San Pedro.

We had heard a lot about San Pedro, considered a sacred cactus in south America, used to give otherworldy experiences or to supposedly communicate with God and as medicine for those suffering from serious illness or those who want to connect with 'Pachamama' (mother earth). We had bought some to take by ourselves however a weird coincidence happened when we bumped into a lovely pixielike lady who  asked if we wanted to be a part of a San Pedro ceremony in the mountains on the day we planned to take it. We took part in the making of it with the group that she had gathered, which involved removing all of the spikes, stripping off the waxxy layer and delicately peeling off the green bits and putting it in a big pot to boil for 8 hours. It was tough labour as the cactai are huge but exciting to be a part of the process and she insisted we had to put our energies and intentions into the potion if we were to take it. We also had to fast 24 hours before, which was a huge challenge as were used to eating every couple of hours, we cheated a bit but I'm not sure it made a difference. Two days later we all met at the crack of dawn and set off to the mountains, finally settling by a beautiful waterfall with so much to look at and explore. She began the ceremony by dousing us in 'spirit water' (potent alcoholic florida water) and burning a wood called Palecentro, which she then blessed us in with the amazing naturally perfumed smoke. We took it in turns to drink a cup, passed around clockwise, handled by a male and female and blessed by Julia's smoke. We wern't entirely sure of the reason for all of these rituals but one thing we were sure of was that it tasted horrendous and it was a challenge not to vomit. Apparently vomitting was normal which was a relief as we all purged (as Julia called it) at some point that day. Once the cactus kicked in we were emmersed in the paradise all around us. We climbed, paddled, covered ourselves in mud and built a campfire to sit around. Most of the small group were peruvian local boys who knew the mountains like the back of their hand and despite our painful grasp of spanish, we managed to bond without language as we were all experiencing the same thing. The rest of the group was made up of lovely dutch and spanish girls. Julia had a drum that seemed to pierce our senses with every bang, she gave us Shakra cleansing and tickled my aura with a variety of feathers, you could not write this stuff. It sounds so hilarious I know. Its difficult to put into words how it felt but I can see why its held so sacred. After twelve hours of magic it began to get dark and the local boys led us back safely through the dog infested woods by moonlight to the beat of Julia's majestic goatskin drum.