PUCALLPA - GATE TO A MYTH WORLD
Casa Mágica lies in the village of San José near the town of Pucallpa – the fastest developing “metropolis” in the central Amazon Basin whose expansion started in the 1970s when a road from the capital city was built. Initially the road was used by lorries that brought wood to Lima and left the city with concrete. Since the time when beatniks Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs visited Pucallpa in search of experience with the mythic yagé (another term for ayahuasca), the city has changed beyond recognition. Whereas photographs of the city may arouse romantic feelings, in reality a European is confronted with an unpleasant environment like that associated with third world countries: noise, dirt and ugliness. In clouds of dust over scorching concrete, Pucallpa resembles a city after an atomic detonation, the ruins of which have just recently been re-inhabited by its original residents. The majority of houses are in various stages of construction, put together from random objects. Trash bins do not exist even in the busiest streets. There are no pavements at the sides of the roads, and those that do exist present the danger of getting stuck in the half-metre deep sewers running everywhere. Functionality here is simply subordinate to absolute pragmatism. If a thing does not have a clear and necessary purpose (such as plaster on walls), it is simply not done. This may eventually turn out to be the best solution, because the opposite is often also frightening — if you happen to come across a finished house, its look will correspond to naïve Latin American aesthetic, as when the proud owner prefers modern, imitation-marble bathroom tiles to plaster. Consequently, first impressions of Pucallpa usually verge on total disgust, despite the fact that there are certainly worse places in Peru (such as the fanciful Juliaca).
However, if visitors accustomed to “civilization” survive several days in the city, they experience unexpected enchantment. They soon discover that Pucallpa is one of those vanishing destinations where, although the city is connected to the world by a large airport, it has no McDonald’s or any other similar achievement of globalized superculture. With the exception of huge timber-processing companies, the city is fortunately not of interest to tourists or investors. It is nonetheless home to several hundred thousand people who survive in a thoroughly unrestrained manner and fill the city with bustling, colourful, vibrant energy. If astonished observers survive the initial chaos, they are surprised to find that everything necessary works in some way. Local traders create a complex tangle of relations, resembling old markets in Asian cities except for their distinct Latin American temperament. The absorbing atmosphere, which is completely unique unto itself, will definitely derail the visitor from common routines of civilization, and this experience of “a different course of things” will eventually turn out to be the greatest asset.
The advance of globalisation has opened space for mass tourism, but it also means that most places on our planet now look identical. The ease of travel has a high price in the loss of diversity. People watch the same news, have similar life goals and perceive things in a similar way. In contrast to the English, who could visit India some 150 years ago and, after a long voyage, experience a “different, authentic world” that made it possible for them to see the culture of their native land from a distance, nowadays people longing for similar enrichment have no such choice. Paradoxically, it is the uprooting, together with a rich shamanic tradition, that has been attracting adventurers and alternative artists from all over the world to dirty, noisy Pucallpa.
Maybe it is an unwritten rule that the more modern and rational a period is, the more people take interest in ancient spiritual practices and the wisdom of primitive nations. In the words of McKenna, they strive for “archaic revival”, which makes possible to realize the "lumber" of civilization. No one would expect spirituality in Pucallpa at first glance, however. In its poverty, the city seems more a bizarre temple of materialism — discos and night clubs are dispersed all over the city. Even the poorest huts have shrieking televisions. But until recently there was no city at all, only primeval forest with aboriginal Indian villages and cultures that had a totally different view of the world. Although the ancient forest has now been irretrievably exploited for timber within 50 kilometres of the city, the original traditions have been preserved even after the invasion of “civilization”. Consequently, the Pucallpa area is today considered to have the highest number of practising shamans per square kilometre worldwide.
The use of psychedelic substances in the form of ayahuasca is legal in Peru, as the practice has the same tradition in the Amazon Basin as chewing of coca by Indians in the mountains. Many shamans come from villages around Lake Yarina near Pucallpa, home to the Shipibo Indians, who are known not only as fishermen but also for making objects with unique, highly artistic patterns inspired by ayahuasca visions. Like most large Peruvian cities, Pucallpa is Christian thanks to the Spanish conquistadors, so the majority of artistic artefacts in the city depict naive, kitsch scenes from the bible. In contrast to this, a visit to a traditional Shipibo village is artistically riveting. In addition to fabrics, ceramics and jewels, painted walls and houses are no exception. With regard to the fact that “set and settings” (i.e. the choice of background — not only the physical place with the right effects, but also the psychological environment of the right performance and atmosphere) are essential for using ayahuasca, as is the case with most psychedelic substances, the Shipibo villages and the wild (although nowadays significantly reduced) Amazon nature bursting with life are ideal for the ritual.