An optional experience while visiting the Amazon Jungle is the Ayahuasca Ceremony. This ritual is overseen by an Amazon Shaman, and assisted by Jerry and Kathy Wills. This is an ancient ritual passed down through thousands of years and generations of Shamen.

Each ceremony is conducted under the guidance of a master Ayahuascaro and involves the use of a powerful blend of plants. The brewed mixture takes several days to prepare and is known as Ayahuasca to the local population. This substance is created from the bark and leaves of a special tree and "The Vision Vine". These plants only grow within certain areas of the Amazon. These ceremonies are practiced for communication with the plant's spiritual essence and the spiritual world. The result is that the practitioner is able to more effectively diagnose and heal the body of illness, expand awareness, and to gain extraordinary access to psychic abilities.

• Click here to listen to Shaman Mateo sing to the Ayahuasca •

Ayahuasca is one of the most potent catalysts for expanded awareness yet discovered by human beings. In Ecuador and Peru this medicine is known as Ayahuasca, a Quechua Indian word meaning, ironically, "vine of the dead". In Columbia and parts of Brazil, the Tupi Indian name Yage (pronounced Ya-hay) is used, and among Amazonia's proliferating mestizo religous cults it is called Daime...

"Ayahuasca" as a hallucinogenic substance does not properly refer to one single plant, but to a singular mixture of two very different plan species... there is no such thing as an "ayahuasca plant," or a "yage plant", any more than there is a simple liquor simply called "Martini." Ayahuasca correctly refers to a psychedelic combination of plants which varies in potency according to the skill of its maker.

While each shaman has his own secret formula for the mixture (with probably no two exactly alike), it has been established that true ayahuasca always contains both beta-carboline and tryptamine alkaloids, the former (harmine and harmaline) usually obtained from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, and the latter (N, N-dimethyl-tryptamine, or DMT) from the leaves of the Psychotria viridis bush. (There may be variations among plant species, but the alkaloids are always consistent.

It is significant to note that neither one of these plant substances by itself is normally psychoactive in oral doses. (Harmine/ harmaline is said to effect hallucinosis at highly toxic levels, but in less heroic quantities it is at best a tranquilizer, at worst an emetic.) DMT, in any quantity, is not orally active unless used in combination with a monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor. This principle is precisely what makes ayahuasca effective; the harmala alkaloids in the Banisteriopsis caapi vine are potent short term MAO inhibitors which synergize with the DMT-containing Psychotria viridis leaves to produce what has been described as one of the most profound of all psychedelic experiences.

During the ceremony, you find that you can communicate with the plant world and your personal spirit guides. Additionally, the Shaman has the ability to travel on a spiritual journey with the participants, offering them aid in their quest for enlightenment, or to assist in any healing processes necessary. Spiritual guides or animal spirits may also come to assist the Shaman and the student. During the experience, powerful visions and messages are received. This is a revealing and life changing event.

The ceremony begins in the evening after dark and continues until the participant feels the need to sleep. Upon awakening, you feel aware and relaxed (if you do decide to sleep). There only lasting effects associated with the experience are profound enlightenment, memories of the visions and messages or healing that come to you.

To date, everyone traveling with me to Peru (hundreds of travelers) has participated in this extraordinary event. No one has experienced any ill or lasting effects from the Ayahuasca, and many have taken part in the ritual more than once. Most agree they would take part in the ceremony again. Several have returned every year to join us for additional experiences with Ayahuasca.

For more information about Ayahuasca we suggest you read "The Cosmic Serpent" by Jeremy Narby, or visit this website.