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My Strange Adventure With the Devoted Followers of Dr. Lovewisdom
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Memoir

My Strange Adventure With the Devoted Followers of Dr. Lovewisdom

I always thought my mother's spiritual seeking was silly. So I almost couldn't believe it when a wacky new age community helped me cope with her death.

Nina St. Pierre
Jan 21, 2019
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My Strange Adventure With the Devoted Followers of Dr. Lovewisdom
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Illustrations by Iris Monahan

“Go all the way down this road,” the driver said as he pulled my giant backpack from the combi, a hybrid van-taxi, before chugging off and leaving me at the gated entrance to Vilcabamba, Ecuador’s southernmost village. As I squinted toward the glowing lights in the distance, a warm wind lashed my face and spun dust around my feet in small flurries.

It was 9 o’clock on a Sunday night, and I’d broken my first rule of traveling alone in South America: I was arriving in a new town after dark.

But as I walked the wide dirt lane into town, the darkness lifted. In its place were pools of silvery light gleaming under swinging iron lamps. Down a cobbled side street, an Ecuadorian man in a cowboy hat jumped off his horse and guided it to a tie-off post. In the center of a tidy plaza up ahead was an illuminated fountain that bathed everything in an eerie glow. I laughed to myself, wondering if this was the fountain of youth the locals had talked about.

“Vilcabamba (pop.…

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