We followed an itinerary while we stayed in the lodge. The typical activities included wild life watching, jungle trekking, kayaking and other adventurous games. Between our outings, I usually stayed in the public area. There was nothing I can do in my lodge. I won’t read on the kindle in the hammock on my balcony. That could be a great getaway from your annoying traveling partner but was not an option when you traveled to so remote area by yourself.
While I wandered around the lounge, I liked to talk to a girl working at the bar. She was one of the few young people working at the lodge. She was pretty and spoke fluent English. Besides helping around the bar and restaurant, she also had an interesting bio-diversity project. She placed and hided several cameras in the jungle trying to catch pictures of the wild animals living close to the lodge. She kept a logbook to track different animals appearing at what time at what place. Seeing I had a great interest in her project, she showed me a collective of photos from last week. One of them caught of a jaguar at night! Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to see a jaguar during my stay.
In the following activity, our observant guide Juan came close and asked what I was talking with the girl. Apparently he was interested because the girl was the daughter of the lodge owner. The family owed acres of land here, running several lodges and sight-seeing tours both in Amazon and Puerto Maldonado. I once thought she may be a poor backpacker who tried to get free accommodation by helping around as I can’t see why a bright and young lady wanted to live in the deep jungle of Amazon. Now knowing she was a rich girl, I was even more confusing why she chose to stay here — no TV, no hot shower and definitely no dates neither. Direct and dying for truth like me, I came to her with this burning question. “I love jungle. I love Amazon. I studied biology in the university in Lima and I always want to come back and work here.” She gave me a direct and honest answer. I was impressed.
Besides talking with my group and people from the lodge, there were not many people I can talk with. The other German group was the only group in the lodge during our stay and they always kept to themselves. They also had a completely different schedule of activities from us. We barely saw them in the lounge. On the third night, we finally got a new visitor. He was a shaman.
It turned out those Germans came to Amazon for a healing retreat, according to my new friend, the lead and mentor in that German group. He was in his 40s and had neck length, blond and wavy hair. I would say he had way too much romantic feel than a typical German. I always saw him taking non-stop pictures for the ladies in the group. I asked how he ended to be that lucky guy to travel with so many ladies. He told me they were actually his students back in Germany and this was a study-related field trip. “What do you guys study?” I was intrigued. “We are mentoring and coaching people through changes and difficult times at career and life —” The old charming German explained. “Like a career coach?” I jumped in before he finished. I was getting excited. I loved career coaches. I always had tons of questions for them. It seemed I got a chance for a free session. Then things took an interesting turn. “You could say that but we are not just career coaches. We work on your souls.” The gentleman finished the last sentence with a serious look. I bared controlled my facial expression. A charming guy leading a group of middle-aged and unattractive women to learn how to heal the soul? Tell me I was not the only one who though he was a con artist. The fact that they were from a country known for its logic and unwavering focus on reasoning and hard work even gave a humorous breeze to this whole story. “Fantastic! Would be interested to know more of your work.” I did feel interested.
Tonight they will have a whole-night spiritual session with the shaman. Allow me to spin it in an unromantic way — they will drink Ayahuasca water, which will make you hallucinate, and dance, celebrate, vomit and fall asleep. When the shaman arrived, I came over to make small talks. I didn’t understand his belief but I was curious. I managed to use my basic Spanish to carry on our conversation. He was really nice and approachable. He told me he came from a family of shamans — his parents and grandparents were all shamans in Amazon. I remembered Juan told us that in order to become a shaman, the person needed to dig out a heart from one of the families. If this were true, how could there were so many shamans in one family? When he left for the ceremony, Stephanie waved me in from another side of the lounge.
Stephanie and husband Kevin were from my group. They met in their MBA class and now lived in Cincinnati. If I showed my cynicism by asking some taunting questions, Stephanie literally written all over her face: who do you think you are kidding with? “ What he told you about?” Stephanie referred to my previous talk with the shaman. Somehow everyone in my group knew I talked to everyone and I knew everything. They all came to me if they wanted to know anything specific. I told everything I heard to Stephanie. She looked very suspicious. “Well, let’s wait for tomorrow and talk with the ladies when they finish the session.” We made a plan.
The next morning we came out for kayaking in River Tambopata. When we rested on the beach, Juan suggested for a swim. I looked at the muddy water. It meant dirty in other places, but here it meant Amazon. “Why not?” I jumped into the water, joining the others in our group. The water was chill.
When we came back, those German soul sisters were resting in the lounge. Stephanie and I grabbed our tea and sat closer, “How was last night?” They were clearly very tired. They only finished the ceremony at 6 am this morning and most of them didn’t eat anything yesterday. They did feel very excited to share their experience with us but unfortunately they barely speak English. A few ladies waved their hands to picture what they had saw and the only thing they said was “Hoosh…hoosh…” Stephanie did a great job to translate, “You mean hallucination? … You saw different colors?… You saw this shape?” That’s all what we can get from them.
The day when we left Amazon, the German group lead offered to do a free soul searching session for me. I told him I was not ready. In case I would be devastated if I can’t find it in the end.