my mescaline adventure

trust me, this is worth the read if you're planning on trying hallucinogenic cactus (or any psychotropics, really).

ok, so holy shit. i was extremely skeptical about buying drugs offline, mostly because i doubted their effectiveness. i mean, shit, i knew when drugs in my town were good but that's cause all my friends had tried it too. but the internet? sketchy as shit. anyway, my friend alex decided to try ordering cactus from amsterdam online. at 55 bucks a pop, i was not going to chance it. but alex bought two doses, and addressed it to my house. simply for letting him use my address, he said, i could trip for free. i never pass up free drugs, no matter how doubtful i am of their origin, so i agreed.

(i keep forgetting to ask him the website he got it from. i think it was something like shamanicextracts.com? maybe. anyway. i suggest you pay the site a visit).

so, we got the mescaline (at the same time that i got my acceptance letter from emerson college, which i took as an excellent omen) and decided to trip this past saturday. spring had definitley sprung in massachusetts, we had been having a streak of fabulous weather that was supposed to last all weekend. or so we thought.

so me, alex, and my friend angie decided to go to this really isolated conservation land where it's incredibly beautiful and we could trip alone. it also happened to be april fools day, which became significant later on. it must've been 70 degrees, and at 10:40 exactly we started eating the cactus. It originally came in slices, two of them, and I forget the exact name. I think it was like a cactus hybrid with a ton of different hallucinogenic compounds. The label said it was hand picked in peru by "abuelos". Anyway, we ground up each slice (an ounce each) and put them into capsules. 75 capsules in all. I downed mine with orange soday in about 45 minutes. 2 and a half hours later we were smoking a joint and my body started feeling strange, but i wasn't seeing anything. i was starting to think that alex had wasted 110 dollars on fake cactus. then, at about the 3 hour mark, it kicked in. wow. WOW. i've tripped on acid 10+ times, mushrooms 3 times, and multiple other hallucinogens. never cactus. i can now definitively say that this was the hardest i've tripped in my entire life. the forest was alive, i was completely secure and one with nature. we were scaling huge rock walls, splashing in creeks, getting stuck in ditches and struggling out. it was incredible. we sat on the edge of the water under a cave, smoking spliffs and coloring with pastels. it was indescribably beautiful. i was seeing everything...the trees look spray painted with colors, the moss looked like it was moving, everything was in perfect and peaceful coexistance.

then it was nature's turn to play an april fool's joke. all of a sudden, torrential downpours were all around us. there were ominous clouds peeking over our heads and we ran to get under a cave. we settled down, hoping that the rain would stop and we could get back outside in the sun. but no such luck. the rain was still beautiful, like little silver bullets or glittering stars splashing in front of our eyes, and even the clouds seemed beautifully purple. but then lightning struck a tree about 100 feet in front of us. we freaked. we were at the bottom of a cliff and had to scale it almost vertically in order to get back up. miraculously i scaled it like a monkey, gripping the sides like a pro. we started running back to our car and realized that there were frogs and salamanders everywhere. i almost stepped on a salamander and stopped to look at it. it was black with yellow spots that moved and shifted around on it's back. all of a sudden i saw about 5 more identical salamanders slithering around. this started to freak me out so i ran faster. when we were right near the car, i had the distinct sensation that a snake was wrapping around my leg. i looked around and there it was, although i cant be sure if it was a snake or a stick, i was tripping BALLS. there were salamanders EVERYWHERE, red and green, hiding under leaves and logs. it was so strange.

finally we get to the car, soaking wet and freezing, and we realize that WE LEFT THE SUNROOF OPEN. my friend's dad's car was soaked through. it was unbelievable that it even drove. still, i was tripping balls. unfourtunatley, so was the driver. we tried to put the heat on but it only made fog form on the windsheild, and the fog was crazy...it kept dancing around and changing and fucking with us. i cant believe alex drove, but he managed to do amazingly. after we got to his house, we changed into dry clothes, at this point i was tripping incredibly hard. it was like the visuals of 5 tabs of acid with no physical anxiety or jitters, it's completely spiritual and peaceful. at this point i took a shower and washed all the dirt and moss and crap off of me, and before i knew it i was having a full on closed-eye visual where i was flying through the peruvian mountains. it was unbelievable. it felt like i met the cactus gods and was completely accepted by them. i got out, dried off, and sat in my friend's massage chair. i didn't get up for 3 hours.

i should note that after i started tripping hard back at the woods, i hadn't bothered to smoke any more weed. i was so fucked up i didn't need to. this led to some paranoia and anxiety when i was left alone, angie went to work and alex went upstairs to play guitar. so i sat in the massage chair and worried about getting caught by my mom and not writing an article i had to write. i got in a vaguely negative mood (although not a "bad trip" in any sense) and felt like i should go home. (really i should have smoked, but i didn't realize at the time.) i went home, turned on hte tv, and ended up getting stuck watching cops. there was a meth head on the show and i remember being horrified and trying to look away but i couldnt. she was revolting. it was like she was staring blindly at me through the screen. i started getting really paranoid now and went outside and smoked a cigarette. around this time angie came home and i went to her house. we sat down, put on bob marley, and i chilled out completely. then we smoked a joint out her window and i rambled about how crazy and wrong the world was. for some reason every time i trip i just realize how right i am and how misguided everyone else is. so i just thought about all the crazy injustices for the world for a while. at this point it was about 2:00 and i was still not coming down. i smoked another joint and lay under the covers watching color swirls, listening to marley, and forcing myself into fitful sleep. when i woke up the next morning, i was still tripping for a good 2 or 3 hours.

so, all in all, mescaline off the internet can be great (especially from amsterdam!) but make sure to check the weather forecast before you do it. you'll thank me.