Shamana Carola
It’s dark and I’m alone on the top deck. The night sounds from the jungle are muted as a soft rain splatters on the plastic shades that have been hung to keep this area dry. Gaston has made me a gin and tonic. He gave a quizzical look when I asked for cucumber instead of the lime he was cutting. After “un momento,” he reappeared with a colossal vegetable, one that looks like a state-fair-worthy zucchini. We had a laugh when the cross-section he sliced was too big for the high-ball glass. Further subdivision and gin-submersion proved its flavor to be in proportion to its size!
This dark reverie serves as a perfect spot for reflection on a long day, one unlike any other in my six+ decades. Our vessel is tied securely to a substantial tree on the banks of the Maranon River. There is no motion detectable from the river’s considerable current. We’ve come to this spot in the past eighteen hours, motoring upstream from the point near the village of Nauta where this river intersects with another, the Yucapani. This confluence forms the earth’s mightiest river, the Amazon, which continues for 2500 miles, descending less than 400 from where I am sitting before disgorging itself into the Atlantic.
This day began earning its noteworthy status in a skiff ride following breakfast. We are exploring the flooded woodlands of the Picaya-Shimiria Nature preserve, a 5 million-acre speck of the far larger Amazon Basin in northeastern Peru. The skiff drops us ashore, and we hike through the rainforest for 2 hours in the company of a trained naturalist and a local villager. We see beautiful boa constrictors of different species, each more than 6-8 feet in length. The local fellow walking with us returns excitedly to the trail holding a spider bigger than his hand.
We spot not only a few three-toed sloths, but a rarer two-toed model as well. Troops of squirrel monkeys jump through the tree canopy, while large green iguanas sun themselves on horizontal branches. The variety of flora and fauna explained by our guide quickly overwhelms my capacity for recollection.
We return to find our vessel in a new location. This locally-built ship is carrying a company of two dozen curious passengers like me. They include proud Peruvians from Lima and Cusco, a very congenial group of friends from Hong Kong, and an assortment of folk from the US, Canada, Australia and France. There are more crew members on board than guests. I would rate the vessel somewhere between very comfortable and downright luxurious.
Following a long skiff ride in the afternoon, my wife and I descend into a tandem kayak as a gentle rain begins to soak us. We move swiftly, with little paddling required to ride the strong current. Soon we are alone, flowing along a half-mile wide river in the middle of a giant jungle. Parrots serenade us from the trees beside us, until their high-pitched chirping is overcome by the storm now raging around us. The rain is no longer benign—it is pelting us hard, obscuring visibility, raising our sense of “where the hell are we and why are we doing this?”
Suddenly another kayak carrying a friendly woman from Alice Springs and her spirited mother appears in the distance. We maintain eye contact and flow on through the driving rain. An hour later, the rain having subsided only a bit, we hear the putter of our skiff and eventually drag our water-logged bodies back into it.
A day that started with exploration and later brought adventure, deserves a spiritual ending. This comes via a rain-soaked night-time journey by a small group of our compatriots to a fire-lit ceremonial hut to be blessed by the local shaman, a jungle witch-doctor. The setting is eerie. The small thatch-roofed hut is surrounding by small pot fires. A steady drip from the on-going storm provides a water curtain around us.
We discover that in this area of the vast jungle the local shaman is a shamana, a very serious-looking woman named Carola. She explains, using her native dialect and broken Spanish, that it is not usual for shamans to be female, but her grandfather had received a vision that she had “the gift.”
Despite being born with the gift, Carola tells us she had to study for eight years the craft of using the plants indigenous to this part of the jungle to provide treatment for these remote villagers who live far removed from any source of modern medicine. Her presentation of tonics and ointments is not so far-fetched when one considers how many of our modern-day medicines are based on compounds first discovered in the flora of the Amazon rainforest.
As shamana Carola begins her description, there is a flurry of excitement. One of the naturalists who had led us here in a skiff, has spotted a boa coiled on a rafter above my head. Unlike the other large jungle snakes we had seen, this one is pale white, a nocturnal species that feeds on bats. An omen of something, for sure.
Arrayed before the shamana is a collection of leaves, bark, nuts, sticks, and berries, as well as an impressive display of misshapen plastic soft drink bottles, each now filled with Carola’s colorful liquid, powder, and granular concoctions for curing the varied ailments of her patients: rheumatism, kidney stones, liver and prostate ailments, ED and infertility, just to name a few. Some are to be drunk, some to be applied to the affected area of the body. Some require the spiritual catalysis of the shaman via chants to reach full effect.
With her explanations of her herbal remedies complete, Carola proceeds to chant in a tongue no one present, including the Peruvian guides, would understand. She rolls and lights a large, crude cigarette of a local “tobacco.” She comes to each of the ten of us in turn and pours a bit of an herbal oil onto our outstretched palms and then exhales a full breath of smoke across our hands. This is supposed to release all negative energy and protect us from disease and misfortune.
Unsure how long this treatment will last, I’m headed to bed, eager to awake to my first day of renewed positive energy.