Last night I took Ayahuasca. The main ingredient is the Ayahuasca plant but it is mixed with a variety of other plants.

As for the San Pedro ceremony, Katy came and picked me up and we travelled by local minibus to Ollantaytambo. We went to the Elders house at the full moon lodge. We had a bit of time to spare so we played with the dogs and had a little rest.

In order to prepare for the ceremony I’d stopped drinking alcohol and coffee and stopped eating red meat, sugary foods, salt and chocolate for around 3 days prior. I’d only had a light breakfast and just a small salad for lunch so when we got to the lodge Katy and I were both pretty hungry. But we just drank some chamomile tea and tried to sleep for a bit.

Around 930pm we went and sat outside by the fire and Elder introduced us to our Sharman, Daniel. We also met Gustov who was doing the ceremony with us too.

Daniel drove us to a house out in the countryside and we went into a room where we all had our own mattress, blankets and sleeping bag. Daniel began by lighting a small fire and blowing the smoke over us whilst praying to Pachamama. We then took a small cup of the drink each. It was pretty bitter but not as awful as I was expecting. It’s good to have an intention in your mind when you take the Ayahuasca, although it doesn’t mean that you will see something related to it.

I laid down on my mattress and after a while snuggled into my sleeping bag as it was quite cold. Daniel sang and prayed as the plant started to take effect. He also had made up some cigarettes with special tabacco but i only had one puff of Katy’s as i find it hard to smoke anything. After about an hour we each had another small cup of the Ayahuasca.

There was a full moon and the windows were letting in quite a bit of light so I pulled my hat down over my eyes so I would be in complete darkness and not get distracted. I drifted into a semi conscious state – I was awake but I saw things. It wasn’t like a continuous hallucination but rather a kind of sporadic one.

At one point I think I fell asleep for around half an hour. Like the San Pedro ceremony I am not going to share what I saw as a lot of it is personal but it’s making me think about things.

Later on, you loose track of time, Katy opened the door and it was daylight outside. When I looked at my watch it was 6am. I was surprised as it didn’t feel like it been there that long.

Soon after we left the house and went back to the full moon lodge where we had breakfast. Katy and I chatted about our experiences. After breakfast we went and slept for a couple of hours before travelling back to Cusco.

I had a little wander round town when I got back but I was pretty tired so went to bed again.

This evening I met up with Mara and her boyfriend for dinner. They’d both been sick recently. Mara’s boyfriend had picked up a parasite and had to spend some time in hospital. The restaurant was really nice and just as we started to leave a guy started to play the harp.

After dinner I met up with Louisa and Adam for a drink at the limbus bar. The views out over the city were amazing and the cocktail had was very tasty too.

On the way home the moon was out so I had to take a picture.