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The town of La Fortuna is situated in the hills of north-central Costa Rica. Resting at the foot of Mt. Arenal, an old volcano, occupied by small farms and homes across the eastern portion of the slope. While only being 890 feet above sea level, the climate in this area is wet and rainy, a moist volcanic pot nestled in between the comparatively dryer hills rolling east and west to the coasts. I found myself in this wonderful town, with seven days to explore the myco-climates before flying back to the states. It was the beginning of March, the rainy season hadn’t started yet, but the rain was pouring thick sheets upon my arrival. I thought to myself, “It’s the dry season! If it rains while I am here, I could find some amazing things!” I also showed up exhausted and underfed after working at a festival for two weeks. While building at the event, I had a dusty run-in with some voracious tropical bugs that tactically ate me alive around my shirt, shoe, and pant lines, leaving me with hundreds of bites swelling up like balloons. I took a desperate pause, explaining to the magical land my situation and intentions, “If you can rain every day for the next week, the hunt for the sacred mushroom may be the thread that keeps me together until my return to the states.”. It happened to rain consistently for seven days. The bug bites where terrifying! Every new day was worse than the next, waking up with dozens of new infections from head to toe. I hulled up in a hostel, where clear communication was made with the hospitable owners about my situation. A few awkward transactions where made around town for beans, rice, and some veggies, with many sympathetic glances from the locals observing my state. I had reached a terrifying appearance, with areas on my face and arms peeling and oozing. I went into isolation, Staying in my room most of the time, with one thing on my mind, the rain. For the next week I walked as far from town as I could, looking for cow and horse pastures with favorable conditions for psilocybe growth. The amount of time I would be able to sleep decreased with the consistent pain inhabiting my body. This left me on my feet before the sun came through the windows. Heavy rains rolled through in sheets, leaving in minutes to settle in dense mist covering the roads and pastures I ventured every morning. This was the first major rain of the season, fungal life was starting to wake up in the meadows. Old, dead polypore’s on logs where just beginning fresh growth from the newly arriving rain, showing moisture had been absent for months. Finding proper pastures for exploration has always been an instinctive process, if ever approached, (almost never) honesty has always proven to bring a smile to a previously agitated farmers face. After days of scouting out the right areas for psilocybes without seeing any obvious signs, various panaeolus species began to show themselves. The lightweight, thin stipes quickly confirmed they weren’t the psilocybes I was looking for. Small, glossy satellites caught my eye as I wandered as far as I could the day before my flight back, but the psilocybes still remained elusive in my searches. The morning of my departing flight, I was up and out of the hostel before the sun rose. The left side of my face was completely inflamed, secreting grossness out of who knows what. Dodging eye contact with the early risers of La Fortuna, I bounded for some far-off fields in one last desperate attempt to find what I had come looking for. The rain was heavy, before I could trudge my way up the volcano side, the sun peaked out enough to shed some light on the field I was hurriedly passing by on the way out of town. An unmistakable glimmer sparkled fifty feet away in the wet grass of the cow pasture. This was the first Psilocybe I found in its natural habitat, two Psilocybe cubensis growing out of composted manure in perfect condition. Being my first independent discovery, I took spore prints at the hostel, walking through proper motions to confirm my find.

The spore print dropped before the bus to the airport departed. It was the deep purple brown, classic of P. cubensis. The veil was visibly splitting off the cap, bluing reactions where very strong around the stem, all the tell tail signs pointed towards a successful find. One last conformational test left me the happiest, most emaciated looking gringo in the hemisphere!

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