The Sapo Diaries

[MORG]

It's written in a hipster style which I found frivolous and judgmental at times but I'll lap up a good account of anyone's authentic Sapo experience.

The magazine has other articles of interest for people like us so check the archive.

"In the Amazon rain forest, there lives a very special frog called the Phyllomedusa bicolor, otherwise known as the Sapo. Traditionally, the Mayoruna tribe uses this frog’s gooey secretions to gain superpowers that transform them into killer hunting machines. First they tie the frog up and scare it into releasing its venom (generally via the sophisticated method of poking it with sticks). Next the natives burn little holes in their arms and rub the venom into the wounds. Then they shit and vomit for half an hour, and then they (ostensibly) experience a sharpening and heightening of the senses and an ability to go for days without food or water. This helps them target their prey (which are monkeys, by the way—they eat monkeys).

Naturally, after learning about the Mayoruna and their magical frog, we sent our resident mind-alterer, Hamilton Morris, to go forth and try this miracle drug."

http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n5/htdocs/the-sapo-diaries-872.php

[Teotzlcoatl]

The dude doing the Sapo is a bit of a pussy and what I'd call a "base-head" but at least he gets out there in the jungle and does this shit!

Watch the Video! Sapo Diaries 1

Edited March 15, 2010 by Teotzlcoatl

[Quill]

What really troubled me was the apathy towards things like animal abuse, child slave labour, kidnapping, deforestation, pollution etc etc.Teo what's a base head, all i can think of is a term for a crackhead, (freebase)

[incognito]

im figuring a meth head?

[Quill]

whateva a basehead is, this guy is a hipster douche

[occidentalis]

It was written in a very facetious and flippant style (it is Vice magazine after all), but it actually comes pretty close to the way I started thinking about things during the weirder parts of my trip through Peru. After a while nothing is surprising or shocking, just weird and tiring, and the goals you have set out to complete (in his case find sapo, in mine find cactus seeds or anyone who did genuinely know anything about shamanism and plants and wasn't just trying to rip me off) become so difficult that you pretty much forget about them, and just try to get yourself out of the weird and slightly dangerous situation you got into... and I think the only way to cope with that is to be a bit tongue in cheek and facetious.

Edited March 16, 2010 by occidentalis

[Quill]

Yeah i guess that makes sense occi, when i was in Bali I gradually got desensitised to similar kind of stuff.

Guess I just think that writers should have some responsibilities/ethics

[Yawning Man]

whateva a basehead is, this guy is a hipster douche

 

Dont get me started.

http://www.latfh.com/

cheers

[Quill]

Dont get me started.

http://www.latfh.com/

cheers

 

Great another way to waste hours online.

No cheersyou

[gerbil]

Perculiar kid, smoking synthetic cannabinoids and popping ritalin whilst on the search for sapo then detouring no worries into and naively ayahuasca.

You'd think if you were going there you'd have some basis of at least common names, completely clueless on the brugmansia until he finally saw the plant thinking he's chasing a tryptamine source i mean WTF, another fucking white man in the jungle, great. I mean really, if the locals are talking about a dizzing additive plant under the name 'tue', if you'd done even the most basic of research brugmansia is commonly listed as it 'toe'. Not to mention simply having a basic understanding of psychoactive plants, especially the most common in Sth america FFS.

lol how's that, rocks up to the currandera, takes her plant, uses her stove then goes back to his hotel with his brew.

Probably just being arrogant but it really shits me that these are a good portion of the white representatives going into those lands, not people I want to be associated with.

Edited March 16, 2010 by gerbil