October 6, 2024, 6:08 am | Read time: 9 minutes
Christopher Denz from Backnang suffered from epilepsy for eleven years and had to take medication every day. One day, he decided to go into the Peruvian jungle and confide in a shaman. He hasn’t had a seizure since. It is a story about healers, great love, and a new life with little money.
People who travel to Tamshiyacu in the Peruvian rainforest do so to meet shamans because they are ill and hope to be healed, because they want to meet spirits, or because they are looking for the ultimate thrill. Some things work out, and some don’t. Ultimately, the foreigners travel back home to Europe, Asia, and North America. They get on a boat back to normality and tell us how crass everything was: the breaking, the sweating, the visions, the ghosts, and the diarrhea. Some actually report healing. That they no longer have cancer or AIDS. Very few want to stay; Tamshiyacu is so different from the Western world. And yet one person is still there: Christopher Denz. A German from near Stuttgart that went to the jungle because of his epilepsy.
The young man had an ordinary life in Germany. He exchanged it for a life on the edge of the jungle after healing his epilepsy. Christopher was an information electronics technician. He lived in a shared flat. Every now and then, he had a girlfriend. He had epilepsy, and the doctors prescribed pills, so things went reasonably well, until he went to the jungle. Somehow, everything was mundane. He left that behind him. Now he has a slow life, where time means there’s enough of it. And money means always having just enough to get by.
Christopher brought the first drilling machine to the village
Tamshiyacu, Loreto region, Peru. Population 3000. Dolphins leap across the Amazon. Children scream everywhere. 18-year-olds as mothers of three. The rainforest begins 200 meters beyond the end of the village. The rust-brown dirt road leads up to 20 kilometers into it; rain and sun alternate, the birds sing, and everything is green and peaceful. This is where the shamans and supposed miracle healers sit. The farmers sell their fruit from the forest at the market. Every morning from 5.30 a.m., the loudspeaker announcements echo through the whole village, as annoying as the propaganda roar of the communist marches in Havana, Cuba.
Everyone has a roof over their head. The houses were nailed together; they didn’t know how to use drills until Christopher brought one. There is a hotel, the rooms are small, the cockroaches are large, the mold in the bathroom is considerable, and the price is okay: 15 soles per night, just under four euros. Gringos, as foreigners are called here, are first admired like Martians in Tamshiyacu, then a beer is pressed into their hands, and they are asked: “¿Qué pasa, amigo?” What’s up, my friend? They drink from afternoon to night.
This is now the world of Christopher Denz from Backnang, Baden-Württemberg.
It was a long way to get here.
We fly from Lima to Iquitos, the world’s largest city, which cannot be reached by road. Iquitos is a reeking behemoth. The small wooden boat to Tamshiyacu departs from the harbor when it is full. This sometimes takes a few hours. It can hold 30 people, and sometimes the boat breaks down on the Amazon. Then, the captain fiddles with the engine until it is running again.
“Back then, I would never have thought that everything would turn out so well”
It was mid-2013 when Christopher’s life with epilepsy changed – in the jungle. He had had epilepsy for eleven years and suffered from genuine awakening epilepsy. He had seizures shortly after waking up; his whole body shook, he screamed, and he had no control over himself. The doctors prescribed medication, including antidepressants, and Christopher came to terms with his condition. It was worse for Mitko, his best friend, with whom he lived. Mitko stood helplessly by when Christopher had an attack. The friend decided to do something and looked for alternative treatment options. On the internet, he came across a shaman, a healer, a so-called curandero. He was due to come to Germany soon. Mitko told Christopher about it.
Christopher is a person who chooses his words carefully before he speaks. He speaks clearly and concisely; he is the pragmatic type. “Actually, I always thought this stuff here is not for me,” he says, sitting at a table with purple tablecloths in the village restaurant and drinking a poisonous green Inca Cola. “Back then,” says Christopher, “I never thought everything would turn out so well.”
The shaman said: “I have everything under control”
It was in June 2013 when Joven Murayari, a Peruvian shaman, held a ceremony in Gummersbach. Mitko and Christopher took part together. They drank ayahuasca, a brew made from the rainforest liana Banisteriopsis caapi, for the first time. Ayahuasca causes hallucinations; shamans swear by its cleansing effect and that it enables people to make contact with plant spirits. During the ceremonies, they smoke and sing and blow smoke in people’s faces. The shamans say they can make sick people well.
Christopher lost consciousness, and other participants called an ambulance. When they arrived, the shaman said: “I have everything under control.”
No salt, no sugar, no alcohol, no sex
After the three-day ceremony in the jungle, he felt better, and the seizures caused by the epilepsy were less severe. He now believed in the healing powers of the shamans. He decided to take part in a six-week ceremony in the Peruvian jungle, accompanied by a strict diet: no salt, no sugar, no alcohol, no sex. Instead, some kind of plant extract, three liters a day. Ayahuasca. Ceremonies. Smoking shamans. Diarrhea, nausea.
“It totally tore me apart,” says Christopher. On the tenth day, the shaman took Christopher aside: “That’s it, you don’t need any more pills from today.” It would be the first time in eleven years. I can’t do this, Christopher thought. Two tablets before going to sleep, prescribed by the family doctor in Backnang, were obligatory. But the German trusted the shaman in the jungle with his epilepsy. He woke up the next morning, waited and waited, but he didn’t have a seizure. He hasn’t taken any more tablets since that day; they ended up in the bin.
Can shamanism really heal? In Germany, skepticism is high; most doctors don’t believe in it. They talk about a placebo effect and place shamanism somewhere between card reading and esotericism. The followers, on the other hand, speak reverently of the oldest healing method in the world and believe that it can bring the body and mind into harmony with nature. Christopher sees it the same way.
Christopher fell in love with the shaman’s niece
After the ceremony, He wanted to return to Germany, but he met Lilli, the shaman’s niece. It was love at first sight. His Spanish was miserable; he read infinitives from the dictionary to express himself. He didn’t know that she was only 16 at the time. Her father said: “Can you take care of her? Yes? Then it’s okay.” The rest of the family said: “You’re good for each other.”
Lilli got pregnant; it wasn’t planned, and she didn’t tell him. Christopher had to go back to Germany; that was the plan; he had to get his life in order. “I knew that I would come back. I knew that I belonged with Lilli now.” She told him on the phone that a baby was on the way. “I immediately packed my things and went back to Peru,” says Christopher. He sips his Inca Cola and looks up at the sky. He smiles when he talks about his experiences in Tamshiyacu.
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“They took me in as if I were one of them”
There were the parties in the neighboring villages, where people drank and danced until dawn. And where no gringo had ever been before. “They took me in as if I were one of them,” says Christopher. The German has rented a small house for 300 soles, the local currency. It is actually just a huge room, but Christopher has built two wooden walls, and now there is something like a bedroom. The toilet is in the garden, and the house façade is decorated with the Acción Popular party logo, a shovel. He wants to live here with Lilli.
He earns money with his online store “Ablantis,” which he runs with his friend Mitko. They export handicrafts and plant extracts from the rainforest to Germany: camu camu powder, which is supposedly effective for rheumatism and diabetes and good for the heart and the immune system. Copaiba oil, useful for skin diseases and bronchitis, supposedly helps against parasites. Christopher doesn’t earn much from his store but manages to make ends meet. You don’t need much in Tamshiyacu; in the best restaurant in town, a two-course meal and two Coca-Colas cost just over two euros.
What does he miss? “I can’t say. I don’t think I miss anything. Life here is so interesting.” He loves the openness and warmth of the people, saying that things are much rougher in Germany. “Here in Tamshiyacu, it’s like we’re all friends.”
The question is how long he wants to stay. Christopher thinks for a long time. Then he grins. He wants to visit Germany again soon; he wants Lilli to get to know his culture. “But,” says Christopher, “I now see my future here.”
The original version of this article was published in 2015.