Exercise 4
Ayahuasca ceremony in the Brazilian Amazons

Unfortunately, the shamanic ceremony was executed with no source of light whatsoever so all of my images ended up completely dark, even with a 2 minutes exposure. The experience was interesting thought. About 25 participants were reunited in a traditional indigenous house in the jungle. I was the only foreigner but I know that these ceremonies attract more and more tourists. They drank a mixture made of Ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic plant used by the shamans to heal both physical and spiritual diseases http://www.singingtotheplants.com/what-is-ayahuasca/.

The shaman covered every participant 30 Brazilian reais (17 US), a pretty good amount of money considering that the minimum wage in Brazil is 2.64 reais (1.5 US) an hour. I noticed that a very young child drank the mixture as well.
It was hard to understand what people were going through as I didn´t drink the mixture myself, but it was obvious that they were in a state of trance. I recorded the songs of the shaman which were accompanied by the sounds of the participants moaning and vomiting. I am not able to upload it on the Internet because the signal is too low here in the Amazons but I found a sound record with a similar song on Youtube in case you are curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isskACmm7N0

I left the ceremony pretty early and walked from Brazil to Colombia, taking some pictures on the road anyway in order to have some material to show.