Amerzonia

William Burroughs called it the strongest thing he'd ever taken. It's boiled for twelve hours from a vine and a shrub, it's illegal nearly everywhere, and to drink it properly you have to reach Iquitos — a city in the Peruvian Amazon that no road goes to.

Mark Walters decided to get there from Los Angeles. Without flying.

Nine countries of chicken buses and river barges, plus, where the road runs out at the Darién Gap, a yacht that has no business being at sea. A revolution that fizzles out under tear gas, a hotel drawer full of someone else's cocaine, a stateless Viking with two girlfriends and a paperwork problem...

And at the end of it: a shaman in his eighties, a consent form that lists "psychosis" among the possible outcomes, and a cup of something that tastes like burnt rubber.

Travel writing with the safety off.

(Disclaimer: drugs, at times, were taken — cocaine and ayahuasca. Quite a lot, but also frankly not enough.)

From the author of India(ish) and Footloose.