In the Amazon rainforest we were introduced to a Giant Leaf Frog, a fellow who some of the western doctors seem to think is a key to finding cure for AIDS and cancer. To the Indian tribes of the Amazon, the frog provides a different kind of healing altogether.

The secretion from the frog is used in order to enter the altered state of consciousness.

The poison is applied to self-inflicted burns. The indigenous people of Amazon claim to become better hunters through the frog’s “hunting magic”, which increases ones strength and endurance. This sounded exactly like the kind of mojo we wanted to try out, but our shaman Don Francisco didn’t want us to participate in the Poison Frog Ceremony so close to the Ayahuasca session.

We were relegated strictly to the observer status. The tribesmen started a bonfire, where they heated up sharp arrow-like sticks. They burn small holes into their arms and legs with the sticks, removing the outer layer of their skin. The toxin mixed with human saliva is applied to the wound. The spit will activate the poison of the frog, we were told.

The euphoria-inducing “venom” from the large frog enters the hunters’ bloodstream. The physiological response is very intense, and although not exactly hallucinogenic, they seem to be ready for everything after the bite of the flame and the poison. The tribe’s young boys seemed to be the most avid hunters and fiercely unafraid of the poison’s side effects, which include massive bouts of regurgitation. The hunting party is armed with traditional four-meter blowguns and poison darts, but also with modern rifles.

Come the evening, we feasted on the hunters’ prey, cooking the monkeys they caught on an open fire. The brains were considered the most delicious of the delicacies…

Fact: most of this planet’s population lives in the third world countries or conditions.

For the privileged minority, picturesque ruins and exotic shopping malls won’t cut it anymore as the tourist attractions of the noughties.

The social and political problems have become the sights to see – therefore, the phenomenon of poverty tourism: guided trips through the slums and shantytowns of developing countries, even catastrophe sites.

Famous poverty tour destinations include Dharavi slum in India, Soweto in Johannesburg and even some poorer neighborhoods in major European and American cities. Mexico City, Cairo and Manila all have huge dumpsites that have become attractions. It has been reported that after hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became a popular destination for poorists.

Is poorism just another version of slowing down next to a car crash in order to get a better look?

There is definitely more than an ounce worth of truth to the claim. If you are taking a guided tour to a place without official infrastructure, you can never be sure if the subject of your gawking gets even a cent.

But there is another side to this phenomenon. I’m willing to bet these treks are real eye-openers to many. Make your homework, think about your safety and then decide if you really need an organizer to your trip or are you able to do it independently.

Obviously, there are places that are too dangerous to visit on your own, like many of the Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.

The business of taking holidaymakers into slums has also brought out the less principled impresarios always after the tourist shekel. For example, don’t let a huckster organize your visit to favela – you might even get a bullet in the head as a souvenir!

Then again, the unspoken law of the favela is that if you mess with a non-carioca, you are in a hard row to hoe. It’s never in the drug kingpin’s interest to induce the wrath of tropa de elite, the special police operation battalion, so rest assured a bit of shantytown justice is dispensed for all those who attack gringos without permission.

Fact: at least 3 billion people on the planet live on less than 2 dollars a day. If you are about to partake in poorism it’s up to you and your wallet to decide if you are going to treat them as human beings or as animals in the zoo?

Throw some money at the place and make sure it ends up in the right hands.

The best way to do this is to find a decent grassroots level non-governmental organization in whatever area you are visiting.

They might even have some use for you as a volunteer as well – and then you’re not just gawking at the car crash anymore.

R

No words can really prepare one for a meeting with the really dangerous and violent gangs, no matter where in the world you are.

We’ve been to Manila, we’ve been to Port Moresby, both claimed to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world at one time or another. But in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, the feeling of threat is somehow even harsher. It’s just the sheer size of the gang turf, in this case a huge shanty maze build on a hill called Rocinha. It is possible to feel claustrophobic, yet completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place. What’s more, there’s a feeling of being constantly watched, which turned out to be true – more on that a bit later.

Most of the favela residents aren’t of course criminals, but ordinary, hard-working people living in a country where differences in standard of living are one of the greatest in the world. The people of favela do not necessarily have a real say-so in who is leading them. Then again, that can be said about most countries…

Anyway, our camera evoked interest but also suspicion from locals even before we reached the favela entrance. Before, we had been asked not to go this particular favela and to choose somewhere safer to film. We did shoot a few sequences in a place called Tavares Bastos, where local police presence was high. We quickly decided that it would be worth taking a risk and go to Rocinha if we wanted to capture any authentic material on tape.

A meeting with the drug traffickers was arranged up on the hills of Rocinha favela.

Yet for the most of our climb up the camera stayed in the bag – we really didn’t have any choice in the matter. We were told if we would shoot where we were not allowed to, some limbs would surely be hacked off to teach us a lesson in respecting one’s turf. It had become clear that compared to Tavares Bastos, Rocinha was a place where anything could happen.

Finally Tunna, myself and our trusty local contact Breno made it to the hills above the favela to the small outpost, where the seeming rulers of the Rocinha waited for us. We were frisked thoroughly before the interview could commence.

We brought a bottle of Finlandia vodka as a souvenir to the don and his men – well, boys really. These A.D.A. foot soldiers, already high as a kite on Jah knows what even though it was early afternoon, confiscated the bottle right away and finished it even before we had time to set our camera.

The gang members limited our camera angles very strictly, making sure we didn’t point it at the kill zone – basically the whole of Rocinha Favela below, where their scoped rifles were aimed. Just to make the place potentially more dangerous, there was a huge stash of cocaine right under our feet. We weren’t happy about the forced artistic choices, since it made the whole sequence look like it was shot in some sandpit. But then again we were not going to start arguing about framing with these duderinos.

They were the peacekeeping forces the Favela way – vengeful, intoxicated, malicious young gods watching over the populace of the slum, ready to smite down anyone with their wrath the second they strayed from the path of what passes as law and order here.

Yes, we got our interview with favela drug gang, but just barely, when the bullets started flying. Right there and then we decided to pack it up and trade what was left of our journalistic integrity for our dear lives.

R

The participants of the ceremony sit in a round. The curandero chants as every breath the jungle takes is magnified thousand-fold. We swallow the tea in halved coconut shells. Our bodies rebel against the brew.

Disorientation. Regurgitation. Dehydration.

We were promised peace and light, but right now only one word describes this dark forest we had strayed into. This is HELL.

The medicine of sacred visions, Ayahuasca is scientifically speaking a psychoactive aqueous solution prepared from Amazonian Vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) mixed with the leaves of dimethyltryptamine-containing species of shrubs Chakruna (Psychotria viridis).

Dimelthyltryptamine or DMT is a very strong psychedelic drug, found not only in plants, but also in trace amounts in our bodies. Its function is undetermined in the human system – unless you ask a shaman.

The word ayahuasca is the combination of Quechuan Indian words Aya and Huasca.

First one means “spirit,” “ancestor” or “dead person” (That’s cool in it’s own right – the actually think of those things as trinity) and the latter “vine”. Common translation is “vine of the soul” or “vine of the dead”.

Small but growing number of people around the world believe that Ayahuasca is a sort of Rosetta Stone of medicine, capable of conquering diseases western science has labeled incurable, such as cancer and HIV. While the shamans remain silent about the secrets of the vine and its true capabilities, Ayahuasca has been known to ease the suffering of people with depression and drug addictions. Its most important aspect seems to be the ability to give patients psychological therapy.

Ayahuasca ceremony is the center of the vine healing. In it you must surrender yourself completely to the divine, admitting your flaws, fears, guilt and culpabilities. Only then you can truly explore the world inside you and the world surrounding you.

The reason to drink the brew is to reach contact with ancestors and free the soul.

Our vegetalista, Don Francisco is over 90 years old. He says he can see into the future, travel in astral form, remove and cast spells.

According to this medicine man, nausea is not just our body’s reaction to the challenge we are putting our consciousness through. He calls this the purga, the cleaning the body from both physical and spiritual waste. Vine is a benevolent presence that can guide you through difficult experiences, but pushing the limits of perception does come with physical price, involving some serious vomiting, dry heaving and projectile diarrhea.

Scientifically speaking it’s just an altered state of mind, for some with strong feelings of paranoia and phobias. According to shamans this terror is something a person undergoing the ritual must overcome in order to attain knowledge and healing. Peace and light are on the other side of horror and darkness.

Filming the Ayahuasca ceremony is a risky proposition in more ways than one. There’s always the chance of a bad trip and the fear your losing your mind for good from the influence of spirit vine. Strangely enough, the closer the actual event came, we felt more and more secure in giving ourselves completely in care of Don Francisco.

Then there’s the professional angle: for the outsider looking in, the initiate undergoing the ceremony is stranded in the world of his own, mostly alternating between extreme nausea and complete detachment from his surroundings. By verbalizing the experience best we could, recounting each step of the trip and combining it with the physical reactions of our bodies was the only authentic way to externalize the experience. We didn’t want to resort to the crutch of cheesy special effects that could never make justice to what went on inside our heads anyway.

The actual impact of the Ayahuasca tea was shockingly strong. When we took it, within 20 minutes my perception was completely altered and I started hallucinating. Weird visitors replaced the darkness of ceremonial hut.

Some see them as snakes, some talk about DNA strands. Whatever they are, when under the influence of the brew, there is no doubt in your mind about the realness of these things. They swirl, writhe and wrap themselves around you, spewing a rollercoaster of revelations you can’t escape from.

Dredging the subconscious, the vine releases millions of visions that envelope you, triggering millions of ideas. Incredibly, you have access to them all. Ayahusca shows you the capacity of mind.

Majority of those visions were both hellish and unexplainable or memories buried so deep into the lower layers of subconscious, we had forgotten about forgetting them. Some of them were foreknowledge.

The time loses meaning. It stretches. Minutes become years.

We were facing our fears and looking them right in the eyes. And only then, it was possible to see somewhere far, far ahead where a beacon of light started to shine and guide my way out of the storm of visions…

R & T

Ayahuasca is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) and as such, can have interactions and contraindications with certain foods and medications. There is no overdose level with Ayahuasca. Increasing the Vine increases the richness and depth and transformative power of the experience.

http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n1/06158mao.html

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/maois/maois_info2.shtml

http://ayahuasca.tribe.net/thread/dab0ec6d-5d2d-42e2-bc81-25cbf92570f2