When you visit Iquitos it’s nearly impossible to not hear of ayahuasca, usually with a generous dose of hyperbole. Especially in the last few years, after the first Amazonian Shamanism Conference held there in 2005, hundreds of people flood Iquitos in the summer months in search of this plant sacred to the indigenous people of the Amazon. In the last years, it has also appeared numerous times in popular media. Ayahuasca, just like all psychedelics of plant origin, is viewed with great ambivalence in the west. It is either viewed as a powerful medicine and a panacea, or as a potentially dangerous hallucinogen whose use should be at least regulated if not banned.