Iquitos in Northeastern Peru lies on the west bank of the Amazon and accordingly experiences a tropical rainforest climate. It rains most of the year more often than not it’s a deluge. The weather was a sharp contrast to the beaches of Miraflores where I had encamped on my arrival in Peru.
A chance conversation with Jurgen, a German fellow traveler, had led he and I north to the Amazon region, where we were to meet up with an entourage of Westerners, with the sole purpose of participating in a shamanic ritual encounter of the ‘sacred vine’ Yage. More commonly known as Ayahuasca.
I had a fundamental understanding of the nature of the experience having read William Burroughs and Allen Ginnsberg’s book ‘The Yage Letters’ but like most things psychedelic you never know what you get until you try. My previous peyote ‘journeys’ in Oaxaca Mexico, meant I thought I was fully prepared for the inevitable ‘purge’ but having drunk the murky liquid there was an immediate onset of imagery and the worst vomiting experience I can recall.
The previous week, on the train journey from Cusco to the ruins of Machu Picchu I had buried my thoughts in the writings of Inca mythology and specifically the supreme deity, Viracocha.
It was during my yage experience that Viracocha came to life in the body and soul of the shaman. The image that forms the basis of these first NFTs Is the face I envisioned forty years ago during that memorable Amazonian experience.
Kevin Barron
