A Former War Correspondent Unravels

Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent and former war correspondent at The New York Times. For most of his life, Ernesto was a classic journalist – skeptical, stoic – whose early life in war-torn Colombia and reporting experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan left him traumatized, though he didn’t know it. Then Ernesto signs up for a retreat in the Amazon where he drinks ayahuasca. This retreat is followed by many more throughout Latin America. These experiences began to melt some of his armor, revealing a surprising new side of himself. Along the way, Ernesto reports on the strange world of international psychedelics retreats.

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Co-produced by PRX and the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, Altered States is an award-winning podcast, taking home a 2025 Signal Award for Science and the 2026 Webby Award for Science and Education. To learn more, visit us our website.