“AMAZON DREAMING”
Sunlight glistens off the water of the mighty Amazon river as our speedboat slows to pass locals in their wooden canoes. Whole families look up from their paddling and wave warm-heartedly as the wake from our boat shakes them.
I’m headed to the ‘Refugio Altiplano’, an upmarket jungle lodge 35 kilometres south of the jungle city of Iquitos, over 1000 kms from Lima, the capital of Peru. The Refugio is a retreat where you can be pampered by the physical surrounds and take part in programs for healing and relaxation with natural plant medicines administered by indigenous medicine men, or as the West calls them – shamen.
We pull into dock at a collection of floating shanty huts with tin roofs and beer signs out front at the riverside village of Tamshiyacu. A swarm of young Peruvian boys chatter excitedly and grab our guide rope, tying down the boat with practised hands.
“They’re excited because they know I’ll give them a sol,” says our guide, Scott Petersen, as we stock up on some last minute supplies at this river outpost.
Petersen is a tall, bearded American from Michigan with crinkly blue eyes and the swagger and style of Richard Branson. As well as being a tour guide and businessman, he’s also a trained herbalist and anthropologist who has been studying for over 25 years with Peruvian shamen.
Ten years ago he came to Iquitos to put his knowledge into practice and offer Western tourists a place to relax, heal and learn. The Refugio Altiplano (which translates to ‘Reguge of the High Plains’) is now one of the largest tourist centres on the Upper Amazon. This sprawling jungle retreat offers a host of the usual adventure activities like rafting, kyaking, swimming, fishing, bushwalking