At Chacruna: The Corona Crisis: A View from the Ayahuasca Capital of Iquitos

Emily Sinclair

We knew it wasn’t going to be a normal day when breakfast was interrupted by the military. It was March 16, the day Peru imposed full lockdown. I was eating breakfast with my boyfriend in the local café a block from our house in Iquitos, as usual, when quarantine restrictions were enforced and businesses closed. Within the hour, the usually loud and bustling streets of the city became sparse as masked police and military officials closed cafes, restaurants, and shops and ushered people back to their houses, announcing on megaphones that quarantine restrictions had been implemented by government decree. Of course, we all knew about the coronavirus raging in the outside world but, for a while, it had seemed like it might not reach us here in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon... continue reading.