Peruvian Amazon Ayahuasca’s Influence on Great Writers

by Kelly Jean Egan
My second to last night in the jungle finds me in the passenger seat of a ramshackle vehicle driving to the outskirts of Puerto Maldonado, the gateway to the southern Peruvian Amazon.  We are leaving the city, seeking once more the dark, fecund shelter of the forest.
Amado, a middle-aged Peruvian man wearing Adidas pants and a baseball cap, is behind the wheel.  He is the ecolodge's affiliate curandero, serving their "alternative tourism" offering.  I booked one night with the lodge but instead of spending it in the luxury of my first really clean room in a month, I've just ...