18: The Ayahuasca Journey: Part 3 Burned by the Frog Poison

There were lots of memories from my week in the jungle but one of my favorite experiences was doing Kambo, aka frog poison. 

There is a specific frog found in and around the Amazon, it’s called Kambo or Big Monkey Frog. Since who knows when, local people have been using the poison that the frog secretes for a cleansing ceremony. 

During our week long ayahuasca journey we had one precious day off. During that day we were invited to participate in an optional Kambo ceremony.  

All 5 of us decided to try it, 4 of us had never done Kambo before. So, why would we want to do another “weird” thing that made us throw up more?

It’s believed that the poison of this frog has natural healing effects on your body all the way from helping to boost your immune system to curing cancer. This was intriguing. We heard a lot about the possible benefits of Kambo leading up to the ceremony and I was in. Everyone had a story - their aunt was cured from Kambo 2x per week for a year. Other people had arthritis relief. Some took it for immunity boosts before traveling. If you had the time, someone had a cure-all story. Now I’m not saying that I 100% believe it is a mystical cure-all, but I don’t not believe it either. My stomach has been a mess since starting to travel and if this could add any value or help then I was in. Plus, it sounded too good to be true and I wanted to experience it for myself. 

The ceremony started at 7am before breakfast because while Kambo is not a psychedelic at all, it does require a 12 hour fast and makes you purge. And you definitely don’t want to have breakfast in your stomach when you start this process. 

Kambo’s main purpose is the purge - whether it’s upstairs (vomit) or downstairs (poop). It totally depends on you and your body what will happen. But hearing about the benefits, they seemed to far outweigh the disadvantages of purging. And by this time we were all well acquainted with each other so more public vomiting was not really a big deal. 

Step 1: Drink lots and lots of water 

Perhaps the hardest part of ceremony is that you have to drink 2 liters of water. You need to have plenty of water in your system before you start to help the purge along. You also need to drink the water in a short time period. I never thought I’d be pounding 2 liters of water but then again, there’s a lot of things on this trip I didn’t expect! 

Step 2: Get burned

Kambo is administered by burning tiny dots into your skin then putting the frog poison on it. Most newbies start with 3 dots, that’s where I started. The more dots, the stronger the medicine! Once the medicine is administered, you wait. 

Step 3: The Purge  

You first start feeling really, really hot. You get really sweaty and you can feel it in your stomach. This takes a shockingly short amount of time, (between 1-2 minutes) to hit your body after the poison is put on your burns. Your stomach turns and boom - you’re purging and more than happy for it to happen. The ceremony takes place in the middle of the retreat center. You can see in these photos we’re actually sitting against the wall of the toilet because…well, for obvious reasons you will want quick access to the bathroom. The goal of the purge is to get to the bottom of your stomach, beyond vomit and into bile. The deeper you go, the better the medicine works. 

Step 4: Take a shower 

The entire process takes between 20-30 minutes. Once the process is over the facilitators will rinse of the poison on your arm. You are eager to shower and cool off. You’re desperate to feel better and a cool shower is just the medicine. 

Step 5: Turn into a frog

One of the funny / hilarious side effects of taking frog poison is well, you turn green and your face swells up like a frog. It’s pretty incredible what an impact it can make and the swelling that takes place. You can feel yourself start to swell when the medicine is coursing through your body. Your lips start to tighten and your face starts to hurt but because you’re so focused on the purge and feeling awful it isn’t until after the fact that you can appreciate your new swollen face. 

Our Kambo team plus Caesar who’s parents work there (age 6) who also did his first dot of Kambo that day.

The After Effects

I can’t exactly say that I felt like a new person afterwards. In fact, that day I didn’t feel well at all. In the afternoon we had a day trip to a local village (the one where we met the baby sloth) and let’s just say that I had a restroom emergency. Bathrooms in the middle of nowhere aren’t…good. I can’t honestly recommend that part of the process but the after effects of Kambo did seem to clear my skin, especially some of the dark circles under my eyes. It’s something I think I’ll continue to pursue when I’m back home and see what else may come of it. 

- M