Brenda's Bicycles

This photo post is part one of three, documenting my three-month “Ayahuasca Deep Immersion” retreat at the “Temple of the Way of Light” located in the Amazon Jungle, up the Nanay River from the city of Iquitos.

This first post contains 108 photos, including detailed narratives. It covers my travel to the “Temple”, my living quarters, and a tour of the center.

I traveled to the retreat center on Saturday, January 18, 2014, and remained there, completely off the electrical/internet grid until April 15, 2014.

As usual, the photos in this post are thumbnail images. Please click on any photo to enlarge it. The thumbnails leave much to be desired as far as colors and resolution – plus the thumbnails clip all of the edges. I use thumbnails for the post itself, because it gives people an opportunity to get a summary glimpse without downloading huge amounts of data for the high-res photos.

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE TO HIGH RESOLUTION

Journey To The Temple

At 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, January 18, 2014, I finished checking out of my apartment and slowly drug my luggage four and a half blocks to the Hotel Dorado Isabel, where I met up with a large group of people with a similar objective, all headed to the “Temple of the Way of Light”. My baggage was loaded onto the top of a bus and I eagerly found a seat on the front left row, directly behind the driver.

The bus was very crowded, with twenty-two people headed to a short-term twelve-day retreat at the Temple, five of us joining up with a deep-immersion program, and the rest being staff at the Temple.

This photo was taken from my seat, looking back, as people were still arriving. I didn’t know it then, but it looks like the three people on the higher bench at the very back are three of my new friends who work at the Temple.

Looking at the back of the driver’s head as we begin our drive to the Southwest, headed for the Santa Clara boat dock, which is about forty-five minutes away, out on a very bumpy dirt road, filled with huge potholes.

Looking out the open door as we drive. I did not know it then, but Todd, one of the workshop leaders, is sitting right next to me on the right. His face is hidden from view in the thumbnail image.

This part of the dirt road is quite smooth. It gets much worse ahead. On the left is a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire on top. This fence separates the airport property from this small neighborhood.

Finally, around 10:45 a.m., our bus stops near the Nanay river, on a small, narrow, bumpy dirt street. We are surrounded by small homes and buildings. The river is about 100 feet behind me. Our luggage is on top the bus.

This is the view looking the other way. Our luggage was all loaded into the center boat. Then both the center boat and the one on the left were filled full with passengers. I got in the very front of the one on the left.

This is my view from my seat, looking back up toward where I took the previous photo. You can see a tiny bit of the neighborhood from here. Our bus was up in the center, just beyond those two buildings. This is an official boat dock, but it is really nothing more than a group of small boats pulled up on a dirt bank in the middle of a remote residential neighborhood.

This woman sat next to me on the bus. I can’t even remember her name now, but we also sat together on the boat. She was heading to the twelve-day retreat.

This is me in my seat at the front of the boat.

As the boat began to fill, I took this photo, looking toward the back of the boat. I do not know anyone in this photo. They were all heading to the twelve-day retreat.

This is the first Temple employee I met as I earlier waited for the bus to arrive. Her name is Alexandra.

The boat is now a little more full as we prepare to leave the shoreline.

These two young men were helping with the boat. The one in the middle is using our loading ramp as a lever to push us off the shore.

I was hoping for a gorgeous view on the river, but the two men proceeded to jump onto the boat and blocked my view much of the time. In this photo, we are now cruising up the Nanay River.

Looking up the river. The Nanay is a tributary to the Amazon River. It joins the Amazon several miles downstream from here.

Looking at the shoreline on the right side of the river as we continue upstream.

The other boat with our luggage and more passengers is right behind us …

It soon starts to go faster and almost passes us. You can see the luggage in the back of this boat.

Looking forward, with the other young man blocking my view.

The river is almost glassy here, creating a nice reflection of the shoreline in the water.

In many places, the shoreline is lined by peoples’ homes.

These homes are quite lived in. The water is quite low right now. In a few months, these homes will appear to be floating on the water.

More rustic homes nestled in amidst the beautiful scenery.

The children playing in this riverfront property stopped to take a good look at all those strange gringos in the boat.

Another photo of me in the front of the boat.

More gorgeous river scenery.

Some of the trees on the left are already under water. Right now we are in the early stages of the rainy season. By April and May, the water will be much higher.

These buildings will be mostly underwater in a few months.

After only about 20 or 25 minutes, I was surprised when our boat turned up a narrow tributary, which in most places was nothing more than a stream, barely deep and wide enough for our boat to pass. We continued up this tributary for what felt like nearly another half hour.

I love the glassy surface of the stream, and how it reflects the trees, shrubs, and sky.

A wider section of the tributary. We are about to enter the narrow gap between the trees on the right.

Getting more narrow all the time. The reflections make it hard to tell in these photos, but the rivers and streams around here are all brown with the silty runoff.

In this part of the journey, the two young men in front were quite carefully studying the water in front of us, periodically guiding the driver in back as we pass through narrow switchbacks.

Me wearing my rubber boots. We were told to wear them, and later, I am glad I did. Right now, they are brand new and unstained.

We are headed into that dark tunnel in the trees, straight ahead.

I’m not sure, but I think this is a vulture. It was a beautiful camera opportunity.

Spreading its wings for the camera.

Finally, after nearly an hour on the boat, we arrive at our first destination. In the photo, you can see some of the cargueros (luggage carriers) who are waiting for us.

A closer view of some of the cargueros. As soon as we landed, many more of them showed up to help pack our luggage. I needed two of them, as I was carrying a large backpack and a carry-on suitcase. I wore my little day-pack with my computer and miscellaneous stuff. It was so heavy, someone even carried it for me later on.

I am now off the boat, looking back at others still disembarking.

The second boat arrives a few minutes later, carrying more passengers, and most importantly, our luggage.

The young man in the exact center is loading my carry-on suitcase (black) on his back. I was very carefully watching to make sure all of my stuff showed up and was not lost etc…

The man with the blue and red shirt is carrying my backpack in is right hand. It weighs 50 pounds. These guys are strong. The temple pays them 15 soles (about $6.00 US) for every bag they carry. This is actually a very good wage here.

We are off on the next leg of our journey … a long walk in the sweltering hot sun. I am rapidly falling to the rear, having a difficult time keeping up, dripping with sweat.

The cargueros start off behind me. Most of them pass me before we reach our final destination about 45 minutes later.

Some of the group in front of me as we hike the long, hot, and muddy trail.

This is just some of the mud we walked through. It is not too deep right now. It can be much slushier at other times.

Luckily, parts of the trail were more shady, but still extremely humid and sweaty.

The carguero carrying my red backpack eventually passes me. I laughed silently as I realized he was not wearing it like a regular backpack. Instead, he tied ropes around it, and is carrying it with the weight supported by a strap on his forehead. I am so grateful that I did not have to carry my own bags on this long hike.

Soon, the carguero carrying my suitcase passed me as well. I laughed again as I observed that he had done the same thing, tying straps around the suitcase and suspending it from his forehead. Sorry for the out-of-focus photo. I was panting for breath as I struggled to keep up the rapid pace. I feared that if I fell back too far, I might get lost.

The last carguero passes me, carrying someone else’s luggage. He is actually using the shoulder straps.

Finally, with near heat exhaustion, we arrive at “Center 1” of the Temple – the site of the short-term retreats where twenty-two people do seven ceremonies in a twelve-day period. After a ten minute rest, our deep-immersion workshop leader finds us. A few minutes later, the five of us going to the deep immersion program are off on another short hike. This time, a third carguero carries my other belongings. It is all I can do to hike up and down the steep hill that separates us from “Center 2” where I am headed.

At last, my bags are dropped off right at my new room – one that I will call home for the next three months.

My New Home

On my arrival, I observed that the deep immersion program has five buildings for housing. Two of them are big and old, one with six rooms, and the other with seven rooms, plus the kitchen and dining areas all under the same roof. The other three buildings are newer, each containing three eight-by-ten rooms. I was lucky enough to be assigned to one of the newer buildings. Over time, I noticed that the longer-term people typically were put in the newer buildings, while those who were here for shorter term durations seemed to end up in the older rooms.

This is my bed. Bobby-bear and Brenda-doll are testing it out for me. The white cloth at the top of the photo is my mosquito net. The walls in these newer buildings are varnished, where those in the older ones are just bare wood.

Looking from my doorway toward the back of the room. I have a little table, and an outdoor balcony with a small hammock. the room is just shy of eight feet wide and ten feet in length. The balcony is about four feet by eight feet.

The right wall of the room has a large bookshelf, which I used as my closet. It could have really used a few more shelves … there is way too much space between shelves, and I would have loved to have more places to put things.

A more direct view of the back of the room.

I love my little hammock. I used it occasionally, but avoided it on cooler days, or in the mornings and evenings – the mosquitoes seemed to find me every time within a few minutes of me beginning to relax.

One more view, from the back of my room, looking toward the front door. You can’t see it well here, but the rooms are pretty much open air. They have a roof and side walls, but the ceiling is all open to air flow, as was the back of the room. With the thin walls, and no ceiling — and with three people crammed in such a tiny building (three 8×10 rooms), the sound sharing was at times intense. I could hear

Sorry to bother you with my thoroughness, but I wanted to record all this for my sake. This is another angle, taken from outside the room, looking in through the front door. I am in room number “7”.

This is taken from the path in front of my building. I am on the far right side of the building. We also have a narrow walkway in front of our rooms.

You cannot really see it well in this photo of the building, but room 9 is on the left, 8 in the middle, and 7 (my room) on the far right.

This is the view from my balcony, behind my tiny room (tambo). I love the scenery here … and there are no walls … just window screen. The only drawback is that during a windy rainstorm, the spray often blows into my room on the right side …

More view from my balcony.

And another. I love this tall palm tree in the middle. I often felt mesmerized by it as I gazed at it in the nighttime with a moon-lit sky.

View from the back balcony, looking down and to the left.

View looking to the right (with my towel drying in the way). I had a lot of privacy here. From where I am standing, no one could see me.

Looking from the balcony, around the right side, back toward the front.

A common sight … my little solar charger out in the sun. I barely managed to keep my IPOD going for three months using this little sun-powered recharger. It started to fail in early April, but served its purposes.

Looking back at my building from the main path that goes up through all the housing. I am in the room that is visible through the trees.

Me, practicing the art of self-photography, with my building in the background.

And another one. This one got more of the building in the image.

My boots on the front porch. They are now a little muddy from that hike.

My Bathroom

The three newer housing buildings (each with three rooms) all share a small bathroom with two stalls. This building is about 75 feet from my door. It is not very convenient in a heavy rainstorm.

A closer view of the bathroom. In the middle are two plastic buckets. The upper one contains stream water for washing hands. The lower one captures the runoff.

The “toilets” were actually quite nice – all natural composting toilets. Under the seat is a plastic bucket. Normally, everyone covers their contributions with sawdust from the bucket on the left. They are quite odor-free and are serviced about twice per day. Usually, they are changed before they reach the full level. There were only a few times when I had to change the bucket myself.

A Temple Tour

This is one of the only photos I have that includes the other housing building with six rooms. At the left of the photo, you can see the end of that building, and the balcony of room “10”. Rooms 11-15 continue down to the left.

On the right, you see a tiny bit of a huge clothesline complex, with eight or ten lines that run at least 50 feet. There are several local indigenous women that wash clothes in a nearby stream. I could have used their services for free, but opted to do my own laundry, and dry it on my own balcony and in my room. I liked doing it myself.

On the right, above the clothes, you can see the thatched roof of the “maestros'” casa. More on that later.

The three new buildings are behind me. The main kitchen building with the seven sleeping rooms (called the “Casa Grande”) is down the path and to the left, beyond the foreground buildings.

This is the path leading back up to the new buildings. I took this from the same spot as the previous photo, just turned around facing the other way. One building is directly to my left, my building is up about 50 feet to my right, and the other is just beyond that on the left.

This is the “Casa Grande”. It contains the kitchen and dining-room facilities, bathrooms and bucket-showers, and seven additional sleeping rooms.

This is the outdoor balcony in front of the “Casa Grande”.

Inside the main section of the “Casa Grande” (big house). On the left is the dining area for the current integration group (those in the two weeks of not doing ceremonies). Straight ahead are a bunch of shelves with one box for each room – a place to store items for each person. Just to the left of that are the serving tables for our buffet meals. Around the corner to the left is the workshop dining area (those currently doing ceremonies).

There are typically just over twenty people here at a time. Twelve doing a two-week workshop, with around ten doing an integration period (between workshops).

On one end of the Casa Grande is a common bathroom area with two toilets and two showers. But they are not regular showers. Instead, local workers keep the room supplied with large buckets of stream water. These large plastic barrels are full of this cold water. To bathe, we use a small bucket, dip it into the larger one, and dump it all over ourselves.

This is my little cubbyhole in the section of larger shelves in the Casa Grande. I usually just kept a little extra water in mine. We get our water here from a local spring. The workers bring it in five-gallon containers.

Back in the dining area, this is the dining area for those in the current workshop. I ate on this side for about six weeks, and on the other side for the other six weeks.

And this is Horus – the resident cat. He can be quite frisky at times.

Near the workshop dining section is this little set of shelves with hot water for tea, cold filtered spring water, and fruit (in the black tupperware to the left).

This is the Casa Grande as seen from just below, on the right side.

From the same spot, looking up the hill to the left, you can barely see the “Maestros” casa. Rather than call them “Shamans”, the Shipibo healers like to be called “Maestros” or “Teachers.” In our workshops, we had two Shipibos leading us, one Maestro (male) and one Maestra (female). They each live in one of the two opposite ends of this house, usually a live-in cook shares the living quarters of the Maestra.

This is a common sight just outside the kitchen in the Casa Grande. This is five plantains being grilled over hot coals. For about 5 weeks, I was on plant “dietas” where I ate one of these plantains along with some rice and either a piece of fish or chicken.

Slightly down the hill from the Casa Grande is our “maloca” – or ceremonial building. If you enlarge this photo you can get a better view.

This is the inside of the “maloca” – with some mattresses being set up for ceremony. There are typically twelve of us around the outside circle in this large circular room with a huge thatched room. For ceremonies, we use three of these mats, and they have purple sheets on them.

The other side of the maloca, with more of the pads stacked up.

This is the laundry area I referred to earlier – the place where three of the indigenous women do all of the washing. This stream is dammed up on the left, and then flows through a large pipe to the area on the right, where the women sit and wash sheets, blankets, towels, and peoples’ clothes. It often takes several days for them to dry, depending on the weather.

I occasionally came down here to wash my own clothes, but found that I repeatedly got devoured by ferocious mosquitoes in this moist cool environment. For the last month or so, I washed my clothes while showering in the bucket shower area.

This is a private tambo (living quarters) occupied by one of the staff members.

Just a tiny sample of the many beautiful flowers and plants in the area. I didn’t get very many nature shots on this trip.

And another nature image.

Every evening, sometime between 4:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., the security guard would light the lanterns and put them out on the property – one on each of the upper building balconies, one in each bathroom and shower, and lots in the dining hall. This became a real healing trigger for me in the middle of my time here, when the guard stopped putting lanterns on the upper buildings where I live …

In the dining areas are large white boards posting current schedule info. This one is on the “workshop dining” side, and shows the initial setup for our ceremony seating arrangement. My name is right at the bottom of the circle, in slot number 3.

There are three “centers” here at the Temple. Center 1 is for the twelve-day retreat program. Center 2 is where I am living in the deep-immersion program, and center 3 is for the work-exchange and perma-culture people (people on three month work exchange).

This is part of the trail that leads from my housing area up toward center 3. All of our extra curricular activities (yoga, taiji, qigong, art, etc) are usually held in the ceremonial maloca of center 3.

This is a little further up the same trail. Going straight ahead takes you into the housing area of center 3. Taking the little trail off to the left and up the hill takes you to maloca 3.

Upstairs in maloca three is a small library and art space. I spent some time up here during my first integration period.

This is the art space. The library shelves are in the background.

Todd, one of the workshop facilitators, standing in the art space.

In center 3, there are several large buildings like these that contain housing for the work-exchange people. In the center is a large garden space.

Another housing building in center 3.

Me, posing in the garden of the center 3 housing area.

This is the inside of the center 3 ceremonial maloca. It is a beautiful space, not only used for yoga and other classes, but also used for the occasional ceremony for staff and workers.

The art and library space is actually an upstairs loft inside of maloca 3.

In late march, the construction crews began making lots of noise just 75 feet away from my sleeping quarters. Before long, they had constructed the frame for a new three-room housing building.

By early April, the roof went on. The building itself was almost totally finished when I left on April 15. It needs to be ready for the May deep-immersion program.

To Be Continued …

This is the end of part one of this photo post. Very soon, I will post the next segments of these photos.

Copyright © 2014 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved