the journey.

Hasta pronto

Sounds like that will be a rewarding journey that will lead you down the path you have chosen. Safe journeys, and yes, please keep us updated.

Happy Trails, my friend!

Exciting stuff to be heading to the amazon , i went 2 yrs ago in feb. Iquitos is a very fun town, and the people ae really great. Im sure youve done your basic research and come up with the belen market, thats one place to definately experience the culture shock first hand. Just hit it early, because theres tons of fish, chicken, and bush meat that just sits out in the open sun, and by noon things get pretty gnarly. but its still very cool, and part of it is also a floating city. just make sure you pay attention to directions, its easy to get lost on the tiny very packed streets.

Also just checking the streets is very fun, and the motokars or "tuk tuks" are a cool way to see the city for just a few soles. Theres very few vehicles in iquitos because of it being so land locked, so theres is an overwhelming amount of motor scooters and motor bikes of all sorts. Fortunately for you that you already have people there that you are meeting with because they will certainly guide you in the right direction. Have fun, be safe, and please post your travels

Goddamn peruvian internet cafes. I was writing like 40 miutes on a reply to this thread and then the machine suddenly rebooted....
So here is a shortversion, please tell me in what you are most interested in and I will do my best to find some time to tell the tale.

I was offgrid for a month now. A rainbow place in the jungle, only accessible through a small path in the woods. The cycles of day, night and the moon really get you, when the only available light sources are candles and the headlamps that you will only used when needed for saving battery live. Everzthing here is alive and green. There is something new to see every day and even more is going on at the treetops, because this is where the sunlight is. There are frogs from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a head, humming birds visiting the flowers, monkeys jumping through the trees, lots of insects, including ants with giant nests in the trees and termites eating the houses, cockroaches who snack from the fruit in your kitchen at night and hide in the bags you keep open at night, to giant blue butterflies visiting all the clearings every morning and giant moths making kamikaze attacks on your candles at night, bats nearly flying in your face, junglerats living under the roof, snakes and I even saw an armadillo!
The Rainforest is truely a water country. The river can raise something like 3 or 4 meters after a night of rain. Paths trun into rivers and ponds, if you dig 1m into the heavy clay soil, you will meet ground water and clear freshwater springs just suddenly turn up everywhere. Furtherore its nearly impossible to dry things. Everything just soaks water out of the air and the mold gets hold of everything. I resulted to dry cloths with body heat and I became pretty good at starting and maintaining a fire with totally wet wood.

My psychedelic resumme so far includes:
Three ayahuasca ceremonies, with three amazing Shipibo maestras, chanting high pitched icaros all different and all at the same time
Two Kambo session with a total of 21 dots
One San Pedro session
Snake poison, wich is highly meditative
Lots of Mapacho tabacco
Ganja causing hour long intense CEVs

Now the jouney continuess to the mountains, where more San Pedros and lots of Mushrooms are waiting. I will do my best to write a bit here.