Material: Echinopsis peruviana (Peruvian torch)
Dose: half cup of cactus tea estimated to be about equivalent of 1ft. ______________________________________________________________________
My friend is big into cactus and has more than he knows what to do with. He has taken mushrooms once with quite an amazing reaction and was keen to see what cactus had to offer. I had never been interested in eating or even growing cactus but my mate was storing all of his cactus at my house while he moved.
He has an amazing variety of active and non active cacti and was particularly interested in something he called a 'peruvianus'. I was left to do either an extraction or to make a tea so I decided on tea as I thought my mate probably would enjoy tasting his cactus. I was presented with 10ft of cactus for prep.
My research suggested 1ft is about enough for one trip so we guessed we would be making 10 trips worth. Tea was quite easy to make although it did take a few hours to be ready to drink. We also made some home made mint tea to drink as chasers as we assumed the taste would be pretty bad.
My friend decided to drink some beer while drinking the tea as well, I don't drink so stuck with the tea and chaser. We had a sober sitter who was ready willing and able to drive us wherever we wanted to go and keep us safe and in check. Here's the timeline;
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9:15pm - Finished brewing tea, 1 coffee mug each with chaser. Tastes like mud soup.
9:25pm - one sip at a time slowly and it's just bearable, no noticeable effects
9:30pm - started to get confident in sips and took a few bigger ones, my mate has nearly finished his whole coffee mug. We now establish 1/2 a coffee cup should be about what we think is 1 trip.
9:35pm - my mate announces he feels different, I feel nothing but a sore stomach.
9:45pm - I'm just before 1/2 way through my coffee mug of cactus tea, I feel proud of myself. My mate is trying to think of ways to make it easier for me to drink the tea. 
9:50pm - I stand up maybe a bit quickly, I think 'at least I haven't spewed yet!'
9:51pm - I projectile vomit about 4m into the laundry sink, my mate laughs and starts chanting my name like at a soccer match.
9:57pm - I tried to stop vomiting to hold what I could in, I succeeded and went to sit back down at the table with my mate.
10:00pm - My mate puts on some Peruvian music, the songs sound familiar for some reason. We both start playing 'air pan-flute', I cant decide if I'm hot or cold so I put on a jacket. the term 'hot-cold' was born and described my physical condition perfectly.
10:05pm - I try to harden up and sip more tea, slowly. My mate announces he is 'coming up on 2 pingers', we didn't have any pingers. I convince my mate he has only had cactus tea.
10:10pm - more vomiting but this time it floored me. I kept the first few in the laundry sink then crawled to the toilet on my hands and knees (it wasn't far).
10:20pm - Finally stopped vomiting, both sleeves of my jacket, my beard and my forehead were covered with spew. I understood right then why people advise to fast before these things. I also learnt what a 'purge' is. I slowly stood up dripping with sweat and covered with vomit, I felt amazing.
10:22pm - I step out of the toilet area and start to remove my clothes unaware that I was standing in front of my mate and my sitter.
10:25pm - my mate suggests I should try to not vomit or I wont get anything, I turn around half naked to look at him, "never mind" he says. I told him he can drink the rest of mine as I was going great guns and I couldn't keep it down anyway. He 'skulled' the rest of my tea.
10:30pm - I sat on the couch and stared at the bookshelf, my vision was starting to get blurry very similar to too much MDA or the 'eye wobbles' on MDMA.
10:31pm - I start thinking I may have taken too much, I now cannot speak or move from the couch. I'm fucked.
10:35pm I am trying to hide how fucked I am from my mate and our sitter, I figure if I cover my mouth with my shirt they wont notice. I wanted to talk but couldn't or they would know...
10:40pm - My mate and sitter come looking for me as I am a little quiet. As soon as I was spoken to I was able to speak and get up again, I announced I was feeling fairly straight. Everyone disagreed and took a picture of me announcing how straight I was.
I decided against posting this picture. 
11:00pm - My mate and I discussed the experience and we decided it was best described as 'natures gentle candy flip'.
11:15pm - We were getting antsy and wanted to do something, my friend wanted to go to the forest. He decided we could go later as he wanted to look at my fluorescent jacket a bit more. I wanted to wear my Darth Vader costume but thought it would be too hard to change clothes again and walking through a forest dressed like Darth Vader would be pointless if there was nobody to see it.
11:30pm - My mate has not thrown up, I thought beers may have helped him there. We decided to go for a drive before a hike, I was very anxious about getting in the car for some reason.
12:00am - We have the hills roads to ourselves and our sitter driver is cruising slowly, we spot about 10 kangaroos on the side of the road.
12:10am - There are kangaroos everywhere, we confirm we are not seeing things with our sitter. We are lucky enough to see 2 male grey kangaroos trying to kick the living shit out of each other, it was quite incredible.
12:30am - We are at the entry to the forest, my mate has tied a bread crate he found to himself with a piece of rope from the car. He advises he needs it, I don't argue.
12:45am - our sitter waits in the car as we decide to walk in and out on 1 track to make it easier, we walk into the forest with our torches off marveling at the indescribable sounds coming from natures surround sound system.
12:50am - I notice the visuals are more 'what is that?' than 'that looks like' comparing cactus to mushrooms for me. Things are hard to determine the size of, the stars looked amazing the times they were bigger.
1:00am - We cannot work out what the white glow getting bigger in front of us is. We assume it's a car on a road on the other side of the forest.
1:01am - The white glow turns into what we think is a logging truck heading at a great speed straight towards us on the same road. As it gets closer it's a park ranger 4wd, I wave nonchalantly and try to continue walking on our way.
1:02am - all the side spotlights are now turned on and I can't see a thing, the 4wd has stopped so I walk to where I think it is (into the light). An older guys voice yells "SA FORESTRY! YOU KNOW THE FOREST IS CLOSED AT NIGHT RIGHT? SIGNS ON THE GATE!!". We apologize and say we are out of there as we didn't know. "FERAL ANIMAL CONTROL!" he yells at us and speeds off. We took that as "please get out or you will get shot".
1:45am - We took a while coming back as we were laughing at what we must have looked like, my mate tied to a bread crate and me in my dressing gown with torches in each pocket. We were incredibly hungry, my mate urinated 5 times on the walk back.
2:00am - Our sitter drove us back slowly so we could look at all the kangaroos, we were advised our sweat smelled like cactus and was quite sickening.
2:30am - We went to McDonalds as the drive through was the only thing open, I didn't know what I wanted so ordered 10 cheeseburgers without thinking. the bag felt great. Nobody needed to order after I placed mine.
2:35am - we wanted to trade a cheeseburger for some hot chips some guy was walking down the middle of the road with, our sitter advised against it. We drove home while my mate yelled out "Hey Gav!" to people from the car. We do not know anybody named 'Gav' or 'Gavin'.
2:45 - lots of laying around, our sitter decided we were OK and went to bed. My friend wanted to go back to the forest. Eventually he wanted to lay down in his room alone and I could hear him enjoying some CEV's. I don't know if he slept as he was awake when I got up the next morning.
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The remaining time by myself I thought about how we still live in peoples minds after we die, deep stuff like that. I also found some hardcore techno and listened to that, I found the repetitive nature was relaxing my brain. CEV's were very solid and a little slower than my mushroom CEV's.
I gave myself a headache from too much techno and too many cheeseburgers, it felt like a hangover. I then took 100mg codeine and went to sleep. I felt great maybe a bit tired the next day, I prefer mushrooms myself but this was fun. I think I can wait until next summer to enjoy a cactus adventure again, I now have a san pedro in a pot and some tea left in the freezer.
Thanks for reading my long version, here is the TL;DR;
Cactus is more than a trip, it's an adventure. It is also as forgiving as it is harsh, she will call again and I will be ready.
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