The killing took place on Wednesday in a village near the Amazon city of Iquitos during a shamanic ceremony for tourists that included drinking the hallucinogenic tea that is embraced by advocates as a spirit cure.
The supposed teachings of plants like ayahuasca, datura and tobacco attract travelers from all over the world. Some try to heal diseases, others try to find answers. In the past couple of years, dozens of retreats have been built near Iquitos to accommodate these practices.
Told in one sentence, the story sounds surreal: A young man hears a mystical voice in the Amazon, so he decides to walk 2,650 miles to raise money to build a stone temple in the Costa Rican rainforest, all the while carrying a crystal skull from Peru.
About an hour had passed since I took the four-capsule microdose of dried iboga root, perhaps the most powerful visionary plant on Earth. Time seemed to have slowed down. I felt drunk, and my arms trailed beside me as I walked. Groovy.
