Ayahuasca, a psychedelic vein from the Peruvian Amazon
Derived from natural plants, the psychedelic drink is considered by healers to be a traditional medicine. But travel agencies are exploiting this opportunity and offering it at exorbitant prices to foreign tourists. An example is found in Pucallpa, in eastern Peru, in this 2022 report by the Brazilian weekly “Carta Capital.”
[This article was first published on our site on January 2, 2023, and republished on August 22, 2025]
“I’m 250 years old,” says Welmer Cárdenas Díaz. A writer , he runs a makeshift book and magazine stand on a street in the center of Pucallpa, the capital of Peru’s Amazon region of Ucayali. He protects himself from the sun as best he can with a hat and sunglasses. It’s almost noon on this September Saturday, and the temperature is around 36°C (96°F), but it feels more like it’s over 40°C (104°F).
After a brief pause, Díaz clarifies: “It’s my cosmic age, not my physical age.” He was told this by a very old shaman after a ceremony with ayahuasca, the psychedelic drink of the Native American peoples. Díaz is the author of El brujo Arimuya [“The Sorcerer Arimuya”], a collection of mystical tales about the visionary world of the ancient curandeiros [healers] of the Amazon.
In Pucallpa, the mystical heart of the Amazon rainforest, the shamanic universe of ayahuasca is not only found in the many centers that offer sessions with this brew. It is rooted in the culture of the town , in books, paintings, walls, crafts , and the history of each person—as this writer, who claims to be 250 years old, demonstrates.
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