Panama

Volcán Barú

: I’m currently in Boquete, Panama. Last night at 11:30pm I had a cab driver drop me off at the base of Volcán Barú whose peak at 3,475m makes it, I believe, one of the highest points in Central America. The trail is 13k to the top from where hikers watch the sunrise followed by the same 13k back down afterwards. As soon as I stepped out of the cab, I popped two hits of this here acid and started walking through the pitch blackness of the path, navigating my way around with my head torch. After 3k I started to feel a bit high and overall kinda paranoid. At 4k I was tripping so hard, I could no longer walk. The path was moving all over the place, the trees were spiraling in miniature coils and my legs felt too weak to hold myself up. When I could fight it no more, I laid down in some shrubbery along the side of the path and just started tripping the fuck out. A few other people who’d been climbing the path eventually came walking up after me. In my half coherent state, all I could see coming towards me were strange orbs of light from their head torches, making me feel like I was on another planet. These orbs would ask me if I was okay and why I was just laying there. I told them I needed to sleep. The orbs told me they thought it was a bad idea. I shrugged, told them I’d be fine and continued tripping out.

: During this time, I kinda fell asleep. When I woke up like an hour-and-a-half later…well, I think during this sleep my ego had completely died. I couldn’t remember my name or what I was doing in the jungle or even what country I was in. I laid there, curled up in a ball shivering with bugs crawling on me – not sure if they were real bugs or imagined bugs – until I eventually decided that I needed to take action. Despite my ambition, my mind was stuck in the thought loop of, “I should do something, but I don’t know what I should do because I don’t know what’s going on or where or who I am.” So I’d turn my head lamp on, stand up, look around for a few minutes, not have any idea what I’m supposed to do, get frustrated, sit back down, switch my lamp back off, sit in the darkness for a few more minutes, again arrive at the conclusion that there’s something I should be doing, stand up again and then go through this same process over and over.

: Eventually, once I was able to break this thought loop, I started walking uphill. I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted to walk upwards and not downwards but intuitively figured that that’s what I’d been doing so I might as well carry on. During this time, I connected with my inner-animal. I’d never felt more a part of the eternal present in all my life. I felt like a totally unique grown-ass man who actually belongs and has a place on this earth instead of the easily replaceable cog in a machine I’ve felt like for years. I felt so natural just walking, resting and staring up at the starlit sky through the thick canopy of the forested mountainside, watching the heavens swirl around above me. I had no thoughts passing through my head at all about me or my problems or anything ego-driven whatsoever. The only thing going through my head had been the sounds of the wildlife and insects that surrounded me. And if I closed my eyes, I’d see an image of a thread and needle passing through an eyeball in the middle of a pyramid.

: Since my drugged-out nap set me back, I only made it to the top an hour after the sun had already risen, but the view proved incredible nonetheless. On the way down, the visual distortions continued at a much lesser intensity. My body felt light and limber. I had total control of every muscle. Each step I took, I took deliberately. Every little thing felt like it had a purpose. During the three hours down, I was very emotional. I cried when I received a message from some deeply cobwebbed recess in my brain telling me that my parents’ problems and everything that went wrong in my childhood home is not my fault and never has been. I also cried because I miss the relationship I had with my brother when we were kids, adventuring around the neighborhood and playing silly games and how I can never go back to that which is something that I have to learn to accept and learn to be thankful that I even had these experiences in the first place. I listened to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Promised Land’ on repeat for at least an hour, bawling my eyes out. Because ‘I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man. And I believe in a promised land.’

: I got back to town around twelve hours after starting the journey. I don’t think my life will ever feel the same.

: View out my bedroom at BarrBra B&B where I spent three weeks working/relaxing

: Pulling up on Isla Bastimentos to grab and bring some furniture back to Barrbra B&B on Isla Colon