A traveller's tale from Peru 1996 -A young lady and a witchdoctor

I don’t know where the phrase ‘to put a foot in it ‘ comes from. It is a strange expression, a very clumsy phrase. There’s something quite jocular about it. For me, it implies an indiscretion that you can laugh about. It doesn’t capture the hurt that an ill chosen word can cause and it doesn’t capture the regret you feel when you realize that you vocalized a thought that should not have been uttered and cannot be unsaid. In early 1996, in the North –East of Peru, I was sitting in the back of a pick up truck and said something to a beautiful young German lady that should never have been said.

When I think about my short stay in Peru, I don’t think about the Inca trail, or Cuzco or even the sublime Machu Pichu. I don’t think about places at all but about people. Not fellow travelers, nor ordinary Peruvians that I met along the way but about a group of people, mostly from the Americas, a group of 12 that included a young German lady and me. When I think about Peru, I think about the people that brought this eclectic group together, I think about the curadores- the curors- the shamens- the witchdoctors who live in the north east of the country. I think about one shamen in particular, one curadore who a dozen souls were willing to travel hundreds of kilometers to meet.

I was led to the shamen by one line in a guidebook- ‘ the curadores of…… and by my own curiosity. However, my motivation for traveling to the famed shamens was very different to that of my eventual companions.

I began my journey in Trujillo, in Northern Peru. Fourteen bumpy hours later my bus stopped at a small town.I arrived at six in the morning having not slept for the entire journey. Immediately, I checked myself into a hotel for a few hours sleep. The curadores could wait for a few hours I thought. Actually, they couldn’t. Before I could turn in , I heard a knock on my door. “Curadores?” said the stranger. I nodded. He gestured. I picked up my rucksack. I was guided out of the hotel onto the back of a small pick up which was already full of a dozen people who had caught the same nightbus as me from Trujillo. I climbed aboard and apologized for my ignorance. My traveling companions had read up about visiting the witchdoctors. They knew what to do. I hadn’t read anything. I didn’t.

Three more hours of travel ensued as we wound our way up into he Peruvian Andes passing through small hamlets of timber and mud buildings, almost tudor in appearance, that are common in to those mountains. Three more bumpy hours , three more hours to get to know my companions. But not long enough to speak to everyone. Not long enough for people to let their guard down. Not long enough to know why the band of obviously wealthy travelers were sitting in the back of a pick up. Finally, we arrived at an unassuming house high up in this Andean valley, one of a dozen or so buildings that were scattered around the hills, home to the curadores of Brazil. We jumped out of the pick up truck and then from the garden of an unassuming house strolled an unassuming man, Eduardo, our witchdoctor for the evening.

After my sleepless overnight bus journey, I was hoping to rest for a while but instead Eduardo explained that before our evening ceremonies begun we needed to cleanse ourselves. Naturally, the only way to do this involved a muddy three hour trek further to a mountain lake high up in the valley.

On arrival, the women formed their own group and walked further along the lakeside. We were given some infused alcohol which we were told to sip from the bottle and spit out in a spray through pursed lips as an offering to the lake. We were asking the lake’s permission, permission to strip naked, wade into the ice cold water and duck our heads three times. At this point we were cleansed and I realized that I was about to experience an extraordinary evening.

A few hours later, we arrived back at our Shamen’s house and were led to what in most houses would be called a porch. This porch, however, had a selection of stuffed animals hanging from precariously positioned nails which were in some cases staring eerily at their new guests. Jars of strange looking liquids rested on shelves and on the floor, many of which contained plants which I assume were infusing their own particular properties. Dried bunches of herbs and flowers filled all the remaining space.

Sunset was the cue for the shamen to start his work. We were all beckoned to a space on the floor where we were invited to lie down. After such a tiring day it was a welcome offer. Eduardo muttered a few incantations which were designed by and large to try and induce a fairly meditative state for his clients. It would have been easy to fall asleep but for the sounds of chanting and spitting that Eduardo was making. Eduardo then preceded to drink a few large ladlefuls of a green liquid which I learnt later was derived from the insides of the San Pedro cactus. It is not a refreshing drink, however, but a hallucinogenic drug which the shamens use to commune with the spirits.

The unfortunate after effect of this drug was demonstrated by our shamen. A short time after he had swallowed the green drug, he vomited out the contents into a bucket. Then it was our turn. One by one my fellow bus mates walked over to Eduardo and drunk a ladleful of the cactus drug. The inevitable result of this was the vomiting equivalent of a ten gun salute as one by one everyone of us needed to empty our stomachs. Though for some unknown reason I couldn’t and consequently spent the whole evening waiting to be sick but failing. The drug dosage was deliberately not enough to induce detailed hallucinations but it was enough to fray the edges of reality ever so slightly. The stars twinkled that little bit brighter the stuffed animals looked that little bit more alive and time seemed to run a little bit slower.

It is hard to write about the next six hours with any real clarity. I remember standing in a circle, being spat at by people and covered in petals. I remember being lifted by two men who clamped me between two blunt swords and then twisted them so that my feet rose off the ground. I remember drinking more strange liquids. I remember chanting. I remember spitting. I remember more chanting. And then it all stopped.

We were led to another room and we sat down in silence. Then one by one the Shamen called us to have an individual audience with him. He called on the spirits to divine what was wrong with each person and why they had come to visit him and then he gave everyone words of advice and offered the spirits help to achieve their wish.

Innocently but slightly shamefully, I was able to listen to many of the private conversations as I was sat fairly near Eduardo. To my surprise it seemed that most people were there because of a relationship that was not working or that had already failed. Many of the women had made the arduous journey to the Peruvian Andes to try and get their man back. But not everybody. Many were there on behalf of sick relatives and some were sick themselves but I couldn’t always hear what ailed them.

When everyone had talked to Eduardo we were finally given the opportunity to sleep for a couple of hours. Eduardo left us and when we awoke at dawn he talked to us all once again and gave us each some herbs that he had gathered from the mountains. Some of the herbs were medicines for people to ingest, others came in small perfume sized bottles. They were charms to guard of evil spirits or bring the owner luck in whatever avenue of life he or she had asked for.


Before leaving the shamen we gave him a donation which was meant to reflect our own financial status. Then we said our goodbyes and boarded the pick up truck for the start of our long journey back to Trujillo. I was eager to talk to my fellow passengers on the way back, intrigued by their assessment of the evenings curious events. I was sat next to a young German lady who looked no older than 30. She had a beautiful but overly pale face and wore a scarf to cover her hair. I told her that I was a tourist and that my motivation for seeing the shamen was pure curiosity. I then continued the conversation by confidently asserting that the evening was fascinating but that I had no faith whatsoever that it would have any effect on anybody. I felt that it was nonsense, hocus pocus, just an elaborate confidence trick really.

She smiled at me kindly when I had finished talking. With gentle graciousness she explained to me that she hoped I was wrong. She added that the reason that she had gone to visit the curadore was because she had cancer. She was terminally ill with no help of conventional medicine healing her. This was her last hope.

It is hard to relate how I felt after this revelation. I did not know what to say to her. I had already said far too much.

A traveller's tale from India - A nice cup of tea

Like many English people, I find something very reassuring about a good cup of tea. Tea is not a panacea to all of life’s trials and challenges but it is a companion through many of them. It is a cliché but many people still ‘put the kettle on’ before talking about their day.

The English owe their tea drinking habit to India. Early colonialists brought back tea to England where it was soon to become a national institution. Even the English habit of drinking tea with milk and sugar surely has its origins in the sweet, spicy, milky version of tea which the Indian people call ‘chai.’

It was in India one afternoon that I sat down to have a nice cup of chai and reflect upon a fascinating day. The tea seller was plying his trade on the banks of the great river Ganges in the holy city of Varanassi. I sat down on a step with my piping hot cup of tea and spen tan hour watching life go by.

Life in Varanassi revolves around the river and the ghats which line it. It is a holy city built on the banks of the holiest river in India and millions of people make a pilgrimage there every year, or at least once in their life, to bathe in the holy waters and cleanse their souls.

It is extraordinary to watch and listen to thousands of people bathing in the river at dawn and dusk. The best way to watch the spectacle is from the river itself. There, you have a wonderful view of a colourful mass of humanity washing on the steps that lead into the river against the backdrop of the architecturally magnificent ghats. From the boat you can also see the bloated carcasses of dead animals floating by and occasionally glimpse the tragic corpse of a baby that has been wrapped in swaddling clothes for its final journey.


Varanassi is not the only a place where millions choose to bathe, it is also where if they can, millions choose to die or at least be cremated. There is something very matter of fact about death in Varanassi. The cremations are carried out throughout the day and anyone can witness them. You can watch as the body is set alight on a funeral pyre. You can listen to human fat sizzling and bones warping and cracking in the heat of the fire. The corpses are then unceremoniously bludgeoned with heavy wooden poles so that the skeleton breaks up and burns more thoroughly. The ashes which inevitably still contain a few larger bone remnants are then scattered in the river, only a few feet away from people who are washing in the same water.

Varanassi is an extraordinary city with a unique atmosphere. It was this special atmosphere that I was trying to soak up one afternoon with a cup of tea in my hand. I watched women pass me in beautiful brightly coloured saris. I watched them wash, fully clothed, in the filthy river water, and wondered if they ever thought about the rotting animal corpses that floated by or the cremated ashes that turned the river water to a greyish colour.

Then I watched my cheerful tea seller pop down to the waters edge with his kettle. I noticed how he submerged it completely in the Ganges, filled it up and placed it back on the stove in readiness for the next brew. Naively, I asked the man if he thought the water was clean. “ It is holy !” he replied enthusiastically with a sincere look on his face. He smiled proudly and I smiled back at him.

I looked at the river. I looked at the kettle and then I looked at my empty cup. On this occasion I didn’t find my cup of tea quite so reassuring after all.