It’s a paradise for psilocybin seekers.
I go far inSan José del Pacificoaround 2 post-mortem on a Tuesday and head straight to a natural endowment shop with rainbow - splashed signage publicizing handicraft , alebrijes , sheep ’s wool , and baccy . Inside , a pregnant woman dressed in bright down in the mouth and sensationalistic with equate eye composition stood behind the retort and handed me a 2.5 - g baggy of anil - tintedmushrooms — perfectly mould , albeit a footling dehydrated from being out of time of year — in exchange for 600 pesos , or roughly $ 36 .
Then she offered instructions : unconscionable themushroomsin a tea and drink it easy . If you do n’t feel anything after 15 minutes , she told my traveling partner in Spanish , just eat them . It would be my first - ever psilocin trip , but given where I ’d receive myself — how could I not oblige ?
Among the rippling mountains of the Sierra Madre del Sur , San José del Pacifico abide out from its shrubby surroundings with a independent drag doused in psychedelic color and toadstool - themed everything . Souvenir stands sell crocheted fungiornamentsand mushroom jacket hats line this quarter - air mile strip of Highway 175 , a path that snake through the mountains from the high desert all the way to the Pacific Coast . For decades , tourists have stopped here on their way from Oaxaca de Juárez to the bohemian beach of Mazunte and Puerto Escondido . They number for thePsilocybe mexicana — a specie of hallucinogenic mushroom that grow here and in Costa Rica , El Salvador , and Guatemala at elevationsabove 5,000 feet .
A souvenir stand sells crocheted mushroom cap hats, stuffed animals, and alebrijes on the side of Highway 175 in San José del Pacifico.|Photo by Olivia Young
Oaxacans have consumed these mushroom for their healing place since ancient clip . But in 1957 , American scientist and writer Robert Gordon Wasson broadcasted them to the world in “ Seeking the Magic Mushroom , ” write inLife . His essay drew tourer to another Oaxacan mint village , Huautla de Jiménez , where a native Mazatec shaman key out María Sabina exist . Throughout the ‘ sixty , psychonauts flooded the area seek Sabina and spiritual enlightenment . The previous curandera ( or “ distaff folk healer ” ) never learned to take , write , or verbalize Spanish — only her endemic language — but continued to bridge over the gap between los hongos psicodélicos and foreigners by steer holidaymaker in psilocybin - fuel ceremonies . It ’s even bruit that her clientele includedthe Beatles , though that ’s never been substantiated .
Tourism in Huautla blossomed over the decennary following Wasson ’s essay , to the consternation of villagers forced to manage with hippie perpetually spill out of the town ’s one and only hotel and onto the banks of the river , where they would reportedly camp . The villagers requested an intervention , and in1969 , the military both expatriate foreigners and instal a checkpoint to keep them from get back in — one that remain in operation until the mid-’70s .
“ Even if Huautla was under military siege for almost a decade , this did n’t really stop foreigner looking for mushroom , ” says Marcos Garcia de Teresa , a social anthropologist whoresearches the area ’s mushroom cloud trade . “ But it may have crowd some of them to look for other seat . ” handily , a heavenly phenomenon not unlike the one that will sweep the US on April 8 came calling from the other side of the mountains .
Shops around San José del Pacifico market “traditional medicine” to tourists.|Photo by Olivia Young
In March of 1970 , travelers from all over North America flock to Mexico ’s Miahuatlán District , where San José del Pacifico sits . They wanted to trance what NASA official were call thesolar eclipse of the century . Older contemporaries are now blow over on the stories of what it was like to be in the way of life of aggregate — and of what came after .
Jonathan Ruiz Ramírez , whose family runsCabañas Los Pinosin San José del Pacifico , grew up hearing stories of that fateful day from his abuelitos , who lived through it . “ The few place to eat and bide that survive then were quickly crowd , ” he told me . “ There were unlike solemnization to receive the visitor , who go on to arrive even on the twenty-four hour period of the occultation . ” scientist came from all over the universe and pose up viewing station in the mountains around San José del Pacifico . Reports describedthe atmosphere in village across the part as carnival - like , with dancing , chanting , the ringing of church bells , and fireworks leading up to the big day .
Ruiz Ramírez ’s abuelitos think back that while many of the villagers on the outskirts of town went about their everyday farm chores , others who live nigh to the community ’s center “ joined the visitor who had arrived to appreciate the eclipse carry yield , shekels , tortillas , and products that they [ made ] themselves . ”
Temazcal ceremonies advertised around town link tourists to local healers who use psilocybin in their practices.|Photo by Olivia Young
Psychedelic mushroom and other drugs were made available in addition to the generous food offerings , which helped establish San José del Pacifico ’s reputation as the young Oaxacan epicentre of counterculture . It did n’t injure that the sphere also has the ideal weather for growing marijuana and poppy , unlike the slightly stale Huautla . What ’s more , it was the thoroughgoing fillet point for those travel between the urban center of Oaxaca and the coast . Now a new generation of entrepreneurs are attached to cause sure that San José del Pacifico go on to hold onto its believability with tourist .
These days , companies likeCoyote Aventurasoffer crawfish to San José del Pacifico from Oaxaca . Owner Carlos Hernández first adjudicate mushroom there 20 year ago with a villager who startle dosing with psilocybin when he was only eight . Hernández told me that while the 1970 solar eclipse catalyzed tourism in the realm , interest in psychedelics has develop substantially even in the past decade . What he calls a “ vast undulation of ghostly touristry ” seems backed up by data : drift reports from theGlobal Wellness InstituteandResearch and Marketsshow that the worldwide market for both psychedelics and " wellness tourism " are slat to double over to $ 10.8 billion and $ 1.4 trillion , respectively , from 2020 to 2027 .
visitant can find drugs almost anywhere in San José del Pacifico , be it at a souvenir store like the one where I found mine , or atemazcal — a traditional sweat lodge where locals maneuver psilocybin - infused ceremonies like the unity Sabina once take . Although he has n’t work mushroom trigger off into his tour itinerary yet , Hernández said his squad declare oneself information , Department of Transportation , accommodation , lunch , some guidance , hiking , yoga , and more to those who want to try out it . In the lag , tourer can stay in hostelry whose dorm room are named after mushroom species , visit a autobus post serving a society aptly called “ Eclipse 70 , ” and dine at cafes with trippy mural on the wall .
Jonathan Ruiz Ramírez’s grandparents, now 68 and 72 years old, remember the solar eclipse of 1970 as the event that solidified San José del Pacifico as a tourist destination and “mushroom capital.”|Photos by Olivia Young
Hernández notice that psilocybin mushrooms are , in fact , illegal throughout Mexico , but thepenal codeexempts them where “ it can be presumed that they will be used in the ceremony , uses , and custom of Indigenous the great unwashed and communities , as recognized by their own authority . ” The mushroom cloud are anything but clandestine in San José del Pacifico , where , in the high time of year , kids can be discover selling them on the side of the road .
There were no nipper hawking streetside shrooms during my sojourn in the low-down season , but I still managed to find psilocybin within 15 transactions of go far in San José del Pacifico . Having chat the village out of sheer oddity — and to fall in up the nauseating eight - hr motorcoach ride between the capital and the slide — I hop back on the omnibus and continued my journey west along Highway 175 , live on the outrageous , penetrating switchbacks alongside other tourists no doubt under the influence . The next twenty-four hour period , I drank the tea and ate the caps and stem as the woman suggested . I might not have been in the psilocin capital of Mexico any longer , but my trip was still magic .
