wow no wow in huautla 1

Huautla looking west from hotel roof – foto by smith

weird trip up magic mushroom mountain back down.

eight folk talked of going to huautla to try magic mushrooms. seven said yes. five showed up – a 70 year old male, a male 65, female 62, me 62 and lady 35 (the indians call lady she-who-runs-with-old-farts). our transport was a white van built for nine passengers, with 2 more seats welded in, into which they squeezed 12 of us – plus a live chicken in an open handbag. lady & i ended up squished 4 abreast in the rear seat, which varied from no padding at all to random metal protrusions. ride was $12 US. every day the young driver drives 5 1/2 hours from oaxaca to huautla, unloads, fills the van with people, drives 5 hours back – 7 days a week. i think if everything went right, he could do it in 12 hours, but 14 seems more likely, 16 not unrealistic. those are long days. add in eat and sleep and it don’t leave much. our driver drank a can of red bull and ate a sugar lollipop driving us back – a sugar speed run.

the ride up was up down in around mountain after mountain. after we got high and dry enough, the mountains became covered in cactus forests which gave way to over-abundant green even higher in the cloud forests. huautla is tucked in amongst mountains within mountains, a town of 33,000 flung and strung down mountain at a 45 degree angle. you stand in town and look down at clouds, across through mist at more mountains.

in retrospect, i doubt the wisdom of a group of people going on a spiritual quest together – too many needs, too many egos, too many directions to go with too little give and take. one of the folk who didn’t go was a zapotec shaman. he backed out because he didn’t feel comfortable spiritually with one of our group. unfortunately he was our key to the journey – without him, we were just four gringos and a mexican american. since we lost our guide, we become our own.

next morning, we asked the hotel manager where we could find a curandero* (shaman, healer) to conduct a mushroom ceremony. he offered to take us to one of his relatives. we had to split up because we had to find some feminine napkins, so 3 of us taxied to a store while the other two said they’d taxi to the curandero’s, scout the info, and we’d all meet back at the hotel to evaluate. our taxi decided we were going to the curandero’s house even though lady kept telling him to take us to a store. at the house we finally got him to go where we wanted. got the napkins, then had to fight with the driver again because he wouldn’t take us back to the hotel – took us instead to the markets because he thought we needed to buy stuff – because that’s what gringos do. finally convinced him to take us back by promising we’d maybe come back later and use him if we could.

back at the hotel, our friends return and the woman informs us she’s paid $21 a piece for her and her friend and they’ll be staying at the curandera’s house that night for the ceremony – and oh, it’s a small house and there’s really no room for us. says she didn’t reserve a place for us because she “wasn’t sure what our plans were.” i want to tell her what i think of her, but this being a spiritual journey, i keep my mouth shut – although secretly i’m pleased because i’ve been dreading the thought of tripping with her.

three of us cab into centro and ask a young lady if she knows where we can find a curandero. she says sure, takes us through twisty climbing alleys of market stalls to the main government building in town. the front is painted with portraits of maria sabina (the curandera who turned on the beatles, bob dylan, donovan, timothy leary, albert hoffman in the 1960s) and mushroom fantasies. this is where the curanderos stand on the steps waiting for customers. there’s dozens of stands selling feathers, incense, candles, chicken eggs and other accoutrements of the mushroom ceremony in front of the church next door. it’s too early for the shamans to be out because the ceremonies start after dark, so she takes us through more alleys to a curandero’s house. as children watch tv, a lady explains she can arrange shamans for us but it’ll be $70 each (perhaps because her curandera mother is world famous). we find this too steep, so she says they can sell us each a dose of shrooms for $10 a piece and we can do them ourselves in our hotel rooms. we go for this and a curandero comes out with three folded banana leaf packets of shrooms, says eat a third, wait thirty minutes and if you don’t feel enough, eat more. gives us his phone number in case we have emotional problems during the night.

our friend cabs back to the hotel while lady and i wander the town. i follow lady as she leads us from one terrace of the town down to the next. the town is nothing but terraced flat spots chopped into the mountainside. finally we’re wandering through car-less streets with burros tied up, old wrinkled women washing clothes by hand, chickens, ducks and dogs. we look down the mountain and can see our hotel. lady finds a dirt path heading down and says “let’s take this, it’ll take us where we want to go.” i’m thinking she’s mad, but it’s a long way back up to where we were so agree. path gets steep, muddy, we’re in sandals, tired, but going the right direction. go by a tin shack. a boy runs out after us, asks if we want to buy mushrooms. i laugh because i’m on a side of a mountain on a very steep path i don’t know where it leads and i’ve got our previously purchased shrooms in my bag, mushrooms we found after a good bit of effort and trouble and suddenly this young stranger has run after us trying to sell us the very thing we came to town for. we say no, but now know we should have said yes. but then this was before lady discovered HOW VERY MUCH she likes mushrooms. the path gets wetter, muddier and steeper (red clay sticky slick mud) but eventually crosses a wee stream and comes out on the highway by a small waterfall, almost at the hotel.

back at our hotel, our friend seems kind of sad after the day’s stresses and says he’s going to wait a night until he gets back to oaxaca to take the shrooms in familiar friendly surroundings. lady and i decide to stay an extra day. i tell her we can also wait until oaxaca if she’d feel safer. she says she can’t wait, she’s too curious and wants to KNOW. since this is her first psychedelic trip, i offer to not eat any mushrooms so i can be there for her. i figure this will make her feel safer, and she goes for it.

that’s our first 24 hours in huautla – pronounced WOWt-luh.

* curendero / curendera – A Mexican man / woman who practices healing techniques inherited from the Mayans

Huautla looking east from hotel roof – foto/collage by smith