Dieta: 3 Tobacco Purge

The temple meeting for the tobacco purge is at 09.00 so I have an hour and a half to kill.

Although bathroom is basic, it has a shower and I’m looking forward to washing away my night sweats and starting my day as bright and as fresh as it’s possible to be without the comforts of toothpaste, soap and deodorant.

Rather like the bathroom experience in Curacavi, the shower is a deep disappointment: there is no hot water - just a slow trickle of freezing cold brown water that has been pumped up from the river. In Curacavi, the cold shower was somewhat mitigated by the warmth of the sun. Now, I step out of the cold water and stand shivering and pathetic on the cold stone floor.

I regret washing my hair as I have no way of drying it. I try as best I can to rub it with my towel, but without the aid of conditioner, it becomes a cold, wet, matted mess which I’m still trying to untangle as I hear the others heading down to the temple for the purge.

I hurry the rumpled mess of hair into a bun, grab my water bottle and blanket and slip-and-slide my way through the mud to the temple.

Most of the participants are already seated. In front each person, a portentous looking white plastic bucket.  I scan the circle for a vacant space and find one a few feet away from the energy converter.

The curandero is yet to arrive and this gives me the opportunity to make a few much needed tweaks to the converter. I’m still making adjustments when he arrives.

Behind him, are two assistants carrying jugs of a cloudy brown liquid made from tobacco leaves. The mixture is ladled into cups and passed around. We are told to drink the medicine in one swig and then to hold it in for at least 15 minutes. At this point, we will be given two litres of warm water, which we must gulp down as quickly as possible. And then the purging will begin.

The tobacco liquid is absolutely revolting and I find myself gagging before I’ve even finished drinking it. It burns my oesophagus and it

takes a significant effort to keep the mixture inside.

Finally, the signal to drink the warm water is given. The results are immediate. The purge begins in unison.

With each retch, I feel a searing pain in my chest. The entire process is horrific and I find myself gagging once more as I write about it.

The curandero inspects our buckets and those who haven’t yet reached the half-way marker are instructed to drink more warm water. Eventually, he is satisfied with our efforts. We’re told to clean out our buckets and get some rest.

Exhausted and frail, we stagger back to our huts where I continue to vomit off and on for the next hour.

And then the diarrhoea kicks in.  The rest of my day is entirely taken up with alternations between running to the bathroom and writhing on the bed.

I’m so thirsty, but there is just no way that I can haul myself up the hill to fill my bottle with drinking water.

As night starts to close in, I realise that it will soon be time to take my bedtime teaching plant medicine.