The Past, Present and Future of Psychedelic Tourism in Oaxaca (Part 2)
In which I explore San Jose del Pacifico in the Mountains of Oaxaca
The Past, Present and Future of Psychedelic Tourism in Oaxaca (Part 2)
by Crow Qu’appelle
(This is the second chapter of a travelogue in which I visit the highlands of Oaxaca in order to investigate its psychedelic tourism scene. If you wish to start the story from the beginning, you can find the first chapter here.)
On Saturday, April 8th, I awoke before dawn in San Mateo, having enjoyed a deep, long, restful sleep.
I went downstairs and sat in the early morning sun, waiting for the restaurant to open. I read a bit and then wrote in my journal a bit. It felt good to be alone. I enjoy my own company. As much as I like being in a relationship, I also like not being in a relationship.
In the back of my mind was Rocio, the girlfriend I’d broken up with about a month ago. I had been fully committed to her, although that commitment was within the frame of an open relationship. Then my world came crashing down when I found out that she was cheating on me, despite the fact that she was allowed to have other partners. The only thing she had to do was be honest with me, and she couldn’t do it. Long story short, I had constructed a very awesome life for myself in San Cristobal, and she was at the centre of it. To give you a bit of an idea of how messy things were, her best friend and my best friend in San Cristobal are the same person, and we all lived together. So when I broke up with her, it was kind of like our house had burned down.
And as I sifted through the wreckage, it was hard to separate my feelings towards her from my feelings towards others. For some reason, my heartache had as much to do with another woman as it had to do with her, and I got insanely mad at this other woman. Hey, no one said emotions are rational.
Let me explain. Part of the reason that I reacted so strongly to the COVID psy op was because it separated me from my Australian girlfriend “Saskia”. She was supposed to return to Canada in April or May of 2020, but the Australia government turned her country into a prison, and she wasn’t allowed to leave.
Part of the reason that I hated COVID so much was because I’m a romantic and COVID separated me from the love of my life. I haven’t seen her since 2019, and Im still not over her. But I decided at a certain point in time that I needed to move on, and stopped talking to her.
None of this means I wasn’t in love with “Rigoberta”, by the way. I was. I know that a lot of people think that it isn’t possible to be in love with more than one person at once, but I know from my own experience that it definitely is.
But my feelings are more complicated still, because I have a hard time separating personal things from political feelings. My feeling of heartbreak has a political dimension to it. I felt incredibly betrayed by many of my friends, family members, and former comrades, who welcomed the advent of authoritarianism in Canada with open arms. I wasn’t just mad at Rigoberta, or Saskia, but the world in general, with a particularly acute rage directed at Canadian society for betraying itself so profoundly.
Anyway, I got absorbed in writing, and several hours disappeared. I had a delicious breakfast and some delicious maracuya mousse. If you haven’t tried maracuya mousse, you don’t know what you’re missing. Oaxaca is famous for its cuisine, and its reputation is well-deserved. Furthermore, delicious homecooked cuisine made with fresh ingredients costs less than the nastiest fast food crap in Canada. As a case in point, a maracuya mousse will set you back just 25 pesos. I got two.
Around noon I figured I had better clear out of my room. I decided to head back to San Jose del Pacifico and start searching for someone to do ceremony with.
I called my friend Vaxa Kib and asked him for a recommendation for a place to stay. He told me to go to a place called La Cumbre. He told me that I could ask about mushroom ceremonies at the reception there.
Off I went. 20 minutes later I was in San Jose. As I entered onto the main drag, I could tell that this was a very touristy place. Now, I like doing a lot of touristy things. I love visiting archaeological sites and nature reserves and old cathedrals and temples and all those kinds of things. Im not against tourism. Far from it. But we all know that sometimes the crass commercialism of certain places can suck the magic out of certain experiences. And right away I got some tourist trap vibes from the main drag of San Jose. I’m just being honest here.
I asked for directions to La Cumbre and someone pointed up the mountain to where a tall stone building jutted out of the rockface, overlooking the town. Seemed like a good place to stay. Who doesn’t like being on top?
I parked my motorcycle and climbed a flight of stairs, finding myself in a strange labyrinth with a series of different levels joined by different staircases, with an impressive lookout offering a majestic view of mountains which stretched for as far as the eye could see, before shrouding themselves in the haze of a thin fog. I proceeded through a basketball court and descended another staircase and entered the reception. I pressed a buzzer and took a minute to look around. Prominently displayed was a sign announcing that magic mushrooms were for sale. I was happy to see that everything is out in the open here. I personally think that entheogens should be available to anyone who wants them, including children, for as low a cost as possible, so I am happy whenever I see psychedelics on public display.
After renting a room for the night, I inquired as to the price for mushrooms, and was surprised when he quoted me $700 pesos for three grams.
700 pesos for three grams? Good lord. In Canada, mushrooms will run you about $100 per ounce, which works out to about five times cheaper. And I’m not talking about wholesale prices here. I’m talking retail. These cartel guys really need to get their shit together, if you ask me. They’re leaving so much money on the table by not growing mushrooms.
That said, I’m not complaining. A single night in a hotel in Canada can easily run you $100. Its fucking ridiculous. I don’t get economics at all.
Here, the cost per night was $250 pesos for a private room, which is less than $20 Canadian. Given that were in the high season for tourism in Mexico, this is a good price. Clearly, San Jose del Pacifico is backpacker friendly.
In places like this, you can always find a place to pitch a tent for 100 pesos, or even for free if you’re blessed with the social graces.
After paying for my room, I asked the person at the desk if he could recommend anyone to do ceremony with.
He told me, with a bit of a pained expression on his face, that there wasn’t really any real elders conducting ceremonies in San Jose. He seemed to be of the opinion that most of the people offering spiritual experiences to tourists were under-qualified, to say the least.
He emphasized that many of the people conducting ceremony were young, with evident disapproval.
It should be noted that this attitude in common in all traditional cultures I know of. A medicine person under the age of forty is rare. A shaman under the age of thirty is unheard of. The generally accepted attitude is that it takes years and years walking a spiritual path before one is ready to guide anyone else. In ceremonial circles, being overly eager to lead others is seen as a sign of egotism and spiritual immaturity.
He also told me that it was the wrong time of year to be mushroom hunting. Most traditional ceremonies take place in the rainy season. The reason the mushrooms were so expensive was because they were scarce at this time of year.
He told me that the old ways were preserved in a place called San Sebastien, which was a three hour hike away. He cautioned me that the real ceremonies occur only two or three times a year. He seemed to be saying that it was possible for foreigners to gain access to real traditional ceremonies conducted by real traditional elders, but that it was not a simple matter to get your door in the door, and it was the wrong time of year to even try.
This was unwelcome news, but I appreciated very much that he seemed to be giving me the straight dope. It struck me as a good sign that he was acting against his own financial self interest, as he could presumably have directed me towards one of the aforementioned under-qualified youngsters and charged them a finder’s fee. But I could tell that he respected the medicine, and didn’t want to lead me astray.
I asked him if he was Zapotec or Mazatec, and he answered that the people of San Jose del Pacifico were Zapotecs. San Jose del Pacifico is actually quite a few hours away from the Sierra Mazatec, which is located several hours North of the city of Oaxaca.
This is an important point that bears underlining. I do not want to conflate two different indigenous cultures. Maria Sabina, who introduced psilocybin mushrooms to the world, was Mazatec, but the Mazatecs are by no means the only indigenous nation in Mexico who have used magic mushrooms in their traditional medicine since time immemorial.
The Mexica (also known as the Aztecs), also revered the sacred mushroom, which they referred to as teonanacatl, meaning flesh of the gods. It would be simpler for psychedelic tourists to understand protocol in regards to ceremony if there was a single authority on such matters, but such is not the case. Shamanism by its very nature has an anarchistic character, and although there are many shamanic traditions which do have very strict rules, such rules tend to apply only to adherents to that tradition. Generally, animists respect the principle that many different rivers can take you to the same sea.
All this to say that there is no such thing as orthodox shamanism, as shamanism rests upon what Terence McKenna called the primacy of direct experience. In traditional ceremonies, one is taught to trust oneself, and to learn to listen to ones conscience above all else. If anything, there is an antipathy towards anything resembling priestly authority.
For this reason, it is important that people understand that magic mushrooms are not the unique cultural property of any one nation. It certainly does seem that Maria Sabina was a saintly woman, and perhaps even a prophetess, but she should not be regarded as some kind of shamanic Pope. No one in the world is qualified to issue decrees about what is and what isn’t allowed in the realm of psychedelic medicine. There is no shamanic Pope.
In any case, I decided not to buy any mushrooms right away. I figured I could probably find a better price somewhere else.
Now that I had gotten myself situated, it was time for the trickiest part of the journey. It was time to search out a shaman.
(TO BE CONTINUED…)