By Visionary Artist: Mauro Reátegui Perez

One day in January (2016) when I was really feeling at a low I came home to a surprise. I was at home preparing dinner and my partner came in the kitchen and said that he’d heard from a friend of a really great retreat center in the Jungles of Peru where you could drink Ayahuasca. He said he wanted to go and asked me if I wanted to come with him.

YES!!! This was it!!! Finally the Universe, God or whatever higher power that be was throwing me a bone. Here was a opportunity for us to get away… I mean really get away just the two of us. No family, or friends… just us alone and secluded. The PERFECT opportunity to rekindle our marriage and reignite the flames, at least that’s what I was hearing. So naturally I said YES!

I’d heard of Ayahuasca a couple of times. A tea that people drank in ceremony… that’s all I knew. What it did or how it worked I had no idea. But, when I would think of it I would imagine people dressed around fires dancing and making sacrifices like a scene from some voodoo or Santeria gathering… how wrong I was in that department. But, it was a retreat center and they had yoga, meditation, body and massage workers, etc. I would go and do all that wonderful stuff and be pampered like in the spas, not drink the Ayahuasca and focus on reigniting our marriage.

The next few days were glorious. We were looking up airline travel, organizing time-off from work and applying to the retreat center. There were some snags here and there with them being fully booked for the retreat we wanted to attend and hurdles were arising and I started to feel defeated. Then, one day later in the week everything aligned beautifully. There was a cancellation at the center and I was accepted, the next day another cancellation and my partner was accepted. Both our jobs granted our vacation requests, my mom and brother agreed to fly in and take care of our son while we were away and the the airline tickets aligned perfectly with it all. We were in and we were on our way. Come Mid-March we would be in Peru together and things would be alright.

The next month and a half I was bursting with excitement. I joined the yoga studio and did a couple classes to prepare for the yoga at the retreat center, I cleaned up my eating to align with the dietary standards required and found a certain level of peace inside with all the distractions of the To-Do’s and shopping needed for the trip which made my days tolerable. I did a small amount of research on Ayahuasca and how it worked, but I wasn’t going to the Jungle for Ayahuasca, was I. I was going on a romantic destination vacation to rekindle my marriage.

The day arrived and we were ready to go. With our arsenal of organic mosquito repellant, raincoats and jungle wear we were off to Lima where we would then catch another flight in to Pucallpa where our Amazonian journey would start. Before I go any deeper in to my own personal journey I’ll take a moment out and share what and how Ayahuasca works here… Divine Plant Medicine and Healer, Mother Ayahuasca. If you are already familiar with Mother Ayahuasca you can skip ahead to the second part of this journey here  Journey to Amazonia “Enter Mother Ayahuasca” Part 1