Hola Gia Sagrada

I woke to the sun pouring through the window and balcony door. Feeling rested enough considering, I asked Jess what time she got to sleep, she was running on about 3 or 4 hours of sleep! Definitely not ideal. While she showered I picked out a place to go for Breakfast. We had a few hours before we would be picked up in a shuttle bus from the airport which happened to be right in the middle of the city! It was a gorgeous day and the city was even more beautiful in the daytime. We instantly fell in love with its colonial charm and character. We found the cafe easily enough and it was full of expats. The waiter was super friendly and spoke good English and the meal was massive and delightful! We headed back to collect our bags and hail a cab which took longer than expected but we made it to the airport with time to spare. It was a small airport and we could feel the nervous excitement buzzing like an old fridge inside us! Looking around we were also trying to figure out who would be in our group and how many! A lovely lady who we would later know as Shani told us that we had nice smiles and energy! Our questions and thoughts were answered shortly as two vans rocked up outside. Turns out everyone who was hanging out around us was all from our group. I had no idea how close we would become with this group of strangers in the next few days. Looking at the people, their luggage and the size of the vans I had doubts that everything would fit! Turns out I was wrong. Always in these situations when meeting new people, new groups big or small I like to be “the grey man”. Not drawing attention to myself, observing, making reads and too often assumptions about the people around me. We all pilled in and I was sitting next to a younger American dude. I noticed he had his watch facing towards his body. “Military,” I thought. We shared a few brief words and made some observations while looking through the window. The bus was relatively quiet as the busy streets made way for smaller roads and soon we were headed up an ever-increasing steep hill. I wondered what thoughts everyone else was entertaining. If I’m being honest which of course I always am these days, I was very nervous and apprehensive about the retreat. Fear comes from the anticipation of the unknown and all of my fears had come from other people's accounts of their experiences with Ayahuasca. I think Ayahuasca first came into my raider around 2012. It might have been from Joe Rogan but now as I’m sitting on an aeroplane, headed towards Medellin I’m having second thoughts about that. I 100% know that when I first moved to Brisbane and I was living with Karlie and Jason, Jason had shown me a TV series called “Mad Venture’s”. The premise was these two dudes from Finland were travelling around the world with a camera vlogging before that was even a thing their mad adventures where they would do crazy cultural experiences. Their experience in the jungle with Ayahausca really made an impression on me! I had shown Jess the episode I watched 11 years earlier before we left Australia. She now shared some similar thoughts as me!! The point of this backstory is that I was headed into a situation I didn’t enjoy. It wasn’t just that I would be taking a psychoactive medicine in the Andes and had only my memories of the Finnish dudes and other people's accounts to base my expectations on, it was more so the talking to, sharing with and opening up to a group of strangers that I was dreading the most. I hate speaking in public. I get super nervous, my heart beats like a kick drum in my chest while I try to remember to not talk too fast so people can understand me, try not to mumble so people can understand me, annunciate so people can understand me and don’t try to hard to make jokes so people will like me! I had lost my fear of the Ayahuasca a few weeks before leaving Australia when I was smoking weed one day. Weed had become a great teacher and friend to me, often like an audible voice in my head giving me instant perspective and often a different view or thought to ponder on. This particular day it spoke to me saying something along the lines of “whatever visions you have, whatever you are going to go through is not going to be out of your depth to handle and only good will come of this experience and opportunity.” It was true. I assumed that I would be dealing with my childhood, and church-related issues I have, things to do with my relationship with my parents and how I was raised, things to do with my wild years and things that I may not have fully addressed from my marriage and divorced years. I had been slowly dealing with and processing those latter years and anyone who knows my story knows I had a lot of dark dark days and many demons in my head to deal with regarding my divorce. When I told Anna about our plans to move away and asked if her offer to take Dallas back and look after him was still an option I wasn’t sure what her response would be. When she said without hesitation that of course, she would take him, any leftover baggage I had been holding onto I had to instantly let go of and at every opportunity I sing her praises and will always be forever grateful to Anna and Donny, her partner for looking after and loving Dallas because that was the hardest part of leaving. From the moment I woke on the last day with Dallas, I was pretty much crying the whole day, barely keeping it together. Even now as I think about it my eyes are watering and my nose has started running. Slight side story there! Back to the bus ride! 

We arrived at some massive but nice-looking metal gates and once they were opened we finished our journey with a decline past some accommodation buildings, beautifully painted, one that caught my eye instantly was a black panther that looked like it had escaped somewhere from James Cameron’s mind and a scene from Avatar. It was beautiful.

We pulled up out the front of a beautiful large building resembling a cool cottage complete with creeper vines. Because we were sitting up the back I got to see everyone greeted with genuine happiness and hugs from a small group of volunteers as we would later find out. One of them had an Aussie accent and was very keen to hug! I’ve never been one for handing out hugs to friends, family and definitely not to strangers but this is a new chapter, full of new opportunities and I want to change previous ideas and mindsets so as I stepped off the bus with a smile and said “G’day mate” to my future new friend Dave and hugged him! Dave could have fit perfectly from my first assumptions in Byron Bay as he was sporting one of the many different varieties of what I refer to as the “Byron Bay Helmet!”, black jeans and blunnies! He was actually from Perth, his Blundstone had legitimate miles on them and to use some Aussie describing words - he was a “funny fucker!” We had a quick meeting and got introduced to a volunteer who would show us to our rooms and our closest amenities. The rooms were cute and even had a little upstairs secret room you could access via some rungs in the wall and a trapdoor.

First expressions were going well and there was a sense of calm, serenity and happiness. After a delicious lunch, we were taken on an orientation of the property and it was beautiful. There was a garden where they grew all the vegetables that would be used for our food. Dave the Aussie was in charge of growing and nurturing this. He was also the one taking us on our tour with a Canadian called Peter. We walked past the first San Pedro garden which apparently was the smaller one and then down to the Malooka where we would be consuming the medicines and having the ceremonies. There was also a pond complete with goldfish, hot tubes, community hall where many activities such as yoga, meditation, expressive movements etc would be available. There was a waterfall and a swimming hole somewhere on the property we could also explore at our own leisure. We were explained about “Karma Yoga”, where you could volunteer your time to do jobs like washing dishes, gardening, cleaning and many many more things to reduce the cost of your stay but also help the retreat out. I offered to cut firewood with a hatchet before tea. 

Where we ate all of our meals was a beautiful area that was open but had a roof, complete with a very cool fire pit and about 8 tables that could sit 4 people comfortably or 6 if you really wanted to. At our first tea, we sat with a sweet girl from London, the guy who was sitting next to me on the bus who was indeed in the military from America and a couple of others. There were people from all different countries, age groups, demographics and reasons for being there. The common topic of discussion from what I could hear was “Have you done Ayahausca before!” Quite a few people had, one guy had even done 50+ in the last 3 years.

We headed up to the hot tubs after tea where we met two volunteers - a girl from Romania, a dude from Canada and an Australian couple from Melbourne. The guy was wanting to kick some narcotic addictions to the curb and from my first impressions, his girl seemed to be there tagging along and enjoying the retreat space. Both were very nice people but something seemed a little odd or off to my intuition. “Don’t judge Danny, Don’t assume things Danny”, I reminded myself. It’s a new chapter after all! We headed to bed to get some rest. The next day consisted of optional activities, karma yoga opportunities, something called “family meeting” where we would get information about the up ceremony, a chance to share a little bit about ourselves, our journeys, experiences with psychedelics and what had led us to Gia Sagrada. Oh yeah, we will also be having our first Ayahuasca ceremony! It was going to be a big day!!