Ayahuasca Tourism and Sexual Assault in the Amazon
New York Magazine has launched a new investigative podcast series, Cover Story. The first season, “Power Trip,” is based on this Cut feature, which was originally published January 18, 2017. Listen to the trailer below, and subscribe to the podcast to hear more about the truth behind the psychedelic renaissance. Ainlay Dixon, her husband, and three of their four children were in a town in central Ecuador, midway through a South American tour, when a guide approached and offered to take them on a four-day jungle excursion to see the “authentic” Amazon: an indigenous village led by a real shaman. To get there, the family took a 4×4 as far as they could down a rutted road, which soon dwindled to a trail; they made the rest of the way on foot. Eventually, they arrived at a small village where they were introduced to the village chief, a well-known shaman who’d had tourists flocking to his remote village ever since he’d been featured on a news show in Ecuador. That night, the shama...