Monday was an exhausting day. After breakfast, E and I went into town, first to drop off our laundry and then for me to go try to ransom my box from the post office. I had a vague memory of needing a copy of my passport, so I had one made before going to the post office. This was a good move, as it was needed, but it wasn’t enough: I also had to make copies of the customs declaration,which I had never seen before the lady behind the desk handed it to me. She told me that the box had actually arrived only a few days behind me, but that the first notice had been ignored. I pointed out that I’d never received it. She said someone had signed for it, and I said that it wasn’t anyone at our address. Either way, I got the bloody forms copied and took them back to her. At this point, she brought the box out. It was somewhat worse for wear but basically intact. She asked me what was in it and I said clothing, personal effects and books, which was true. She then opened it, poked around enough to confirm what I said to her satisfaction, and taped it loosely shut again before letting me take it away.

I must remember to keep any package I send here under 10 kilos. That way I can send it by regular mail, and can avoid the rigamarole that ensues with anything sent by Parcel Force or other fancy delivery services. It’s ironic: you pay more, it arrives in country faster, and then it gets sat on for a month afterward while they satisfy themselves that you aren’t trying to smuggle in contraband.

From the post office, I got a mototaxi back to the house so I wouldn’t have to carry the box with me all over downtown Iquitos. It was hot and sunny. I unpacked the box, and found that suddenly having more trousers meant I needed to reorganize my shelves completely. From there it turned into a room-cleaning mission. I was making some progress with it when JT came by to ask me to go meet someone at the airport: J the Finn had been supposed to do it, but he got the day wrong and was nowhere to be found. I was the only person around with any significant English, so I got elected. This was OK, but by the time I was told this, I only had about 5 min to get to the airport before the flight was supposed to land.

Since we’re within walking distance of the airport, this was not as stressful as it could’ve been, but I was sufficiently discomboobulated that I left the house with no money. I hoped that the guy I was meeting would have either minimal luggage or money to pay a mototaxi.

I got to the airport with time to spare, as everyone had to claim their bags before they could come out anyhow. I had no idea who I was looking for, just that he’d be a disoriented-looking gringo. Fortunately, this narrows the field quite considerably in Iquitos, and I found him without too much trouble. He was a little confused at being met by an unknown woman instead of J the Finn, of whom he had a detailed description, but he recovered from it well – and he had minimal luggage, since he was only going to be staying for 10 days.

We walked back to the house and introduced ourselves, since he had no idea I existed prior to meeting me, and I knew only his first name, C. He’s a grad student in psychology in San Francisco, and he’s heavily into astrology, as in has studied it intensively for about 7 years and tends to an astrological viewpoint on most things. He has also done Reiki to Level 2 and a lot of other personal development stuff – and he has a large, bushy beard.

We got back to the house and I introduced him to JT. I was gratified to find that he had some basic Spanish skills, which will make his time (and my life) somewhat easier. I got him settled in his room, suggested that he freshen up, and went to call my family as I had arranged to do at 1500. I did so, then went back to the house to try and finish my room rearrangement before lunch. I didn’t quite make it, even though lunch was late (1700), but since C and I were the only people around at the time, this wasn’t much of a problem. I was able to answer some of his questions and make a note of ones to verify with JT later.

After we ate, he went back up to write in his journal, and I went to take a shower, which I badly needed. By the time I was done, J the Finn was back. I told him C had arrived, and went up to tell C that J was back if he wanted to meet him. I then went back down and chatted to J in Spanish. We had arranged to do this so that I could improve, as spending all my time with English speakers hasn’t been helping me; I am getting the gist of what people tell me, but missing important details.

C didn’t appear, but everyone else staying at the house did. MC, with whom C is sharing a room, went up to check on him and found him fast asleep. This was no great surprise, so we just sat around the table talking. What a difference in environment from before, when we’d eat and get up as quickly as possible so as to minimize our exposure to the negativity emanating from more than half the table!

Tuesday was very quiet, just preparing for the ceremony in the evening. Right before the ceremony, E was saying how she wasn’t sure she should drink because she had bad cramps and besides felt like she needed a break. She said the same thing last time, but JT told her the aya would help the cramps so she drank anyway and was glad; but this seemed deeper somehow. She asked JT again and he said that if she was that tired she could skip drinking but should still sit in the ceremony and have a healing. She was fine with this, so that’s what she did. I was encouraging her to drink anyway, but of course JT knows better than I do.

Ceremony 163 was slightly smaller, 13 people, and included C and MC along with the usual folks. A and T returned, and I had T explain very carefully to A why he should stay afterward for the diet. At least I got him to pay in advance this time. Another new addition was LN, a British guy who had been coming to see JT on and off since 1995 but whom I hadn’t met before. He ended up sitting next to me, which was kind of annoying because he kept sighing and breathing really loudly; but I supposed it was better that he bother me than some newbie who’d really suffer from it.

I myself was again barely mareado. JT gave me an even lighter dose than previously, and I still felt very much in the doghouse with the Science. I couldn’t do any investigations or healings, and wasn’t even sure I was allowed to sing. I figured this meant I needed to turn my attention inward, which I did. E often talks about staying in her heart center, so I tried that and it worked pretty well. I was filled with love and forgiveness for people: I forgave R and F; forgave my last boss for screwing me over, forgave my parents and even my grandfather, so that was good. I tried to work as well on breaking the pleasure/abuse connection and making the love/sex one, but wasn’t mareado enough to get very far.

JT was attacked early in the ceremony by G, the guy with whom the Norwegians had been drinking before coming to JT. He apparently thinks JT has seduced them away from him rather than that they came to JT for help. It was a strong attack, aimed at the lungs; JT was coughing, hacking, and wheezing pretty continuously for the early part of the ceremony. I wanted to sing for him but knew I was still in disgrace and so didn’t even offer. He got through the first 5 icaros with difficulty and then started counterattacking. This helped a bit, but he was still weak and tired. I gave him healing but wondered if it would do any good, since I was still under punishment. It seemed to help, and I’d given E some healing earlier that did her good, but I still wondered.

JT had MR on call, asking her about all sorts of things. I felt really lazy doing nothing but sitting there singing along with JT, but I felt a kind of relief as well. I hoped this wouldn’t affect the rectification process. I put in a respectful request to the Science to consider allowing me to just check on J’s sister, to see if I ’d need to do the operation again. The impression I got was that the Science needed to think about it. I went back to just singing, wondering when I would be absolved.

MR told JT I had some bad shit in my shoulders, so he had me lift up my shirt so he could use the chakapa on my back, singing an icaro for students. At last, MR told him I was clear, and it ended –but I got the feeling it was all the healing I would get for the night.

Because there was a lot of nasty shit happening, JT sang the punishment/end of punishment song a lot – and every time I thought that surely now he’d be absolving me. He wasn’t, and I started to get a bit cross and impatient about it, though I tried not to be seriously disrespectful.

I sang alone on several occasions after the Science seemed to tell me it was OK to do so. I tried to look at J’s sister again but I saw a lot of nasty stuff when I did. I blasted a couple of the things before thinking, Oops, what if this is the Science? and stopped. By the end it seemed I wasn’t going to be pardoned this time around, and I was more or less OK with that – but I thought maybe I should be more upset about it, so I asked JT if he was going to do it. He said the Science told him I needed to drink another time before I could be absolved.

Now, given the magnitude of the offense I thought I’d committed, this seemed a little harsh. Maybe it was punishment for more things, for all the lies I’ve told in my life (a whole lot!) or maybe even the ones I’ve told since becoming a curandera – something cumulative, anyway. I also wondered if I need to confess to Reine about the dream, too. Since I really don’t want to do it, I can only conclude that I probably need to. It could also be punishment for being impatient and cross in the ceremony, and/or for trying to see J’s sister and then fighting when the Science wouldn’t let me. It’s hard when I don’t know. This could even be a test punishment – the Science just doing it to see how you’ll react. I hope that saying prayers to entities one doesn’t really believe in doesn’t count as a lie per se.

Ceremony went from about 2100 to 0330, about 6.5 hours again. I wasn’t as tired afterwards as usual, and not nearly as hot and sticky – the temperature was actually quite pleasant. I wonder how having that stuff gone from my shoulders will affect me – JT said it was a brujería from the UK. Be interesting to find out where that came from.

E had left after her healing, with JT’s blessings. She said she felt much better for having had a rest. But JT sang an icaro used to break bad spells for her, which makes me wonder if she hasn’t been under some kind of bad influence. C has apparently been the target of some bads shit that’s been giving him shoulder pain and rashes. A disappeared again, even after T told him not to; this time, he left even before getting his healing. JT told me later that he can’t even examine T properly because G has put him in some kind of dark cocoon shield; and he’s in better shape than A. We can’t force anyone to heal against their will, but it is annoying that JT is taking damage on behalf of someone who isn’t willing to work with him.

Wednesday was quiet, as befits a diet day. E got special food since she didn’t drink, but it almost made C break the diet inadvertently when he took some of hers. She seems to have a real bond with MC, which is nice, because he has enough Spanish to translate for her. I like her very much but having to interpret for her all the time is getting tiring. The two of them went to the market to get ojé, oranges, cocomuts, and milk of magnesia so that we could drink ojé Thursday morning. The one thing they forgot was extra toilet paper, but fortunately C had extra he was willing to share.

We drank the ojé starting at 0400 Thursday morning, E, MC, J, and I. E had sworn after the last time that she’d never do it again, but was following JT’s recommendations to help her skin problems; MC figured he needed a detox after 25 years of Western living; and J had some kind of nasty parasite he picked up in India early in the year. I was hoping that the physical cleanse would get rid of any lingering gunk from the brujería and act as a general tonic, since I’ve been feeling so run down lately.

As usual, it took me countless cups of hot water before anything happened – it was probably around 0645 before I noticed any effects. It was much more stomachy for me than before – historically I’ve had more diarrhea – and when I threw up, it tasted salty. I asked JT what this means, if anything, and he said I was getting rid of salt. I can’t remember eating much salt, though. I had some kind of idea that it was connected to my thyroid medication. I should ask JT if/when I can start cutting down on it. He did say that when your body is cleaner, you vomit more – poor MC was virtually stuck on the toilet for quite a while because this was his first time. Maybe my body is finally clearing out!

Was thinking about it all more this morning, after taking milk of magnesia mixed with coconut water and Andrews Salts to clear out the ojé. I realized that I only started getting punished by the Science after telling the lies about my dream and to E, so it's likely that the punishment is specifically about these things. Spoke to JT this morning and found that it's also testing my patience, which failed pretty badly in the ceremony. I asked it it was better to be active about rectifying the situation, eg spending a lot of time in the ceremony praying for forgiveness, or to just humbly accept it and wait for the Science to pardon me when it feels it's time. JT said to accept and just carry on as normally as possible, so that's what I'll do. One cause for concern is that he also said that to say prayers I don't really believe in counts as lying, in which case I'm in trouble since I've been using the prayers from the prayerbook he gave me. I guess I need to pray to things I actually believe in, but the words aren't all laid out for me like they are in the book. I'll definitely stop with the book prayers now that I know better.

Complicated stuff, this. Oh well, if I couldn't take a joke, I shouldn't have joined, as they say.

Thursday (19th) E and I took JT’s son RK into town to pick out something for his birthday, which was 3 Nov – we’d both been too ill to do anything about it before but E was determined to do so. (Since she can’t speak Spanish, she needed me as interpreter.) It ended up not being too traumatic; he’s just turned 10 and was perfectly happy with a kind of bracelet that makes space fighting noises and a bag full of plastic soldiers. With that duty discharged, we went back to the house.

Later on, we went back to the huesera for another session of bone crunching, only to find that her house was being used as a film set. A couple of pink-skinned Mormon missionary types were trying to get a scene right in which they were knocking on her door to tell her they had an important message for her from Jesus. You’d think this could have been shot in maybe three takes, but it took about six from when we arrived – and they’d already been at it a while. They finished up and her family and I got to tease her about her promising film career and asking her what color dress we should get her for her Oscar party. I asked her if she knew the missionaries or if they’d just selected her at random. She said she knew them, and I recalled seeing a copy of the Book of Mormon on a table in the house on a previous occasion, so it kind of made sense. I decided that I wouldn’t hold her religious beliefs against her as long as she didn’t try to convert me.

The session itself was as useful as before, with her working on my right side again. I don’t know what I keep doing to it, but the shoulder, hip, and knee always seem slightly unhappy. Fortunately, she was able to slot them back in with much less effort on her part and pain on mine. E’s session went well, too. After that, we caught a mototaxi back to the house, since no buses were in evidence. We were both still processing the past few weeks with R and his family – it was very lucky we had each other to talk to about it, or we might have thought we were just imagining the negative energy we’d been living with. We tried not to be mean (E with more success than I, I’m afraid, though I never said anything that expressly wished them ill, just kind of enjoying the lightness of the atmosphere once they had gone).

Friday was a weird day. Around breakfast time, two guys showed up at the house, neither of whom spoke Spanish. They were Norwegians who had spent some 7 months already in Peru and had been drinking aya with another curandero, G, out at a remote jungle camp. Not only had they been drinking with him, but they had been dieting various plants out there. Unfortunately, both of them were in really bad shape. When they arrived, their energy was so negative that I thought they might be friends of J from Cuzco who’d caused us so much consternation before the Halloween ceremony.

It turned out that their time in the jungle had left them worse off than they had been to start with: they hadn’t been at all ready for strict dieting, and the aya they’d been drinking had all kinds of other plants mixed with it. The worst of these was toé, related to datura. When JT makes aya, he uses three leaves of toé for a big pot of aya that serves maybe 20 people. This G was making aya with lots of the flowers, which are much stronger and can cause delirium. The two guys, A and T, wanted to go out to see JT’s jungle camp, with the thought of staying out there for a while. Why they wanted to do this after having such a bad experience out in the jungle was unclear, but events had been set in motion. Before we could figure out what was happening, JT had called MR, the owner of the camp, and she had come to whisk them away, along with JT and J the Finn, who had been doing the translating for them. Only T really spoke English; A was more or less incommunicado. So they left in a hurry and didn’t return until after dark.

Meanwhile, E and I went into town to find gifts for L, JT’s wife and mother of RK, among others. We’d only found out it was her birthday the night before, or we’d have been more prepared. I was much more motivated to do this, as L is some kind of saint as far as I can tell – she knows much more about the plants than I probably ever will, and she’s always willing to go the extra mile for people, making remedies in the middle of the night, etc. We got her a necklace and a pair of earrings in her favorite color, red, and told her we wanted to pay for her to have a new dress. (JT and L’s daughter CL is turning 15 on 3 Dec, and this is a big deal in Peru, a sort of Bat Mitzvah/Sweet Sixteen occasion; L could really use a new dress for this.) She appreciated the jewelry and the offer, possibly more so since JT had gone off into the jungle and nobody else seemed to even say Happy Birthday to her.

Saturday I got a notice from the Post Office that the box I sent to Peru before I left had finally arrived – that it was, in fact, the second and last notice. The opening times on the paper included Saturdays, so I went into town right after breakfast to try and retrieve my box before the postbeings decided I’d abandoned it and sent it back. Of course, the post office was closing just as I got there – the opening times on the notice were wrong. Typical, but at least I found out when to come back on Monday.

I got back to the house to find 2 new people sitting talking to JT: MC, a 25-year-old Austrian guy, and S, a 33-year-old Japanese lady whom he’d just met at the hostel where they were staying. They both had much cleaner energy than the Norwegians, so that was proimising. MC had drunk aya twice before and had not had a good time; S had done so in lots of different places, mostly in Brazil with the Santo Daime. MC wanted to come drink with us but not that night; he wanted to wait until Tuesday. S wanted to come drink right away, even though she’d attended a ceremony already the night before – she seemed to be trying to drink in as many different places as possible. She stayed, going up for a nap in one of the upstairs rooms, while MC went back into town, saying he’d come back the next day.

So Ceremony 162 was pretty big, including the 2 Norwegians, A and T; S, the Japanese woman; plus the usual suspects. I put the number at 15. Right as we were drinking, we got a phone call from M, R’s girlfriend, now back home in Australia. It seems she had a rough time on all of her many flights home and now half of her face was paralyzed. She was panicking and wanted us to investigate what was happening to her. I told her we would and that she shouldn’t worry.

Before the ceremony started, JT asked me to investigate a spirit that had been roaming around the jungle camp when they went out there the day before. It seemed to be that of F, the guy who led a big group out into the jungle when I was here last time (in February) – he apparently had stomach cancer and died in August. JT had warned him of this when he visited, but he chose to ignore it. JT wanted me to find out what F wanted and why he was haunting the camp. I added this to my To Do list.

I didn’t get very mareado – there was a lot of distraction, most of it coming from S the Japanese lady. She got very mareado and very nauseated, spent a large amount of the time before the singing started quite miserable indeed. She couldn’t walk well enough to get outside to vomit, so J the Finn helped her. She spent a lot of time retching and crying noisily. I was very grateful J was there so that I didn’t have to deal with her.

Meanwhile, I had work to do. I got an answer on the F question, but it was kind of strange. I then set about trying to investigate the illness of a friend of my husband’s, and that story was so bizarre that I suspected that I wasn’t really connected to the Science. I kept going, though, and asked who had launched the attack on me in my second solo ceremony. This took ages and I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with it. I saw lots of nasty shit trying to scare me off or tell me that the Science didn’t want me to know. Eventually I asked if it was R’s mother F and got an emphatic YES. I asked why it was so hard to get this info and was told that she’s really good at hiding her tracks and that if I hadn’t already suspected her, I never would have found out. This has worrying implications: if she’s powerful enough to do that, it goes well beyond garden-variety resentment into actual brujeria.

I didn’t have a chance to ponder this any further, though, because at that point, J the Finn came to me and told me S was having a really bad time and kept calling for ”the shaman”. As JT was otherwise occupied, I was the next in the chain of command. I asked him if she’d been soplayed,and he said no, so I figured I’d start with that.

I found her on the walkway just outside the door, curled up in a ball like a hedgehog. I tried to soplay her, but when I wanted to blow the smoke down her front she wouldn’t uncurl. Eventually she did and put my hand on her stomach, telling me it was very bad. I also put a hand on her back and felt a blockage there. I asked her if she wanted it removed but she was too far gone to be able to understand either English or Spanish and my Japanese is minimal. At that point I gave up on verbal communication and just sat with her. She hunched over with her head on my knee, while holding my hand so tightly I thought she might break a couple of my fingers. I was also expecting her to vomit on me at any second, but I was at least spared that, thank the Science.

JT went back into the ceremony and started to sing, I sang with him, sitting out there with her. I noticed that she would convulse when we sang songs meant to get rid of evil spirits. This lady seemed just full of them.

By the end of the opening icaros, JT called out to ask where the hell I was. I told him I was taking care of S, and he told me to bring her inside. I tried, but she was about my size and I wasn’t strong enough to move her. MA, the schizophrenic, came out and carried her bodily back in, against her protests. When we got inside, she slid out of her chair onto the floor, into essentially the same position she’d been in outside, and begged me not to leave her. I sat in the chair behind, with her crouched between my legs, howling and crying loudly.

MR told me to ask her where she’d drunk before but she was still unresponsive, We remembered her mrntioning Brazil, so JT sang an icaro he learned from an African curandero that helps get rid of evil spirits. He even came over to her with the chakapa to do her healing but she kept saying no and pushing the chakapa away, so eventually he gave up and just sang from his chair. She kept crying and carrying on until JT finally told me she didn’t want to be healed and I’d already wasted enough time and energy on her. I then went back to my seat. She’d recovered enough by that point to understand and say thank you, but she kept carrying on from time to time for about 2/3 of the ceremony.

Once disentangled from her physically, I went out to soplay myself to keep any of her nasties from jumping on me, but I stayed somewhat psychically attached for a little while after that. I came back into the ceremony and sang along with JT, wondering if I had the strength to attempt the psychic operation I wanted to do on J the Finn’s sister.

Meanwhile, MR was investigating why M’s face had been paralyzed and found that it was the various changes of climate and temperature along the way: M had still been in a weakened condition when she left, had not had time to recover from the last time she drank aya before leaving, and had been on 4 flights to get home. The repeated changes in pressure and temperature, not to mention humidity, had caused this effect, but it wasn’t serious and could be remedied through simple massage of the numbed part of her face.

After that, JT asked MR about the spirit at the camp. I said I’d got an answer, but JT said I didn’t have a good connection to the Science, so he was asking her. I was a little miffed at that, but when the answer she got was completely different from mine, I found it easier to believe that I wasn’t hooked up right. I wondered why but didn’t inquire further, as I was barely mareado at all by that point.

JT took a break in the healing at that point and I asked to sing for J’s sister, although I couldn’t really see her. I just visualized her parasites and my destruction of them before singing the icaro to remove the attachment site. It took a long time - it was hard to concentrate with S still exploding intermittently in the background. I finished up by charging up a favorite necklace of hers to protect her against further infestations, according to J’s request.

Sang a couple more songs after that for various people, then JT returned. When I was called up for my healing, I asked him why I wasn’t connecting to the Science and he told me I’d committed some kind of infraction against it. I was floored, couldn’t think what I might possibly have done, and started worrying about all kinds of tiny things that might have done it. I spent the last part of the ceremony like that, until I thought I got it: I had lied, on at least two separate occasions. The first was when I told people about the dream I had in which R fell into a hole, broke his leg, and got shat on by a zombie eagle: I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing, just the bit where he got shat on, and then made up a story around that scene. I told that one to three people: JT, E, and R himself. On the other occasion, I told E something that I attributed to the huesera but that had actually been an intuition of my own. I knew E would have trouble accepting it, so I was trying to invest it with more authority. I decided to confess to both JT and E as soon as possible to rectify the situation.

With that, though, the rest of the ceremony was a kind of endurance trial. JT was really tired by this point and was struggling to sing the last couple of songs. He kept having to start and stop, so that the next to last song seemed to take about 20 minutes to get through. At last, it was over, though, after about 6 hours.

I went to the toilet, after which E arrived and I made my confessions. She forgave me at once, which I sort of expected, but it seemed too easy. I was still not looking forward to telling JT but was too tired to worry about it.

I went back in to check on S. She was feeling much better, quite positive in fact, but she didn’t stay for the diet as she had originally said she would. The Norwegian, A, had disappeared sometime before the end of the ceremony – not even T knew what had happened to him, though T himself was happy to sleep over and eat with us the next day.

I slept fairly well but had no appetite the next day. JT joined us at breakfast and we talked about a whole lot of things. He told me to examine my conscience to figure out my offense against the Science, which gave me a good opportunity to come clean with him. He talked a bit about how every lie is an evil spirit and how he suffers every time he has to tell one. But, he said, I could be restored to the Science’s good graces in the next ceremony. That was good news. In the meanwhile, I decided to go back to the prayerbook he gave me before and try to build up some goodwill that way.

Spent more time talking to MC, who arrived Sunday afternoon, and to T the Norwegian. That took care of most of the day.

Another big ceremony, at least 15 people. This was R and family's last ceremony, as they leave today (Weds the 18th).

Before the ceremony I got involved in a long conversation (well, listening to a long monologue) by MA, the resident schizophrenic. He told a rambling story and in the end asked for my opinion. I said he hadn't asked me a question, just told me a story. He wanted to know how I rated his chances of getting into the UK on a student visa. I had to tell him I didn`t know anything about getting in on a student visa, as I'd never done it, and that most actual Britons would have even less of an idea, never having to deal with the immigration system. Weird.

I received a low dose of aya again, but it was enough - I still got pretty mareado. I don't know if that is a result of still being ill or if my tolerance has finally started to go down as I always expected it would. I started out with personal protection, then thanking the spirit. When it seemed I had a good connection going, I asked the Science whether I should talk to R privately before he leaves. It said yes. I asked if I should do this the day after the ceremony, and it said no, I should wait until Tuesday. I thought this was strange but supposed that perhaps he would be in a more receptive frame of mind at that point.

B's sister P had asked me to try to identify the origin of the iguana-like creature that MR saw in her last ceremony. I was able to get a name, José Marques, and then tried to find out why he's sicced this thing on her. I got a series of answers, but none of them felt quite right, until I got the simplest: he hit on her in the street one day and she ignored him. There were undercurrents as well - something about a business deal with her father gone wrong - but that was the immediate cause. Such a petty thing, yet that's exactly what inspires people to throw shit at each other here.

Then I got frustrated and asked what the hell R's problem is. I stayed with that a little while until I realized that I didn't have authorisation to ask: he hadn't requested it, and JT hadn't told me to do it. I dropped it, apologising to the Science - but it was very hard. I guess that's why it's a temptation.

I switched gears and concentrated on my own stuff instead - more work on building up the good stuff and less on breaking the bad. I hoped this was a good sign. I felt very loved up and cuddly afterward, which was nice.

Doing all of this was made more difficult by the fiesta going on nearby - incredibly loud music and some guy screaming over a loudspeaker. Just when we'd think they'd finished, it would start up again. I learned the next day that it was a celebration of the little area we live in - it was established two years ago or something and everyone was celebrating.

After that, the singing started. JT got through the first 3 songs strongly but started to fade after that, limping through the 4th and 5th, leaving me to sing the last one. I also sang one of the strong protective songs for good measure.

I sang for my stepmother, who's just had back surgery, and though my voice wasn't great, it was much better than it has been. There were long pauses when JT went outside as well.

I used one of these to investigate J's sister, who's been having horrible nightmares on and off since she was a kid. I saw that she had energy parasites attached at the back of her neck, a pair of them. They operate on a cycle where they sleep for a while then wake and feed for a while - she gets the nightmares when they're awake and feeding. I blasted them and destroyed them, but after a while they were replaced by others (I could tell this because the colors were different). I wondered what to do about this and resolved to ask JT, but he was in full-tilt healing mode and very busy with so many people to attend to. I thought about it more and decided I could kill the resident parasites then remove the attachment site to prevent them returning, but by this time it was quite late in the ceremony and JT was doing healing after healing - no space, really, for me to do it even if I'd felt up to it (which I didn't).

Another interval was occupied by an alien visitation, again seeking trade negotiations. I had to refer it to the UN, thinking maybe I need to set up a kind of form letter to deal with these things. I don't know why they keep approaching me, but they seem to do it every so often. This thing was vaguely mammalian-shaped but with lots of little eyes like a spider.

I also saw a large butterfly spirit that I rode to one of my power recovery places. I didn't get to stay there long, though.

I did ask about it when I had my own healing, and JT told me I needed to have more confidence in my own knowledge and abilities. I resolved to do the operation in the next ceremony.

As this was the last ceremony for M, JT went all out and sang about 7 icaros for her, including the usual one to remove bad shit from her arm, along with a whole bunch of protective icaros. He was telling her how she really needed to stay longer for a complete cure, but that he's been able to get her up to 60% in the 2 months she's been here (and half-killed himself in the process). I think it got through to her because she started crying and couldn't stop. She also vomited several times, which is also great progress.

He also sang about 3 for R's mother F, and two for R. (He asked R if he wanted more, but R declined, saying maybe next time). This was in addition to the other dozen or so people in the ceremony. JT was all but used up at the end, and I could certainly sympathize.

The ceremony ended and we sat for a while. Then my roomie E approached me and said she needed to talk to me. We went back to the room and she told me she had some big entity in her stomach that she'd been unable to shift. I told her I'd soplay her, which I did, in and around pulling this thing out of her. It took 3-4 attempts, with smoke blowing the whole time. It must have shifted something major, because afterward she went into mild shock, with nausea and tears. I kept talking to reassure her that this was a natural reaction, that she would be OK, etc. I hugged her and hummed lullabies until she relaxed enough to finally throw up and feel better. After that I told her to rest, which she did, and I was able to get to bed myself.

I slept about 6h, got up to pee, and went back to bed. Breakfast was late, as we'd been in ceremony until about 0330. I had virtually no appetite but made myself eat some yucca and potato. It seemed obvious why I wasn't supposed to approach R that day: neither of us had the energy for it. The 3 of them seemed better for the ceremony, but all very tired.

When I finally did speak to R, it went much better than I expected. If it was going in one ear and out the other, it wasn't obvious. It seemed like he'd had some switches flipped in the last couple of ceremonies and was much subdued. I got the idea that it hadn't been his energy having a go at me, but his mother's, and further investigation seemed to confirm this. It's all been very strange.

We had a party last night to wish the travelers well. We got one of those huge chocolate cakes from Ari's, which was very well-received. E had bought all of them presents, for which ditto. We didn't have the full-on music dancing up all night experience, but that was probably for the best, as we're all still a bit coldified. E had made cards for all of them, and I signed them as best I could. Apparently I found the right thing to say for R's mother, because she thanked me and hugged me several times - I just about fell over. But better late than never. Truly many things do come to pass. It will be interesting to see how the energy of the next ceremony differs from those that have gone before.

Both E and I had been waking up at 0500 for baths with water in which ayahuasca leaves had been boiled. This was prescribed for us by JT's wife L after the last ceremony. had been preparing them for us, but had been distracted on Sun night and hadn't managed to do it. We didn't know this and so didn't prep it ourselves. Upshot: we got up at 0500 Mon and there was no bath. I took a shower anyway and let myself drip-dry, which is the bath procedure minus the actual bath. I figured it was better than nothing, and I soplayed the room for good measure. We slept better after that, though I was still hacking and sneezing a lot.

JT got back Mon morning during breakfast, to much relief. The previous night, I had a disturbing dream about R: I was walking in the jungle with JT far ahead and R slightly behind. I was thinking about something else and narrowly missed falling into a huge hole in the ground. I shouted a warning to R but he either didn't hear me or didn't believe me and fell right in it, breaking his leg in a compound fracture - I could see the bone poking out. I yelled for JT and he came. The two of us tried to get R out of the hole but he wouldn't let us. He fought and scratched and bit like a wild animal, laughing all the while and telling us that he was exactly where he needed to be, that he didn't need help from a washed up old man and his slut bitch of an assistant (that's JT and me, in case you didn't recognise us). JT told me R was possessed and went to go make a stretcher to carry him along the trail, telling me to keep talking to him and try to get him calmed down. I did, but R wasn't having any of it, just kept up the laughing and the abuse.

Eventually a huge bird flew over. I can only describe it as a zombie eagle, black and putrefying, held together with worms. To R it looked like a beautiful golden eagle, and he held up his arms so it could lift him out and take him away to his new master (who, he said, would teach him real power). The bird swooped low, but instead of lifting R out, it shat on his head in passing and flew off. At that moment, the spell R was under broke, and he began to scream in pain. JT came back and we tried to lift him out again, but there was an invisible wall around him. We heard a voice say, ¨It's too late, he's made his choice.¨ So we had to leave him.

I took this to mean that R is in mortal danger of turning to the Dark Side, and worried what to do about it. I wanted to speak to R about it but there wasn't time: he left for town right after breakfast. I told JT about it, and about all the stuff that happened while he'd been gone, and he basically confirmed it. R wants to be a curandero for the power, not for the healing. He lacks humility and, I think, flexibility - he's really rigid in his views of the world. JT said he'd talk to him, but didn't know how much good it would do because R has been listening to bad spirits.

I immediately felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me. I had been feeling guilty for not confronting R on my own, but it seemed to me that JT was better placed to do it - maybe the alpha male magic would penetrate better. I was happy to go into town with E to help her exchange money and eat my first ceviche of this trip, which we did with enjoyment. Then we got back to the house and ate some of the dinner, though not much. I was pretty tired by that point and lay down for an hour or so, after gathering leaves for the aya bath.

I got up and asked L to show me how to make the bath, and showed her the leaves. She burst out laughing because I had picked the wrong ones. We got rid of them and we both went out to pick the right ones (in the dark, with the ground quite wet and muddy). We got them and she put them in pots on the stove to boil. While I was waiting, I took a chair and spoke to JT about his trip. Seems he'd been up north as well as to Lima, and had done a San Pedro ceremony up there to get more healing and insight. The doctors had told him they couldn't do anything for his foot except operate, but his lungs and heart are better.

In the midst of this, R came back down with M for some healing. JT asked him where he'd been, told him he was late for school. R seemed taken aback. JT sat them down in the living room to do M's healing and he proceeded to tell R exactly what he thought of him. I discreetly withdrew, figuring it wouldn't help to observe it. I was so glad though. I tried not to be mean about it, but couldn't help feeling a good deal of satisfaction.

So Tuesday's ceremony saw a much subdued R, and I was so relieved not to have to be in charge. I knew it would be a much easier time for me, which was good because I felt pretty rotten. Ceremony 160 was big, about 15 people. MR and B showed up for this one, the first time I've seen either of them this trip. B's ex LC was there, too, which made for an odd vibe - he spent most of his time avoiding her.

I'd been asked to do some investigations by a couple of people and had said I'd try but couldn't promise anything. This was prophetic, as when I contacted the Science, it said that I was not to do any healings or investigations until I was better: I was still too ill. This was a relief but it was hard to avoid. I was even told not to work on my own stuff, which was a challenge. All I did was sit there and sing along with JT, feeling like even that was an effort, coughing and spewing up phelgm at intervals. I was surprised when E told me she felt I had really helped her, as I didn't feel I was doing anything.

When JT did R's healing, he spent a lot of time talking to him and telling him what danger he was in and how he needed to spend time meditating and getting his focus better. MR, who was doing JT's seeing, said R was full of toads that had to come out, so that's what JT concentrated on. I found this idea very funny and had trouble not giggling. After the ceremony, I was tired but feeling better after my own healing.

Wednesday was a quiet day, and the diet food was pretty late - 1330 for breakfast. We didn't mind, though, as E and I had scarcely any appetite and didn't even manage to eat any fish until the evening. R asked me what JT had said, as he couldn't remember any of it. I sighed but tried to give him a capsule version.

It started raining around 1900 Weds night and didn't let up until about 0230 in the morning. It was coming down full-tilt, and I had a bad feeling about it. This was confirmed around 2330 when water started coming up the shower drain. I immediately got everything off the floor and warned J in the room next door, as well as the folks in the house. The water eventually got up to a level just an inch or so beneath the bedframes. I was in my trusty boots but E hadn't any and was virtually marooned on a chair for a while.

R and M came down to play disaster tourists, with R snapping pictures and M saying how exciting it was. I asked if they were going to help us clean up and they said no. I somehow managed to keep from either hitting them or yelling at them, but it was hard work. This guy wants to be a curandero and he's reveling in the misfortune of others. What a shithead.

E and I stayed awake until the water started to recede and the rain stopped, which was about 3 hrs more. There was still standing water in the room but we were too tired to deal with it.

By the time I got up around 0615, the level had dropped to the point where there was only a kind of brown sludge on the floor. I decided to clean up before it got really hot again. E offered to help, but she looked like death warmed over and I ordered her back to bed. I spent the next 2.5 hrs cleaning up, took a much-needed shower and fell back into bed.

Breakfast came at 1130, pretty impressive under the circumstances. We ate and then E and I went into town to get laundry done and do other errands. For me, this included calling my bank in the UK to cancel the standing order I had with the place where I did my energy healing - seems they were still taking it every week. I asked if they couldn't just cancel it but apparently not, although when my health club membership expired, they did it from that end. It was even more of a pain because this was being paid from my business bank account, which doesn't let me start or stop direct debits or s.o.'s online - I had to actually call them during UK business hours.

I did it - it took me 3 tries to find a computer that would let my heaphones work well enough to use Skype, but I did it. Then the cybercafe had the nerve to charge me for the time on the other 2 machines. Infuriating but it was only 2 soles so it was not worth making a big deal of it.

Got the rest of the errands done and then went to see the huesera again to have our bones realigned. E went first and left to go get the laundry before the place closed. It wasn't nearly as painful this time, but I could feel it doing me good, especially round the neck and shoulders where I'd been coughing and blowing my nose so much. I got kind of spacy afterward and had to sit for about 10 min before heading back to the house again.

Once back, I ate and then sat round the table with the others as JT talked to us about healing and suchlike. He soplayed each of us in turn. While I was waiting for mine, R asked to talk to me outside. This was a first, and I had no idea what to expect. Still, I was surprised at what he had to say.

Before I arrived, R and another gringo had some stuff stolen out of their rooms: a couple of iPods, a sound recorder, small but expensive stuff. At the time, R had got really irate and had basically accused someone in the family of doing it. JT went ballistic and sat the whole family down and interrogated them. All maintained innocence, but they resented the hell out of R for the whole scene. This was about 2 months ago.

Within the past few days, R noticed one of JT's son G's friends with a sound recorder that suspiciously resembled the one he'd had stolen. He basically bullied the kid into telling him where he got it, and eventually he broke down and said it had come from... G. (This is the 20-year-old eldest son of JT and L's, who was J the other American's special pal last time I was here). So now it was looking bad for G, but there was still no proof. Now R says he has proof: there are songs on that recorder that G recorded after R told everyone it was stolen. This looks bad, especially since when R tried to tell JT before, he got a really frosty reception.

R wanted my advice first: should he even tell JT? I said yes, he needs to know if one of his kids is stealing expensive stuff from visitors. Then he wanted me to be there when he tells JT, to provide support if his Spanish fails. I said why not ask J the Finn, whose Spanish is even better, but he said no, because I could understand the logic of it all better (?).

Now, this is baffling on so many levels. Is R even telling me the truth? I have no idea if the recorder he showed me is the one he had before. Why does R think I am inclined to help him with anything, since he's been such a shit to me? What good does he think it will do to have me there, since R seems to view me as not much more than a tedious but occasionally necessary reference book that has to be checked continually for careless mistakes? Is this an attempt to solicit a coalition before he confronts an alpha male? Or is it a really hamhanded attempt to make it up with me somehow before he leaves on Weds? The mind reels.

So it goes. I'll keep you posted.

It was touch and go whether I'd be able to hold ceremony on Tues, right up to the afternoon. I was feeling better by then, and figured this next ceremony couldn't be any harder than the previous one. While I was resting up, though, I got a message from a glowing spider who told me she was the goddess Techne relaying info from JT: Don't get complacent, there's still plenty of bad shit out there, so be on your guard. Sound advice, and worth having.

Initially it looked like Tuesday's ceremony would have the same number of people as Saturday's: nine, including a Peruvian student, B; his sister, P; and the owner of the jungle camp, MR. But when P arrived she said that M and B wouldn´t be coming. I waited another 10 min to be sure they wouldn't be turning up late and interrupting everything and then we got going.

P had some kind of bowel obstruction, hadn't been able to shit for about a month, so I gave her a pretty hefty dose as a kind of blasting powder. This was from the top of what remained of Saturday's bottle - it would be stronger than what we had last time, just from the sediment. Everyone got slightly more than last time, since now I had a better idea of what we were in for. I ended up with a pretty substantial dose myself, since I had a feeling I was going to need it.

I did the house soplay quicker this time. I was therefore able to get back into the ceremony and get quite mareado indeed. My brain was being flooded with geometric patterns much faster than I could process them. I started feeling overwhelmed so I decided to start the ceremony. Even the initial whistling was hard - felt like I just couldn't get enough air into my lungs. When I started to sing, I was hit with a massive muscle spasm going all along my right side, making it nearly impossible to continue. Eventually I had to keep my right arm over my head to give my ribs enough slack so that my lungs could inflate. The first 3 songs were a real struggle, and they sounded like it, I'm sure. I was simultaneously trying to sing and pull whatever was causing the muscle spasm out of my floating ribs. It eased a little over the course of the opening icaros, but not a lot.

I rested briefly, and then I seemed to get the message: sing your way out of this. I started singing one of the strong defensive songs that I usually use to heal JT, hitting my ribs with the chakapa to loosen the muscles. This eased the spasm, but I was still not even close to the depth and resonance I am sometimes able to achieve. I decided to accept that this was as good as it was going to get and sang the other main defensive icaro, then rested.

I then turned the chakapa over to R so that he could sing (and I could have a break). He sang 2 songs, these much better than in the previous ceremony, with only a few little niggles in the tune, though the words needed more work. I was telling him as much when he got all huffy and told me not to interrupt him until he was finished and handed the chakapa back to him. (Never mind that I was operating exactly how JT did when I was learning the icaros.)

I was livid, but managed to keep my voice level and even. I asked him if he wanted to run the ceremony. He didn't answer. I thanked him for his good work, meaning to shut him up, and he went on to sing another song. I didn't stop him, but told him afterward that this was still my ceremony. I was too tired and too hacked off with him to correct his mistakes, figuring I'd apologise to the Science later. He backpedaled, saying it always was, etc. I said that I was here in JT's place, whether I liked it or not, whether they liked it or not, and while this was the case, they owed me the same respect they would give to JT, since I was his desgnated representative. Obviously, when he is present, that reverts to him, but that for the time being, the buck stopped with me.

I rested a little, then worked on my own stuff for a little while, to get myself into a more loving space. I then sang one of the love icaros to lighten the mood and clear the air, then started the healings.

I did P first, as she had been really suffering, vomiting a lot. L had spent a lot of time outside with her while she retched and cried and bemoaned her fate. Later she told me that she felt a lot better, so I could feel good about that.

The rest of the healings went well. I saved R for last so that I could build up some compassion for him, because I kept wanting to slap him. I wondered why this was bothering me so much - was I really so territorial and insecure that his being cheeky unleashed this flood of ill-feeling in me? But I was far too tired and ill to explore it at the moment. I just focused on giving him as much love and healing as I could, and decided not to mention what had just happened. This seemed to work well.

L had been able to see many things for people, such as plant prescriptions, while I had them up for healing. Singing and seeing are difficult to do simultaneously at the best of times; I didn't really have a chance. So I was really grateful for her help, especially knowing she doesn't like to drink. I sang only one song for her, but I put a lot into it.

Sang another song to clear the air and harmonize the space, then ended the ceremony. It had only been 3.5 hours, but it seemed much longer. After it was over, I went to the toilet and then returned to sit in the quiet and darkness with everyone else. That was nice. After a while, L said we should go to bed, and most people did, but P then started chattering to L about everything she'd seen and felt. I could only follow about one word in five, tired as I was. I was in the state far beyond ordinary tiredness where I was losing simple motor skills and having trouble with simple things like making change. Eventually I admitted defeat and went to bed, feeling like if I had to spend the next week in bed recovering, I had carried out my remit to the best of my ability.

I went to bed, but sleep never really came. I kept replaying the incident with R over and over in my head, wondering still why it bothered me so much. Eventually, I realized a couple of things: first, that I'd been hit with a poison dart when I started to sing. I initially thought it must have come from J of Cuzco, as a response to my counterattack on him - maybe I shouldn't have launched anything at him, just sung the punishment song or something. Once I got the dart out with the self-healing, then the poison got in - luckily I didn't get the full blast, which was basically pure malice, but it did make me want to smack R upside the head.

Running it all by my roomie, E, I got confirmation that R has been pumping out negative vibes in my direction since I got here, as has his mother F. Apparently before I came, he was the top dog, the Answer Man, and he's really felt the loss of status since. His mother of course thinks the sun shines out his arse and is convinced he's much more qualified to do anything and everything than I am simply because he is the fruit of her sainted loins. What's weird, though, is that from day to day, they swing between being perfectly polite and friendly (on an energetic level; they're always at least civil on a strictly literal level) to throwing such large amounts of bad mojo my way that I've taken to wearing some of my strong protective oils to prepare for something as simple as going to breakfast. After my two ceremonies, particularly, they were quite happy and smiley and said I'd really helped them (and their energy said the same) - then, the next day, it was back to throwing daggers.

I asked L about it later, and she said that they (R, mum F, and girlfriend M) were all snotty and negative since their room got broken into before I got there. They lost some iPods, some money - all things they'd left lying around for any small hands to pocket. They seem to have lost some faith in JT then, and the healing on M had stalled and gone backward from that point. They don't seem to respect JT, or even the Science itself, let alone me. I wondered how often JT has to put up with this kind of thing, and thought it was no wonder that he gets so tired and ill.

In the ceremony, L prescribed early-morning baths in an infusion of ayahuasca leaves for me, for E, and for J the Finn. We've been doing them for 3 days now and they seem to help, as does the vitamin tonic E picked up for me in town on Fri night. I've also felt better since using the protective oils before meals and soplaying afterward. The disturbing thought has occurred to me that perhaps the poison dart I got was sent not by J of Cuzco but bu R or his mother, probably unconsciously. I'm not going to act on that until I have some proof of it, because I know how the bad shit likes to sow dissension and hamper communications, but I'm not going to dismiss it either. I really don't understand why I'm getting such strong negativity from people I've done nothing but try to help. No good deed going unpunished, I guess. Or maybe it's a test of the Science - it's easy to heal someone you like, much harder to help someone who's actively hostile.

I really want to take R aside and tell him we're on the same side, that I have no ill will towards him, that I would like nothing better than for him to learn and grow and come into his full potential (which is huge, by the way - I saw it when I did his healing). All I'm trying to do is warn him of potential pitfalls from my perspective a little way further down the same trail. But he seems to think that any advice I give is meant to slow him down or entrap him somehow. I can only turn it all over to the Science and hope it all works out the way it's meant to.

The day of my first solo Peruvian ceremony was Halloween, which lent a certain weirdness to the proceedings. That afternoon, there was a visit from one J, a guy from Cuzco who had attacked JT with poison darts in a ceremony some years ago. He was leading a clueless-looking gringo, who apparently wanted to drink with the Maestro. JT's wife L told him that the Maestro was away and wouldn't be back until the next week, and they left - mostly. They hung out for a while, smoking against the wall. We could feel the icky energy coming off J, and when he'd gone, I did a pretty thorough soplay of the premises - but some of it remained.

This didn't bode too well for the evening, but I was determined not to let it get to me. I knew it would be a difficult ceremony, as the moon was full - this always plays havoc with the visions and makes for strange vibes in any case, and having it be Halloween just magnified this. There was also a lot of noise and disturbance - parties and suchlike. Not the optimum conditions by a long shot.

JT's wife L was drinking with us, something she only does at times of dire need, since the medicine hits her hard and the visions can be overwhelming. I was very glad of her presence though it made things a little confusing at times.

I got to the ceremony room for 2000 as usual and there were already 3 people there, all locals: A, an older woman who was having trouble walking; her man, RB; and IS, who wanted to get his girlfriend back. About 15 min later, M sauntered in - he's schizophrenic and tends to want to tell long stories when he comes up for his healing.

J the Finnish guy made some nice incense from an orange peel, cinnamon, and rosemary and swung it round the space. I burned some palo santo but it kept going out. We got the mosquito coils fired up and everyone eventually came in and settled down.

I started pouring out the aya. As it was a new batch, I didn't know how strong it was going to be - it didn't smell super potent but I decided to err on the side of caution. Once we'd all drunk and I'd called on JT's protection, we turned out the lights and I went out to soplay the house. The moon was so bright I had no trouble finding my way. It only took 3 mapachos to go round everything, for which I was grateful, because when I got back, L told me there was a weird bird outside that was a spy - it was sent by the bruja J from Cuzco works with. I went outside again and blasted it, then came inside and soplayed the room. By the time I was all done with that, I scarcely had a chance to sit down and rest before L told me it was time to start the ceremony.

I wasn't at all ready - hadn't even come close to mareado yet - and I felt a little resentful at being told like that. I could have just waited, but I bowed to her greater experience and whistled the opening. I sang the first 6 icaros but my throat was so irritated from the mapachos that I had to keep clearing it and spitting up phlegm. I was grateful for the water bottle I had brought in, as I needed to wet my whistle several times - and I was sweating from every pore, it seemed. It felt as hot as a sauna in there!

I sang the two big protection songs and then asked R the student to sing. I hadn't heard him sing yet, as he seemed uninterested in participating in the icaro study session I organized, or indeed in any sort of practise with me, so I was curious. He did one song whose tune was so off that only the words indicated which one it was meant to be, and then another that was somewhat better. I said as much, telling him that I was happy to work with him at any time, or he could listen to the recordings, and that he just needed more practise. I don't think he took this very well; though he said the right things, his vibe was pretty hostile. I could appreciate that much of his time and energy is being taken up caring for his girlfriend with the pseudo-brain tumor, but I do wonder what all he was doing in the three months he was here before she arrived.

After that, I sent a counter-attack against J of Cuzco, to get the weird bird the hell out of there and hopefully move out the remaining bad vibes. I wasn't intending to hurt him badly, just to kind of slap him upside the head and let him know I'm not easy meat.

The ceremony became even more like a sauna when I started doing the healings. I was using R the student's chakapa because JT had taken his with him to Lima. I did IS and R's mother F (who didn't get mareado and seemed cross about it; I found out later that she thought I'd been too harsh on R's singing and just shut down). Then a guy turned up in a motocarro - I was afraid it would be J from Cuzco. For a while we sat there letting him knock on the door, as I was doing F's healing and was busy and nobody else seemed willing or able to take the initiative.

Turned out it was a guy who had prepaid JT for a series of treatments - with two pregnant sheep. Not that JT wanted sheep, you understand, it was just that this guy had them and it was convenient for him to pay with them. He wanted us to get his wife to come back to him. I sang the song for him, but the impression I got was that she wasn't going to come back, and that there was an excellent reason for it. I thought maybe that he had been hitting her, but I figured maybe I was just cross at him for disrupting the ceremony. He got his healing and took off again, in the motocarro, without so much as a by-your-leave.

I rested for a little while then sang a song for R and his girlfriend M, who had been through a rough couple of days relationshipwise. I wasn't shocked - she is virtually dependent on him and the strain has been showing more and more.

I then took a little time to work on my own stuff, breaking the bad links and forging the new. This time I could feel the new strands growing and twisting around each other like a DNA spiral. I moved my shoulders round and round until I felt all loved up - a bright spot in the evening.

Because I never really got mareado, I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants with the healings. I was very glad I'd thought and meditated about them earlier for the gringos so as to have at least some kind of clue. A wasn't as lucky: I had no idea what her problem was, only that it was serious. I sang an appropriately strong icaro but was unable to supply specifics. Turned out she has some kind of weird skin condition where her legs and feet look and feel burned, just as if she'd dropped boiling oil on them - but she hasn't. After the ceremony ended I did some hands-on work on her feet and found that there had been some kind of venom in a fish she had eaten. She had already tried many things, including ojé, but even it didn't work: when she took it, she drank loads of water but failed to purge from either end. L suggested some other remedies and she said she'd be back Tues for the next ceremony.

I had felt like the healings weren't doing much good, because I wasn't mareado, but people still seemed to benefit from them - placebo effect at its finest, or just the result of focused intent?

I didn't do much after the last healing. I wound things up after soplaying M because L had seen a bunch of worms crawling around in her paralyzed arm. I was slightly amazed I'd managed to keep it all together. Even the little kid who usually screams in the middle of the ceremony was quiet (maybe because of the shielding I put round him at the start of the ceremony, maybe because he's finally getting over his fear of the dark).

G asked how the ceremony went and I told him that we all survived. I felt like I was only barely holding on, but I managed to keep the bad shit at bay, and that's what mattered. The next morning everyone seemed happy and bouncy and better than they had before, which also helped.

But I paid for it, no question about it. I spent the next 48 hours going in and out of consciousness with a fever and what started as a head cold, then moved into the ears to become an exquisitely painful earache in both ears. I spent much of early Monday morning either inhaling steam with lavender and tea tree oil or with long, flaming cones of paper hanging out of my ears by way of basic ear candling. This all helped but the fever and delirium remained for the most part. I was popping vitamin C virtually every hour to try and get myself fit to hold the next ceremony on Tuesday night.

After the ojé on Tuesday, we planned to get up early for a magnesia flush on Weds. This consists of 120 mL of milk of magnesia mixed with 10g Andrews Salts and topped up to 250 mL with fresh coconut water. That meant a trip into town.

First we went to the cybercafe where I updated my LJ and then picked up my laundry. J the Finnish guy and I then walked back into the market area to get coconuts from a specific vendor he´s had good luck with before. She wouldn´t give him the lowest price, but he managed to talk her into selling him a dozen coconuts at 1.5 soles each rather than the 2 that most vendors sell them at. He´s a fairly tall, robust guy so he had no problem carrying the dozen coconuts back to the bus stop, and indeed back to the house from same. I was very glad not to have to carry any.

So the original plan was to get up at 0500 to make this stuff. Unlike ojé, once you down this concoction, you can go back to sleep without having to stay up drinking heroic amounts of hot water. I was slightly worried about getting into the coconuts, as the only machete I could find was quite dull, but I trusted that the Spirit would provide. Upon going to bed, I realised that nobody in the house would be awake at 0500 and I´d end up having to wait at least an hour anyhow; I therefore went to sleep expecting to wake up around 0600. This was in fact the case, and I was in luck: as I started attacking the coconut with the dull machete (at the wrong end, no less), R called down from upstairs offering to open the coconut for me with his shiny new machete. He had just done so for girlfriend M and mother F, so was all set to do another. I accepted gratefully, making appreciative noises, though I stopped short of admiring the machete - that would´ve been over the top.

So after all that, the magnesia drink was prepared and downed in about 15 minutes´ time, and I went back to bed. It started to work after about 2.5 hours and continued to flush any remaining ojé out of me for the rest of the day. At least, since it was alkaline, it didn´t burn coming out like the ojé did. The rest of the day was quiet, since I wanted to stay within easy reach of the loo, though I did manage a short walk later on in the day.

Thursday we learned that JT was definitely going to Lima to get his leg looked at - hallelujah! He was leaving that evening and would be gone for a week. This meant that either everyone would go without a ceremony for 10 days (and R and his women only have about 20 days left here) - or I would be holding ceremony on my own in JT´s absence. I talked to JT about it and he was quite encouraging about the prospect of my striking out on my own, though of course he´d be with me in spirit just as usual. I had about half an hour of panic but settled down when I started thinking of specific issues to address. I know this was all just stage fright, but it was real enough for the moment.

Anyway, I had other things to think about. R had found out about a woman he called ¨The Bonecrusher¨, a sort of chiropractor/Rolfer type able to release long-standing problems in the muscles and bones. She was able to fix M´s neck, stiff for the last 5 years after a car accident, in just one treatment. But, they warned us, the treatment would be exquisitely painful at the time and probably for a few days after. E and I were totally up for it, so R made an appointment for us for the afternoon.

We went with J, who´d been there before - the lady works out of her house, which is not somewhere you´d just stumble on by chance. J was going into town for a while before his appointment; he was just acting as a guide for us, which was very nice of him. I went in with E to translate for her: she had been in a surfing accident years ago in which she´d torn her hamstring. I told the bonecrusher (real title: Huesera, or ¨bone woman¨)this, and she went to work. One of the most intense things she did was to realign E´s tailbone - this was done via a technique that probably wouldn´t have been approved in the US or UK, and it meant a finger covered in tissue rather than the rubber glove that one might have hoped for. In any case, it looked scary.

E said her whole body felt fantastic afterward - she could feel the increased energy flow. She went to wait with the family in the living room and it was my turn. I told the huesera that I had hurt my thumb about 6 mos previously and that it seemed to be connected to something in my neck, and that I had used to weigh 30 kg more than I presently did. I figured that was enough for one session.

I had thought people were exaggerating about the pain level - I´m pretty tough, and I´d taken a naprosyn before coming, just in case. I can only imagine what it would have been like without it. It didn´t help that I was sweating so much - she would try to shift something, but her hands would slip and she´d have to keep wiping me down. Eventually she had her daughter (a student huesera) come in and fan me with a piece of newspaper.

She did my neck, my lower back, my tailbone (at my request - figured I might as well get it over with), my knees and ankles, then flipped me over to do several ribs and the other side of my knees. She spent the most time on the arm with the dysfunctional thumb, which she said I´d actually dislocated. She put it back in place, concentrating on the elbow. There was some bruising, mostly on the knees, but overall I also felt much better afterward. When the tailbone went, my whole lower back felt about a thousand times better right away. She said that it had been messed up for a long time, and I agreed. Some of my knots were not releasing despite her best efforts, and I said I was like an old car: there would be plenty of work for her on me. We joked about trading me in for a Volkswagen and suchlike. I told her I knew that this was just an initial loosening and that there was still a lot of work to be done, but that this was an excellent beginning. I paid her, and E and I arranged to come back the next Thursday.

We left the house and were thinking about going into town before sanity reasserted itself. Instead, we caught a bus back to the house and did not very much for the rest of the day. My arm that the huesera had worked on was only marginally usable for the rest of the day.

I emerged to say goodbye to JT as he left to catch his flight to Lima - he was working right up to the last minute, soplaying people who came by the house. We all wished him luck and gave him money for the trip. Then I sat up talking to his wife L and J the Finn until about 2200, the latest I´ve stayed up so far when I wasn´t in ceremony.

I slept relatively well, though I had a series of anxiety dreams about trying to get to the airport in time for my flight - a common theme in my stress dreams. I imagine it was about the coming ceremony. I got up and updated my paper journal - I hadn´t been able to write the day before.

Today has been relatively quiet. I spent a couple of hours after breakfast going over some of the icaros with E, F, and J - they said it helped. I had to stop when my voice failed. I guess I´m out of practice, but I´ll certainly get some tomorrow night. My husband says it´s a good omen for me to be doing my first Peruvian solo ceremony on Halloween. I hope he´s right.

Spent Friday in town doing various errands: getting new mattresses made (the one on my bed developed a serious dip after only 4 days), getting another towel, more toilet paper, a USB mp3 player to download the icaro lyrics onto for later transfer to the laptops of the two other students, etc. Then on Sat I went back into town with E to help her negotiate receiving her wire transfer from the US and to exchange the USB key I bought previously for one that worked. Fortunately we didn´t need to spend too much time in town to get all this done and we were there and back in about 1.5 hours.

That gave me time to work more on the rewiring I started in the first ceremony, using the Sedona Method tracks on my iPod. I was thinking about how to go about the actual mechanics of it and thought maybe I could check out how the connections were made in some of the other women present - there would be variation, of course, but I should be able to use the common factors to model my own. I´d have to get permission to do this if I were to be ethical about it, which could be a little awkward, so I decided to try one at a time. I was supposed to be examining M in the coming ceremony and thought I could look at hers to get an idea, but I had the feeling that hers wasn´t the best example. When I spoke to her later, I found that this was right on target: she´s an abuse survivor too. So much for direct patterning then, but was useful data.

J asked me to check on his girlfriend, since someone picked up negative vibes coming from her in a previous ceremony. I also found out recently that the site of the wonderful roundhouse where I held my last public ceremony (155) was vandalised last weekend, with someone entering, using the toilet, making a fire, and then killing all the geese with an axe. I wanted to try to get some insight into who was responsible for that, and whether the spirits there are unhappy for some reason. And my stepmother is going in for back surgery at the beginning of next month and could use any healing I can send her, so I planned to sing for her as well. All in all, a relatively light load by my usual standards, but I figured I´d be singing the opening icaros again as well.

This turned out to be spot on. JT poured for me again this time - I don`t know what affects whether he does or not; maybe because it was a new batch of aya and nobody knew how strong it would be. I noticed that JT wasn´t charging up the mapachos at the beginning of the ceremony, or using them while it was going on, even though there were several occasions for doing so - when I asked him about it later, he said it was because he didn´t like to smoke but I suspect it´s because his lungs have been bothering him so much lately.

I started out with personal shielding, extended to the rest of the ceremony, then moved on to thank the aya spirit and the Science. Then I started looking at M - one of her arms has been more or less paralyzed since she started having the seizures, and it seems to be connected to the abuse as a loss of personal power - no surprise there. Her seizures started when she´d finally found a safe place & person to have them with: R. They have regressed her to babyhood and he´s had to look after her accordingly, spoon-feeding her and carrying her shit buckets when she was too weak to make it to the toilet. She´s now much improved and is now roughly at the age at which her abuse occurred, but she´s still really dependent. She has demons inside but is as yet too weak for them to be removed directly.

So, I asked, with all this going on, why did she develop seizures and this pseudo brain tumor while I didn´t? The answer came in parts: First, she had a simpler case of PTSD, with a single source of abuse; second, she was slightly older than I was; third, I´m just plain tougher. For me the challenge was to break the link between pleasure and abuse. How do I do that? I asked. Go into the circuitry and do it, came the answer. At once I was riding down my spinal cord, like going through the wormholes in Contact, shaking up, down, and all around as the wiring shifted. I felt pretty good about it and was amazed at how simple it was, when it occurred to me that not only did I have to break a connection, I had to make some as well: between love and life, for one. I went back into the circuitry and found myself rolling my shoulders around in their sockets, first on one side then the other. I knew I´d have to keep doing this in every ceremony from this point on, but it was still a good first step.

I rested briefly from this and then tried to reach J´s girlfriend without noticeable success. I soon decided I needed to sing to reach her. By this time JT had returned to the ceremony, and was slumped again next to me. It was time to sing the opening icaros again, which I did. As I started the second one, I became aware of a huge, red and black insectoid entity - I wondered if I should stop singing and deal with it but opted to keep going and try to make the song a weapon. It seemed to work (or maybe JT noticed it and took care of it), but I really wanted to take a break after the second song and soplay the room.

After this, I took a singing break and gave JT healing. I had a mad impulse to grab his crotch, and dismissed it as an errant demon but then when it persisted, I realized that there was something amiss with his waterworks. I couldn´t tell whether it was a urinary tract infection or prostate trouble, but the treatment in the moment was the same: pouring lots of healing into his lower abdomen, as far down as I could manage without actually molesting him. I asked what would help and got stuck on saw palmetto (the prostate treatment) - couldn´t seem to get a local equivalent (saw palmetto Chamaerops humilis L is a European native of Mediterranean climates). But at least I got something to work with.

I then sang a song for him, putting a lot of energy into it. After I sang it and another defensive icaro, he seemed to rally and started doing healings. He was still weak, though. I didn´t get a chance to keep giving him energy top-ups because he was healing at a pretty brisk pace, but the strain was definitely showing toward the end. He wasn´t singing the words for many of the icaros and his voice wavered out of key from time to time.

There was a long gap between the last healing and the ending icaro. During this time, I had a vision of a place that was a possible future for the earth. I met a humanoid entity called Antakya who showed me around a gorgeous, sustainable eco-city running mostly on nuclear fusion power. I asked the date and was given an equivalent year of 2884, so it took awhile to get it all up and running. I asked about the state of the world and was told that global warming was starting to slow down but that sea levels were still high. I asked about all the pollution and radioactive waste of our era and was told that it got fed into the fusion reactors as fuel. It all sounded way too good to be true, like an ad for the not-yet-extant fusion power industry. Antakya did say that the intermediate stages had been pretty nasty and that there had been several huge die-offs in the process.

The ceremony finished - I sang ¨Bridge Over Troubled Water¨, always a crowd pleaser with the English-speakers - and for the first time I enjoyed the luxury of a shower before bed. It really made a difference!

Sunday was a quiet diet day. E told me an amazing story about how she got mixed up with a group of weird NewAge people in California - apparently they´re quite well-known in some circles, been on Oprah, etc. but they wanted her to be basically a brood mare for the son of the chief guru, to the point where they broke up the relationship she was in at the time. It´s amazing she was able to come here to see JT with all that behind her. Apparently she decided to come here after reading our blurbs on the website, so I guess it was worth the trouble of writing them!

Monday morning I woke up with a sore neck - couldn´t turn my head in either direction. I thought it might be either accumulated stress or having slept on it funny; either way it was bad. I mentioned it to E and she offered to have a go at it - she´s a massage therapist by profession. I accepted gratefully and then forgot about it.

At breakfast I spoke to R and J, the two other students, about getting copies made of the words to the icaros. It turns out that the book I brought with me has been sitting peacefully in JT´s room instead of being a text for them. No wonder they seemed confused when I kept telling them to look at the book. I retrieved it and told them I´d make copies and download the files onto my USB key so they can put them on their computers. I was all set to charge out and do this when E said she was ready to do my massage. I was actually a little annoyed at the delay but accepted with as much grace as I could muster.

I was soon glad of it, as she´s very good at what she does. She spent about an hour and a half just on my neck & shoulders, until my body told her it had had enough for the moment. The left side was more tense but the right side was more painful, which was interesting. I thought it might have somthing to do with the rewiring I did in Saturday´s ceremony.

After that I went into town to buy oranges and ojé for the morning - we weren´t going to have a ceremony Tues, so it seemed an opportune time to do the ojé. I got those first and then went to the internet cafe to download the files from DropBox onto the key. I managed to time it so that I reached the cafe just as the heavens opened above, and I stayed on the computer until well after the rains ended. The files seemed to download OK but the mp3s were not doing so well. I decided to bring home what I had and see what else needed doing - I had suddenly got very hungry.

I headed back to the house, stopping along the way to get various things. I got back in time to eat with R & M on their own. I had a good conversation with them and then went out again to get copies made of the book. This took less time than I had feared and cost less, which was good. I was back at the house, books in hand, by 1930. R had tried putting the files on his computer and about a third of them weren´t working. I suspected there was a Mac/PC conversion problem and suggested that one of the guys bring his laptop (both Macs) to the cybercafe to get the files downloaded directly, without the PC interface to mess things up.

I then took a shower and got ready for bed, as we were going to be getting up at 0400 for the ojé. But first, there was a problem: I had bought the wrong kind of oranges. The ones I got looked much like the ones you see in any shop in the US or UK: bright orange. Apparently the ojé works best with the local oranges, which are not orange but green and much less sour. It´s likely that the reason I had such burning sensations with the ojé when I drank it at home was that I had only the more acid oranges. JT´s wife L went out to get the right oranges, but it was late and she was only able to buy 7 of them - for 4 people drinking. We ended up having to use some of the improper oranges, and the effects were harsher as a result.

When I got up this morning, I was informed that I had the ojé prep somewhat wrong as well: it´s less like 1/2 cup ojé to 1/2 orange juice, more like 1/3 ojé to 1/3 orange juice and 1/3 hot water, plus a tablespoon of sugar. Then you´re supposed to wait about 10-15 min before starting to drink hot water, not doing so immediately as I had thought.

As usual, it took quite awhile to kick in for me, and it wasn´t too severe for the most part. I threw up 3 times in quick succession, and had the acid diarrhea often enough to make me bleed but others had it much worse. I think this is because I´ve been following the ojé diet since the last two people took it, five days ago, so my system was pretty clean. We´re to follow this up tomorrow with a purge of milk of magnesia, coconut water, and Andrews salts, also in the wee hours of the morning, to get rid of any remaining ojé residue. Fortunately, after we drink this, we can go back to bed - we don´t have to drink heroic quantities of water with this.

I went to ask JT about JS´s proposal that he construct another toilet in the back yard - we were really feeling the need of it with 4 people on ojé - and he seemed unbothered either way. He told me that the inflammation I had noticed in ceremony was his kidneys; they´ve been bothering him since he fell off the roof and hurt his back some time ago. He´s planning to go to Lima to see a specialist about it sometime next week. This is indicative of how serious it is, that he´s actually considering leaving the house for a week to get himself looked at. He told me that I could hold ceremonies in his absence if I wanted (!). He´s concerned about keeping the family afloat in the meantime, although we keep trying to reassure him that we´re OK with his taking time out to look after himself, that we´ll still pay, etc, but it all falls on deaf ears. He just goes on about who will look after the family, even after I pointed out that if he doesn´t take care of himself, he´ll die and then there really won´t be anyone to take care of the family. It´s frustrating and almost certainly the product of misplaced machismo.

Then I went to the toilet again. When I got back I started updating my paper journal. In the midst of that, R´s mother F came down again and I talked to her for a bit. The JT appeared again and started talking about M and how he had to keep E´s demons from jumping to her, since she was so weak. I asked how he did that and he started reciting prayers from the Cruz de Caravaca. His best quote:¨The devil hates ayahuasca because he doesn´t like going to the toilet.¨ Ultimate evil as chronic constipation. As my husband texted me when I passed this on,¨It certainly explains a lot of shit!¨

I got into Iquitos just about on time, just before 2100 local time. I got my luggage and exited the airport to see about 5 of the kids from JT´s house waiting for me. I was able to offload my luggage onto them and we walked back to JT´s, an easy walk from the airport. When I got to the house, I found out that they´d been waiting since 1445 - JT had misread the time I had given him (2055), leaving out the zero. Oh well, at least I got there and they were expecting me. A bed was all ready for me, complete with new mattress and mosquito net already up. There were 7 other gringos in residence: S, an herbal medicine student; his mother, G; R from South Africa, his girlfriend M and his mother F; J from Finland, and E from Texas. They all were really eager to meet me, as Juan had told them I could basically walk on water. I tried to dispel this impression, aided greatly by the fact that I´d had no sleep for 2 days. I presented Juan with the icaro translations I´d been working on so feverishly, and he spotted some errors right away - I promised to fix them asap. I had some of the lovely soup the family had prepared and then pretty much collapsed in a heap.

It was uncertain whether there would be a ceremony Tues night, as JT wasn´t sure there was enough aya for everyone. I was going on the assumption that there wouldn´t be; I went into town with E (my roommate), to show her the best place to get laundry done and use the Net, etc. It was quite hot and I probably didn´t drink enough water. We were going to go back into town to get the laundry, but then lunch was ready, so we ate instead. I was pretty tired by then, so E went back into town on her own for the laundry. I was a little concerned for her because she doesn´t have much Spanish but she did fine. We were slightly stymied by the fact that the lock on our door consisted of nothing more than a latch, which couldn´t be closed without locking it; this was fine when she was there by herself but when I arrived, it meant we were forever locking each other in or out. I resolved to get this fixed asap.

Turned out we did drink Tues night. I´d been dozing, unable to really sleep because of the off chance that we´d be having ceremony. Around 2000 I got up and checked the ceremony room and it was all set up - we were going to drink. I was annoyed - I was tired and couldn´t remember feeling less like drinking. But I got myself ready and took up my usual seat beside JT. I poured my own cup of aya for the first time, reflecting my new status I suppose. I noticed how much he had poured for everyone else and stuck to a similar amount, since it was supposed to be strong.

I decided to get right to the big issue I´ve been dancing around for a long time now: fixing the damage from my abuse. I thought I had done it when I cleared the posttraumatic stress symptoms, but lately I´ve been made more and more aware that the damage still persists, and constitutes a huge, gaping hole in my defenses. I worked on it quite extensively and was surprised at the lack of resistance I seemed to be getting. I also apologised to the spirit for being so slow on the uptake - much of the illness I´ve had in the last 6 mos has been a consequence of not doing this work before.

JT was really tired and spent a long time outside the ceremony. He came back in but didn´t start singing. I asked if he wanted me to do it, and he did, so I sang the opening icaros. It took a bit out of me, so I rested for awhile before continuing with a few more. I was giving JT healing at various times throughout, when he seemed to be flagging. I´m concerned for him, as he seemed to fall asleep several times.

I sang songs for several people, before JT seemed to rally and started the healings. He did need more energy during them, as well.

It started to rain really hard toward the end of the ceremony, a real storm with thunder and lightning right over the house. I got the feeling that this storm was bringing bad energy with it, probably from the brujo who´d been attacking JT lately.

The ceremony started early, around 2030 and ended around 0130. I was really tired and slept well until about 0300. Then it was fitful.

Weds was a diet day, spent quietly at the house. I was still tired but thought nothing of it, still recovering from jet lag and all. E and J were going to be taking oje early Thurs morning, so I wasn´t surprised when I woke up early - but was a bit concerned that every bone in my body was aching. I went to the toilet and back to bed - no help. Did some t´ai chi, but that didn´t help either. Eventually I went back to bed and pulled the sheet over me, which did help.

S and his mother G left around 0830, so I said goodbye to them and waited for breakfast, still tired and weak. We ate, and then JT lectured for a while, bringing out a bottle full of an energy remedy consisting of ants that live in the tangarana tree, pisco brandy, and honey. We all took small sips of this stuff, which tasted pretty good for a jungle remedy. JT told me I should take this every other day, as I needed building up. I took a bit more and then got some to put in a bottle to keep in my room. About 5 min later I was hit with a massive cramp in my lower right abdomen, which I thought was ovarian at first. It was hard enough to turn me pale and shivery. I took a shower (as much as I could before the water ran out) and then went to bed after that. I spent the rest of the afternoon in a febrile doze, not even rousing when JS came round to replace the lock on our door, hammering nearly constantly.

At one point I got up to use the toilet. I had some diarrhea, which eased the cramping, but right afterward I broke out sweating in every pore of my body. I was really dizzy. I was putting the used toilet paper in the trash and the next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor of the shower. At this point, JS and E noticed me there and went to get JT. He and his wife L came and got me back to my bed. They wiped me down and then L massaged my face, neck, and arms with a mentholated ointment to cool me down while JT talked to me. Eventually I felt better and JT soplayed me, then used the nettles on me. They were especially painful on the stomach and the throat. He said this was a reaction to taking too much of the ant remedy, and that my system was weak because I hadn´t fixed the damage. I was unsurprised but felt like a real idiot - so much for any respect I might have earned from anyone, right?

By this time, lunch was ready. I managed to spill chicken soup all over my right thigh - good thing I was wearing pedal pushers instead of shorts! I decided it was just one of those days.
I took another shower and went to bed again, non-feverish for the first time that day.

Today has been better so far - trying to keep well hydrated and all. Things have certainly been eventful already, after only 4 days here!

Yes, indeed. I left the house at 0315 UK time, after not having slept since Saturday night, to catch the 0345 bus to the Bristol airport. Had plenty of time at Bristol to wander around and eat some strange Starbucks porridge, which was about 90% soy milk - seems a weird ratio, as that´s got to be more expensive than porridge oats! The flight to Amsterdam was packed, as was the flight to Lima. I spoke to someone once about getting the Amsterdam to Lima flight and he said it was pretty hellish. I was lucky, I guess - it was long (12 hrs) and crowded, but apart from that not actually too bad. I'm really glad I've got over my reluctance to disturb other people when I need the toilet; that really would have tipped things toward the infernal side of the scale. Got through immigration and got my 90 days no problem; customs was a little hairier as I got the random red flash and had to have all my things X-rayed. Fortunately I don't have anything dodgy, so this was just security theatre. At least it happened when I had plenty of time until the next connection; it would have been nervous-making had it happened in, say, Amsterdam, where I walked off one plane and straight into the security line for the next with no time to spare.

Every time I'm in Lima airport, things change. There is now a Starbucks here, which I don´t remember from last time, and a kind of combination hair salon and spa. I'm not planning to get a facial but I might well flop down in a massage chair for half an hour - seems like money to be well spent.

Amazingly, my mobile seems to work here after a fashion - I can receive calls (at exorbitant rates) and send texts (at a slightly less eyewatering tariff). I imagine it will work in Iquitos as well, since the network I'm picking up here also exists there. What do you know, the folks at O2 really weren´t kidding. I've left an "I'm out of the country until spring" message on the phone for the general public, but it's nice to know that the family can get hold of me in extremis. I reckon I'll turn it on maybe once a day, at some mutually agreed-upon time, just in case.

So now there´s nothing to do but wait for my last flight of the day. The next post will be from Iquitos.

I ended up having dinner at a Greek place nearby - not the fabled one just off Tottenham Court Road, that's gone, but another one that got pretty good reviews online. The food was all right, but I felt really out of place there; everything was decorated in neutral tones and the furniture reminded me of Danish Modern stuff. I'd chosen to try this place because it was described as a taverna - maybe they have tavernas like this in Greece to cater to visitors from London!

Got to sleep after listening to my meditation tracks on my iPod - the restore seems to have cleared up the skipping problem, for which I am grateful.

Woke up at 0815, tried to get back to sleep because I felt pretty whacked - but without success. Did a full t'ai chi set - it's amazing what waking up stiff as a board can do in terms of motivation. Scrounged breakfast from odds and ends bought the day before, resolving to make sure I ate real meals today. Then pottered around a bit before heading over to Camden to look for hiking poles (I'd found the address of an outdoor store there yesterday when I was using my 20 min allocation of free wifi at Coffee Company).

I took the tube to Camden Town and got a fair way up Camden High Street before I realized that the shop was in fact on Camden Road. Fortunately, I was still within shouting distance and was able to recover fairly quickly. I was somewhat stymied by the bizarre numbering on Camden Road - 87 was followed across the street by 45, for example - but I eventually found the shop and bought a pair of poles. They're reasonably lightweight and adjustable, though I may need to get some larger baskets to stick on the ends for serious mud use. Still lighter than having someone carve a branch for me, which is the usual routine when I'm hiking in the Peruvian mud.

Then I headed over to the various markets around Camden. I think I hit all of them this time, which is pretty impressive. I was struck at how many more places I would have spent money had I been there 15 years ago, or even 10. These days I seem to be well out of the metal/goth aesthetic, though I do sometimes drop into the shops just for the nostalgia hit. The full-on rave scene has passed me by as well, though I like walking around Cyberdog because it feels like a Dr Who set (the website can be really annoying, be warned).

I did get a few T-shirts, two of them Indian and one of them a psychedelic print from a German eco-consciousness collective. I made myself eat lunch at a Lebanese place, and remembered why I don't eat meze much anymore - too greasy, except for the tabouli. I should have just got a double portion of that and skipped the rest, but I was too hungry to think that clearly. At least the mint tea was good.

On the way back south, I found a lovely vegan cafe that had really incredible homemade ersatz ice cream made from nuts, like Booja Booja's Stuff in a Tub but in more flavors. The place is called inSpiral and they also have loads of stuff made from raw chocolate sweetened with agave syrup. It's probably a good thing I don't live here, or I'd be hard pressed to limit my intake.

After that, I decided to walk back to the flat for the exercise. I managed it without too much trouble by the simple expedient of following the bus routes and checking the maps at the bus stops. (This works better for me than the A-Z, as I need the little "You are here" markers.) It only took me about 20 min to walk back, and I learned later that it isn't even 2 miles.

Back in the flat I looked up the place where I was going to meet my cousin E for dinner and found that it, too, was walkable. I got directions from MapQuest and settled down to finally buy my travel insurance and do some work. Next thing I knew, it was 1815 and time to get moving.

The restaurant is in Clerkenwell, so I needed to take New Oxford Street to Theobalds Road, which then turns into Clerkenwell Road. But New Oxford Street does this inconvenient split where it morphs into High Holborn on one hand and Bloomsbury Way on the other. The MapQuest directions told me to stay as straight as possible, so I took High Holborn. This, of course, turned out to be the wrong one. But I was able to turn at Grays Inn Road and catch Theobalds Road just as it turns into Clerkenwell (which had the added advantage of telling me I was going in the right direction!). I finally got to Pho just one minute late, to my amazement, and saw E from the window. The restaurant was her choice, since it's close to where she's staying; and it was really good. Pho is a soup with rice noodles; all kinds of things can go in it. I'd never had it before but will certainly be happy to have it again.

Now E's great-grandmother was my great aunt, so I think that makes us second cousins once removed, but I could be wrong. The generations got a bit muddled because my grandfather was 12 years younger than his older sister (E's great-grandmother). Anyway, she's about 20 and is spending a semester at the London School of Economics studying international relations. We had a good conversation about that, and about my stuff in Peru, and suchlike. We could probably have stayed and talked longer, but the restaurant was getting really packed and people were standing and waiting for tables; I felt it was only fair to make a move so that someone else could have the nice food.

E and I kept talking for the few blocks back to her street. It was really good meeting up with her, and to remind me that not all of my family are complete psychotics. I mentioned this to her, and she said that her mother moved to New York to get away from the craziness. I agreed that this was a good idea and that New York was a good start, but that it was still a bit too close for comfort. And with that I let her get back to the paper she was writing.

I walked back along Theobalds Road to find out where it linked up with New Oxford Street and sure enough, I should have taken Bloomsbury Way. I swear, sometimes I think personal Sat Nav would be a real help. If only it didn't require an iPhone.

So now I'm back and trying to decide whether to go to the spa tomorrow that fragiletender urged on me before I left, or just to head on home. My total mileage today: 16 km. I may well need that spa in the morning!

In my finite wisdom, I decided that the very thing I ought to do just before setting off for Peru again was go to London, to catch up with people there. So I duly got first stressed out then packed up, leaving Bristol yesterday afternoon. I caught the train to London without incident - sat with my lovely friend Z who was heading back east after a short visit. The time passed very quickly with her to talk to, and we got into Paddington at 1420, about 6 min late. I was supposed to meet up with darkjewlz at 1500, so I thought this should be just about doable.

I then caught the Tube for Russell Square, to pick up the keys to the studio flat I found on lastminute.com. Of course it took longer than I thought, since it always takes me a little while to find my bearings in London (and it had been quite a while since I was last here - more than a year, I'm pretty certain). I got a text from her saying that she was outside the address I'd given her but that it didn't look like a hotel (which it doesn't, because it isn't) - I replied that I wasn't quite there yet and we agreed to meet up at the Waterstone's nearby. I made it to the flat, put my things down, had a quick loo break and then went to Waterstone's.

Luckily, darkjewlz had been browsing and had only just arrived at the cafe as I did. We ordered tea and sat down to catch up with each other. She's had a very eventful year, ending one long-term relationship, moving from Bath to London, meeting a new partner, finishing up a PhD, finalising her conversion to Judaism and now getting ready to move to Israel! About the only thing that hasn't happened is her getting pregnant. So that gave us a lot of material, as you can imagine. We finished our tea and retreated back to the flat for more, since it seemed silly to pay for tea I could make for free, and this turned out to be a good idea: we kept talking for hours, until we started getting hungry. She also gave me a lovely ceramic bowl that she'd just found at a charity shop when I admired it and said that I'd been looking for something like that - serendipitous as all get-out.

I'd planned to meet up with astvinr later on, so when he rang, I suggested that the three of us go to dinner. Right as he hung up, my phone ran out of juice - it was considerate of it to wait until we'd heard from him!

darkjewlz is mostly vegetarian, so she suggested a Thai veggie place near the British Museum. I pulled out my laptop to try to find the restaurant online, but found that the promised wi-fi access was not, in fact, free: one had to register for it and pay £12! I was unimpressed, especially as it was now after 5 and the office where I could have registered for same was closed.

We met up with astvinr outside Waterstone's and set off in what seemed the right direction, but since only darkjewlz had any idea where we were going, we went round in a big circle until we told astvinr the general direction, after which point we did much better. As I had suspected, astvinr anddarkjewlz had mutual acquaintances and had plenty to talk about, which was cool (especially since my voice was starting to fail through overuse!).

The restaurant looked like one of those cheap steam table places where you don't really want to eat for fear of food poisoning, but since it was all veggie we figured it was worth a try. They are really doing clever things with textured vegetable protein these days - the mock duck and BBQ pork were very convincing. Right up until, at some strange internal signal, everything suddenly expanded in our stomachs. It felt like I'd swallowed a furled umbrella that was now being opened within my alimentary canal. It was quite unsettling.

The walk back toward the flat was most welcome, though we had to bid darkjewlz an early goodnight - she'd been up and running all day long and was flagging badly. By the time we got back to my den of iquity, the worst of the spasms had passed and astvinr and I were able to settle down for a good long chat.
This lasted until midnight, at which point he headed back home for some rest. I was really tired and still hadn't even unpacked, but threw everything into the wardrobe and collapsed into bed. There was a lot of noise from the road, so getting to sleep took longer than I had expected, but I got there in the end.

I woke up at 0745, rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, but was defeated by the road noise. I got up, did some t'ai chi to get the kinks out, and filled up my water weights for later use. I wanted to make sure I was still on target to meet up with D, a friend of a friend who's spent a fair amount of time in Peru working with ayahuasca, so I packed up my laptop and went in search of free wi-fi.

Planet Organic doesn't have connectivity, so after a quick breakfast there I went down to Tottenham Court Road. I landed in a Coffee Company where I got 20 min free for my £3.50 order and checked my email. I heard from my cousin E, who finally gave me a mobile number to reach her on, but nothing from D. I texted him to make sure we were still on and he called back. I had to move to the front of the cafe to get far enough away from the music to hear him give me directions to his place near in Southwark. I also took some time to look for places stocking hiking poles. There was a place that seemed promising in Camden, not many Tube stops away. I took down the details as my time ran out.

Then I went round to a couple of the electronics shops, trying to get someone to look at my iPod. It had started skipping while playing songs, and I really didn't want to be stuck in Peru with a defective iPod. The first place I went to served only to gleefully inform me that my iPod was out of warranty and not, as I had thought, covered by AppleCare. A more helpful soul directed me to a strange little Apple repair place nearby , who told me that it was probably just a software corruption and recommended that I restore the iPod to default settings before putting all the music back on. He even sold me the USB lead I'd neglected to bring with me.

When I got back to the flat, reception was open. I asked for a registration form for the wireless, figuring that possibly at £3.50 for 20 min at a cafe, £12 for the whole stay was a bargain. I only wish they had made it clearer at the beginning that this was how the system would work! As soon as I started trying to restore my iPod, I found that it wouldn't work without net access, so I threw in the towel at that point and called the office to set up the wireless. This took about 10 min to set up, and it was slower than the connection at the cafe had been - but on the flip side, I don't need to keep ordering expensive unwanted cups of tea or to listen to indifferent music at volumes too loud to allow me to hear my phone ring.

The connection was slow enough, though, that waiting for the software update to download left me plenty of time to work out with the water weights - and shower afterward. The shower was a little alarming because it wouldn't turn off at the end no matter how often I pressed the button. Eventually it occurred to me to just shut off the power to it, and it stopped.

By this point, it was almost time to go to Southwark to meet D. I got dressed and threw important stuff in my day bag, leaving my iPod syncing with the computer (and feeling more than a little twinge of guilt). But I managed to get from Goodge St to Waterloo to London Bridge quite smoothly. I even got on the bus from London Bridge OK once I worked out which bus stop I needed. The problem came when I thought that when D told me to get off at Redriff School, that meant there would be a stop called "Redriff School". There isn't, and by the time I realised it, I was all the way to Canada Water station. Fortunately, the lady sitting next to me told me where I could catch the bus back to where I needed to be. Even more fortunately, when I got on that bus, a little old lady heard me asking the driver where to get off and said she'd tell me (when the driver seemed not only completely clueless but somewhat resentful that I'd asked him).

So I spent about 10 minutes listening to her reminiscences about working in a factory until she turned 64 (some 20+ years ago now), how she goes to play bingo at this or that place, etc. It was fine, I just let it wash over me, and she did tell me where I needed to be. This wasn't quite enough to get me to D's place, though. I was on the right street but it was one of those suburban cul-de-sacs where all the flats looked alike and none of them had numbers visible from the street. Eventually I called him and he came out and found me - some 35 min later than we'd agreed to meet.

It was OK though, I didn't think he'd be a real stickler for time, having spent so much time in Peru. This turned out to be the case, and we spent a jolly couple of hours comparing notes (interrupted at intervals by D's landlord; the builders were supposed to have been fixing various things and failing signally to do so). D had to go out to work, but we kept chatting right up until he started pedaling on his bike! It was pretty funny.

But this meant that it was now 1630 and I still hadn't managed to get any hot food. I thought about going up to Camden, but figured it would be too late by the time I got there (even if I'd made the bus I just missed!). In the end, I went back to the flat and made a cup of tea.

I just heard back from my cousin E, and we're meeting up tomorrow evening for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in St John's Road. I plan to spend some of the day looking for hiking poles and possibly checking out a spa - we'll see how things go. But dinner tonight should probably be my priority just now.

Secrets of self-control

Does falling in love make us more creative?

Neural correlates of religious and nonreligious belief (believers all described as "committed Christians")

Placebo "side effects" can be drug-specific

The closer you are, the more I believe you

Computer program detects domestic abuse

Sedatives may slow trauma recovery

4.4 million years ago our ancestors were already walking tall

The 2009 IgNobel Prizes

Overpopulation more complex than it appears

Thanks to catvincent for bringing most of these to my attention:

Rak Razam again ventures into the jungle for some ayahuasca... (this is the Aussie journalist who came and drank with my apprenticeship program in 2006)

Spanked kids have lower IQs - chicken or egg here?

A protein that cuts and pastes "junk DNA" could be useful in gene therapies

Web/phone seminars on the future of psychedelics, with Daniel Pinchbeck, Graham Hancock, Rick Doblin, Satyen Raja, and Amanda Feilding

When Technology Fails - how to survive everything going completely tits-up

The man with half a brain

Anaesthesia and sexual arousal

Torture useless at producing accurate information - another "duh!" moment

Once upon a time, fragiletender proposed that we keep chickens. I thought she was stark raving mad, as my entire experience with chickens so far was limited to the incredibly annoying roosters in Peru crowing at all hours of the day and night - and we live in the middle of a city, to boot.

But as the economic situation worsened, I thought better of it... and so the Great Chicken Project was duly launched. This came to fruition last Friday, when we made the acquaintance of our new feathered friends, Pepper and Ginger. The full story here, with pictures. I must admit responsibility for the names - they seemed good and chickeny to me!

I have to say, I never anticipated how cool the chickens are. I find just watching them from the window quite soothing, and getting right up close and personal is even better. I was always a devotee of the Great Chicken God, and my Chinese astrological sign is the Rooster - maybe I shouldn't be too shocked after all.

On Sunday I got up bright and early for a tour to County Clare, just to the south of Galway. For me the big draw was the Cliffs of Moher, a famous area of high cliffs above a sheer drop into the Atlantic. While our guide swore up and down that we should stay on the protected part of the path, that no better views were to be found by going past the No Trespassing sign, I found that the view from the "forbidden zone" was much better - and not much more dangerous unless you're there on a really windy day. My pictures are here [Edit: argh, looks like you have to join to see them - sorry!].

The other highlight was the Ailwee Cave, which was interesting but being there with a huge tour group was fairly annoying. They are very proud of their European Brown Bear remains, and there is a large bear standing at the entrance to the cave. If you look at it closely, though, it's pretty obvious that it's a cuddly toy rather than an attempt at a realistic-looking stuffed bear.

All in all, I would like to go back to the Cliffs of Moher and spend more time there - we only had about 80 min. I could skip the Ailwee Cave.

After Saturday night's scary calamari tacos (included in my photos above), I had a very good Thai meal on Sunday night at a restaurant near the Galway city museum. It was a coconut-milk based seafood curry, which I had with thin rice noodles. There was so much of it that I brought it back to the B&B with me, though I had no way to heat it up again and so left it in the fridge when I left the next day.

Monday I was again up and out early, having packed up the night before. I had about 75 min to kill while waiting for my train, so I went back to the health food store and got some of the tea I'd been interested in before - I'd seen the chocolate chai in shops here but hadn't realised it came from Galway. I got the immune booster and the detox blend, then went back to the station.

The train ride to Dublin went smoothly, but I had to do a bit of a mad dash to get to the ferry port on time: the train got in at 1335 and the ferry left at 1430. I took the tram from Heuston Station to Connolly and caught a taxi from there, arriving with about 10 min to spare.

The ferry this time was the fast boat, set to take 2 hrs from Dublin to Holyhead. It ended up being 2.5 hrs because of some rough weather we hit about halfway there. They held the train at Holyhead for us, but we had to hurry. I was disappointed that nobody was prepared to stamp my passport once back in Wales - I'd hoped to get my visa transferred from my old one to the new one.

The train from Holyhead was pretty full when I got on, and it only got more and more packed as we headed east. There were people standing in the aisles until Chester, where about 90% of the people got off. So it was quite a nice run from Chester to Shrewsbury, but the train itself was a local with no facilities to buy food or water. In fact, none of the trains or stations I stopped at on the way back had anything open. I wished I'd used up the last of my Euros buying water on the ferry, but how was I to know?

I got back into Bristol at midnight, and was home by 1230. I met & greeted the family and managed to stay up long enough to drink some tea and eat something before collapsing into bed.

Tuesday I got up and went to t'ai chi, the last calm and contemplative moment of the day. We had the cleaners in, sorely needed after weeks of people's being ill; then there was a strange red dust that had to be investigated and seemed to be indicative of either wet or dry rot in the basement; and to top it off, the dryer decided to die on us. I called the repair service and had to reinstate the extended warranty, while being promised that someone would call to arrange a service call. So far this has not happened.

I spent a little while putting my pictures online, then helped make dinner. We were about halfway through when the grocery delivery came, a full half-hour early. I asked the guy to come back later, which he did, fortunately.

This morning I woke up at 0430 to drink ojé by way of detoxing after my trip. The oranges I used were pretty big - it only took two of them to mix with the ojé. Then it was time to drink cup after cup of herbal tea while waiting for the purge to start. By 0730 it was going full blast, and didn't really calm down until I finally ate something at noon. For the next week, I'm on an extra low-fat diet, with all food at room temperature or warmer. It should make the next ceremony nice and potent.

While I was waiting, I read a very fine book called Cruelty by Kathleen Taylor. She's a neuroscientist who used her scientific training to consider whether neuroscience can provide some insight into how and why people can commit atrocities on each other. The book is very well-organised, with all terms delimited at the beginning and then explored at some depth. One of the most interesting things she mentions is that cognitive dissonance is processed in parts of the brain close to areas involved in pain perception; having one's cherished beliefs threatened may actually be perceived as painful. This would help explain the widespread resistance to changing one's mind found among true believers of all flavors. Good stuff.

When the gastrointestinal fireworks abated, I turned on my mobile phone to find that I had made a massage appointment for this afternoon, which I could still make if I went straight away. I did, and it was good, but I kept having to go to the loo. I guess the detox is well under way!

Got up nice and early today to get into town for my trip to Inishmore - had to catch the bus at 0900, then the shuttle at 0930 to get to the ferry terminal for 1030. I brought my umbrella because it had rained overnight and it was still a little drizzly. By the time I got on the shuttle, it was already nearly full - there were only a couple of seats left, all the way in the back. I was lucky enough not to have to sit facing backward, never mind being able to choose which side I wanted to be on. The shuttle was very full and it was cold enough that everyone's breath misted up the windows. At last someone worked out how to open the windows a bit, which helped.

One of the strangest things to see here is the juxtaposition of the old style dry stone walls enclosing new McMansion style houses. The walls are pretty cool in and of themselves - here is a picture of some of them on Inishmore itself.

The ferry crossing was a little choppy, but the weather cleared marvelously and it was bright sunshine the rest of the day. I saw a few seals as well, which made me happy.

We got to Inishmore around 1115, and I decided that I wanted to see as much as possible while I was there. Rather than renting a bicycle, which I felt would be more of an annoyance than a help, I elected to walk. Looking at the map, it seemed doable. I especially wanted to check out the standing stones indicated on the map, which were on an unpaved area that I'd have to walk a bike along anyway.

So I walked. And walked. And walked. I don't think I stopped for more than 10 min for the next 6 hours. I tried to find the standing stones on two separate occasions, but had no luck. If I were to go again, I'd skip the half of the island with the lighthouse (a good view, but you can't actually get into the lighthouse itself) and concentrate on the coastal path to the Iron Age fort (here's a video of the fort), stopping on the way at the gorgeous sandy beach and the seal colony. As it was, I only spent about 10 min at each place - disgraceful, but I was concerned about getting back in time for the ferry back to Galway. I don't know why I get these ideas fixed in my head, but I do. I also kept telling myself that this was the initial exploratory trip and that I would come back.

I made it back to the ferry port with half an hour to spare, having walked 21.6 km by the pedometer in my phone. I kept thinking, "I'm completely mad!" It was a relief to sit down in my seat on the ferry - I was wondering if I'd be crippled for the rest of the day.

This was not the case, happily; I was able to exit the ferry and get on the shuttle back to Galway with no problem. I was even in good enough shape to go in search of dinner in the city centre afterward - but not before booking a tour for tomorrow. This one is a coach tour - I think it's the only way to prevent my walking myself into the ground completely.

Dinner was an interesting experience. I have this strange compulsion to try Mexican and Tex-Mex places even when I ought to know better - I think it's desperation at work. This one seemed promising - the soup offered as a started was nice, red pepper and courgette. Then came the tacos. At least, that's what the menu called them: they were served not in the customary half-moon shaped shell but in corn baskets, like miniatures of what taco salads often appear in. And the meat and veg in these shells seemed like a bastard child of fajitas and teriyaki - very sweet and greasy. I must say, I've had tacos in a lot of places, but this interpretation was unique. For those of you of a curious disposition, here is where I had them. I'd been prepared for disappointment, but this was distinctly odd. I have pictures but no time to put them up now.

And now I must head back to the B&B, to rest my feet and prepare for tomorrow.

I managed to find the drumming circle I was thinking about - it was something of a small miracle, actually, since the flyers had no address on them and I don't know the area. I had a hunch it would be somewhere near the university, so I headed that way and eventually heard the drumming. Turns out it was an African drumming class, the first of the new school term, and it was being held by the river. Drums were provided. I missed the very beginning, but joined in with minimal fuss. It was a lot of fun - I keep meaning to do something like this at home but never seem to have the time or energy. Not only did I attend the beginners' session starting at 1800 but stayed on for the more advanced trance drumming two hours later. I think I was the only tourist there - everyone else seemed to know each other. They made me feel quite welcome though, and I had a really fine time. In the trance class I got a little confused, because I couldn't hear what I was doing, but it was OK. Eventually I got up and was shaking a rattle rather than actually drumming. It was just as well because when I dance to drums on their own, I have to be careful not to slide into pre-possession (a leftover from my African trad religion days).

We finished up around 2300 and helped put all the drums back into the teacher's van - I took off pretty sharpish because I wanted to catch the last bus back out to my B&B. I made it with time to spare but the last bus was at 2330 and if I'd missed it, I would have been paying a fairly steep cab fare.

Being me, I managed not to ever get dinner, subsisting on an apple and more of the fruit cake I bought earlier in the day. I was quite tired when I got home, but happy. I was slightly confused getting off the bus, since the B&B wasn't visible from the stop, but I found it in a minute or so. It had turned colder in the night and I was grateful to be able to get a hot shower before bed. It was 0030 before I finally got to sleep.

With all this in mind, it's not really surprising that I slept in today until 0915. I went down to breakfast and asked about trips out to the Aran Islands. I missed the one for today, as it left at 1030 and I was still at the B&B at that point. However, according to my hosts, the weekends aren't crazy busy anymore at this time of year, so going tomorrow isn't as bad an idea as I thought. When I reconsidered my options, I really felt I should head back to the university, since it's almost certain there won't be many people there at the weekend and I'm gone on Monday.

I took the bus into town and went to the train station to buy my ticket back to Dublin on Monday; I was sure it would be cheaper than getting it on the day as I had on the way here. It was and I now have the ticket safe in my possession. Then I headed toward the water: I wanted to see some ocean, or at least Galway Bay. I found the docks and started walking along the waterfront, past the museum. I saw a woman doing t'ai chi there, and I decided it was a good idea. I finished my set and went into the museum cafe for a cup of tea to warm me up. I was surprised and pleased to find that there were gluten-free scones available. I've noticed that there seems to be a lot more awareness of wheat intolerance here than I'm used to in Bristol; it's perfectly possible to walk into a random cafe and have there be some kind of gluten-free option. Speaking to the lady behind the counter, it turns out that there are a lot of celiac folks in western Ireland, hence the raised awareness. What are the odds that I'd pick a vacation destination where the food even conspires in my favor?

When I was done, I walked round the docks further, finally coming to a trail. I took the shorter fork and looked out over the water. I was reminded of Santa Cruz and New Orleans and Amsterdam - I don't know if it's the being on holiday, being in a place with lots of canals and river and sea, or feeling like I bonded with some of the people here last night, but I felt like I was in exactly the right place at the right time. Gotta love that spirit. I wondered what its purpose was in getting me here, since I seem to have completely failed to meet up with the person I thought I was here for; and then I thought, could it just have wanted me to go somewhere I would like, somewhere that I would resonate with? That choked me up, and I decided I'd better head for the university before I dissolved into a puddle.

I got there, and found that the place I had wanted to have lunch was no longer open. I sat for a while, and actually spoke to someone, just to ask if she was the person I was supposed to meet - she wasn't. I went to the bookstore again, with similar lack of results. Then it occurred to me to leave my card on an interesting bookshelf. I then went to various places, leaving cards here and there. I'm under no illusions that I will hear from anyone, but hey, at least I will have discharged my obligations in some measure. I wanted to try the library as well, but of course that was for students and staff only. I could have sat in on any number of lectures and nobody would've noticed or cared, but gods forbid I should get my hot little hands on a book. I was annoyed by this and left in medium dudgeon, but I calmed down walking along the river. I decided to head back to the waterfront, which I did.

I walked quite a ways along it, then headed back into town to leave cards in the big used bookstore I was in yesterday. If I'm heading out to Inishmore tomorrow, I won't have a chance to do it then, and the shops might well be closed on Sunday.

With that, I wound up here in another coin-op internet cafe. I have resolved to make sure I get a hot meal for dinner this time. I've walked a total of 15km so far and the evening is still young. I figure tomorrow I'll be spending a fair amount of time sitting, so it'll even out.

Hey there - I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just been in transit. I left Bristol Temple Meads at 0730 yesterday morning and arrived into Galway at 2200, having changed trains at Birmingham for Holyhead (a nearly 4-hr run), caught the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, and then the train again from Dublin on west.

The run was mostly uneventful, just long and somewhat annoying because I was always concerned that the people with reserved train seats near me would show up and disturb me - which meant I couldn't get to sleep. I was impressed, though, at how seamless the transition from train to ship was at Holyhead - I walked off the train and onto the ferry with no problems at all. And the ferry surprised me greatly by being like a cruise ship, complete with onboard mobile phone network, cinema, and duty-free shop. About the only thing it didn't have was food edible by me. I was very glad I made a load of turkey jerky on Monday!

When I got into Dublin around 1740, I had already missed the train I thought I was going to take to Galway (it left at 1745 and the port was more than 5 min away). Upon catching the bus into town, it transpired that there had been a major traffic accident in the centre of Dublin, in which a tram and a bus had a messy altercation in which from 3 to 7 people were seriously injured (depending on your informant). As a result, none of the trams was running by the time I got there, which meant I had to take a taxi from where the bus dropped me off to get to the correct train station.

The cabbie was philosophical and used the time we spent gridlocked to point out various Dublin landmarks, including the James Joyce bridge and several sites of battles during the 1916 uprising. That was pretty cool, but I have to say I wasn't too charmed by what I saw of Dublin itself. I'm sure the traffic didn't help.

I caught the train to Galway at 1915, and got here at 2200. The last four stops or so I barely remember, as I was distinctly zombified by that stage. My only thought was getting to the guesthouse and hoping like hell they'd received my text saying I'd been delayed.

I still don't know whether they got it, but reception was still open and that's what I had been worried about. So that was OK, as was the room - I got a double for the single rate just because that's how the booking worked out. It's very nice.

The folks at the B&B coped well with my weird food needs - I had lovely oatmeal and scrambled eggs for breakfast, along with ginger tea. I'd been planning a leisurely day, but I mentioned to the lady of the house that I was keen to get to the university, and it turned out her husband and son were about to leave in the car to go there. So I grabbed my essentials and headed out with them.

There was good running commentary on the way, too, and I got to the Uni around 0945. I wandered around for a while, thinking it was fortunate that I'm here just when the new crop of students is arriving - it isn't immediately obvious I'm not one of them when I ask silly questions. I hung around the uni bookshop for a while before heading back into town. On the way I stopped in a park by the river and did t'ai chi. That helped me settle a bit.

Then I made my way into Galway city centre. It's very much a touristy place, which has some pluses: I found several places offering wheat-and gluten-free food. There was a booth selling fresh oysters, being run by a guy who runs an oyster farm in Puget Sound, off the coast of Washington; it was a bit funny to hear an accent even less local than mine! I had five oysters - very nice - and bought a wheat-free fruit cake from another stall. I'm a creature of simple pleasures, really.

I then wandered around the shopping district for hours, finding not one but two health food stores at which I was able to pick up some necessaries. I also found what I think is the cheapest internet access in Galway - a euro an hour, as opposed to 2 or even 4 I've seen elsewhere.

Included in my wanderings were several bookshops, one of which was a large one full of used books. There was a woman there who vaguely resembled the one I saw in my vision, so I asked her name and of course it wasn't the same, but at least I tried. It would've been odd if I'd found her the very first day!

I'm considering going to a drumming circle this evening in the city centre. I'll keep you all posted.

What do vegans/strict vegetarians eat when they have colds or the flu, since chicken soup is off-limits? (And don't tell me they don't get sick, I've seen too many of them!)

Does whale milk taste of fish?

Who are these kittens who keep appearing in my visions? They are grey with black stripes.

How can I find a space heater rated at 500W or less that will actually do some good in an outdoor space of approximately 8500 cubic feet?