Colombia jungle dad says hallucinogenic drug key to finding children

Colombia jungle dad says using hallucinogenic drug favoured by Prince Harry was key to searchers finding his children alive after plane crash

• Manuel Ranoque, 32, previously admitted having an affair behind his wife’s back
• It’s revealed he resorted to powerful hallucinogenic drugs to find the children 

Hallucinogenic drugs taken by Prince Harry were key in the search for four children rescued from the Colombian jungle 40 days after the plane they were travelling in crashed, killing their mother and two others, their father has revealed.

Manuel Ranoque, 32, admitted resorting to yagé, a bitter tea made of plants native to the rainforest that is more widely known as ayahuasca, in a bid to have visions which would lead the team to the children.

This is the same drug which Prince Harry claims helped him process the death of his mother Princess Diana. It is illegal in the UK as it contains DMT, one of the world’s most powerful known hallucinogens.

The team of searchers, made up of more than 70 Indigenous people and 120 military personnel, are said to have taken the drug 39 days after the children disappeared into the southern Colombian jungle.

The revelation comes after Mr Ranoque, who also took the drug and is father to the two youngest children, yesterday confessed to having an affair behind Mucutuy Valencia’s – his deceased wife – back.

Manuel Ranoque admitted he cheated on his wife before she died in a small plane crash in the Amazon jungle in Colombia

Exclusive photos show the four siblings, Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin, one, safe in their hospital beds at a military hospital in Bogota, Colombia 

A shaman in the Coafan region boils leaves for their psychoactive proporties as used in ayahuasca, Ecuador, 2009

Members of the Indigenous community, to which children Lesly, 13, Soleiny, 9, Tien, 4, and Cristin, 11 months, belonged, led the search of the dense rainforest, initially finding a baby’s bottle, half-eaten fruit and used diapers which convinced them the youngsters had miraculously escaped from the light aircraft.

They, alongside authorities, hoped the children’s understanding of the jungle gave them a higher chance of survival – but punishing rains, harsh terrain and the passing of time had diminished their spirits and drained their stamina.

Volunteer Henry Guerrero, 56, who joined the search from the children’s home village near Araracuara, said his aunt prepared the yagé for the group on day 39 after the crash.

That night at camp, Mr Ranoque joined others in taking the ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic cocktail that has been used as a cure for all ailments by people in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil.

Mr Ranoque credits the yagé and the vision of the elder among their group for finding the children.

‘This is a spiritual world,’ he said, and the yagé ‘is of the utmost respect. It is the maximum concentration that is made in our spiritual world as an indigenous people.’

That’s why they drank the tea in the jungle, he said: ‘That was so that the goblin, that cursed devil, would release my children.’

Soldiers of the Colombian Air Force and employees of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) give medical attention inside a plane to the surviving children of a Cessna 206 plane crash

Magdalena died in the plane crash along with the pilot and an Indigenous leader

Ranoque has appeared outside the military hospital several times since the children were taken there on Saturday after their astonishing rescue. He has been highly vocal about claiming his rights over all four children

Before drinking the yagé, Mr Guerrero said he told the group: ‘There’s nothing to do here. We will not find them with the naked eye. The last resource is to take yagé’. 

He continued: ‘The trip really takes place in very special moments. It is something very spiritual.’

What is ayahuasca? Class A psychoactive drug Prince Harry claims helped ‘clear the misery’ of losing his mother 

In his bombshell memoir Spare and interviews in its aftermath, Prince Harry revealed that substances including ayahuasca and magic mushrooms were like ‘medicine’ after Diana died in a car crash in 1997.

But ayahuasca, a South American psychoative drink which is consumed in line with shamanic practices, can cause hallucinations, anxiety and intense nausea. 

Earlier this year, a coroner warned against the potentially deadly consequences of shamanic ‘healing’ rituals after hearing how a young artist, Katie Hyatt, 32, suffered a mental breakdown and took her own life as her parents told the inquest they believed she had consumed ayahuasca.

Harry told Cooper he would not recommend people take the substances ‘recreationally’ but added: ‘But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine.’

The drink, which is illegal in the UK, is made by boiling together vine stems along with leaves from a chacruna shrub — both native to the Amazonia region.

The psychedelic brew contains the compound N,N-Dymethyltriptamine (DMT) which is one of the world’s most powerful known hallucinogens.

Similar to drugs like LSD and psilocybin, DMT has demonstrated its ability to increase connectivity between different brain networks and boost synaptic plasticity.

The powerful psychedelic combination affects the central nervous system and leads the user to feel a different statpowerful psychedelic brew that affects the central nervous system, leading to a different state of consciousness.

As well as hallucinations, people who have tried the drink have reported out-of-body experiences and feelings of euphoria.

Mr Guerrero told how the hallucinogenic effects did not help that evening. 

But the next morning, 40 days after the crash, an elder reached for what little was left of the yagé and drank it. 

Elder José Rubio was convinced it would eventually help find the children, who had been travelling to Bogota with their mother to join up with Mr Ranoque.

Rubio dreamed for some time. He vomited, a common side effect. This time, he said, it had worked. In his visions, he saw them. He told Guerrero: ‘We’ll find the children today.’

Magdalena’s brother Dairo Mucutuy, 30, revealed Ranoque first went to Bogota alleging he was being threatened by a dissident group of FARC guerrillas in his southern tribal area.

But once in the sprawling city sitting 8,600ft above sea level on a plateau in the Andes he had an affair behind the back of his wife of seven years.

Ranoque then took the woman back to their community in the Amazonian village of Araracuara which shattered Magdalena, insisted her brother.

He later left for Bogota again, but kept his wife dangling with hope that they could re-establish a relationship.

And it was that hope amid her partner’s affair that led her suddenly – and without her family’s knowledge – to gather up her children for the fateful light aircraft journey to the town of San Jose del Guaviare en route to the nation’s capital on May 1.

They were on their way when the pilot of the Cessna single-engine propeller plane declared an emergency due to engine failure. The aircraft fell off the radar a short time later.

The Colombian military launched a search for the plane when it failed to arrive at its destination. About 10 days later, with no plane and no signs of life found, the Indigenous volunteers joined the effort. 

They were much more familiar with the terrain and the families in the area. One man told them the plane was making an odd noise when it flew over his house. That helped them sketch out a search plan that followed the Apaporis River.

Sixteen days after the crash, with morale running low among all search parties, searchers found the wreckage. The plane appeared to have nosedived – it was found in a vertical, nose-down position.

The bodies of three adults were recovered from inside the aircraft. But there was no sign of the children, nor any indications they were seriously injured, according to the preliminary report.

The military’s special operations forces changed its strategy, based on the evidence that the children might be alive.

On day 40, after Elder Rubio took the yagé, the searchers combed the rainforest again, starting from the site where they found the diapers. But as the day went on, they returned to base camp with no news.

The Cessna crashed into thick jungle in southern  Colombia, killing all three adults on board, but the four children all miraculously survived

The four indigenous children are pictured after being rescued. They were missing for six weeks in the Colombian Amazon jungle after the plane crashed

Then a soldier heard via radio that the four children had been found – five kilometers from the crash site, in a small clearing. Rescue teams had passed within 20 to 50 meters on several occasions but missed them.

The solider told Mr Guerrero, who ran to Mr Ranoque. ‘They found the four,’ he said, through tears and hugs.

A helicopter lifted the children out of the dense forest. They were first flown to San José del Guaviare and then to the capital, Bogota, each with a team of health care professionals. 

They were covered in foil blankets and hooked to IV lines due to dehydration. Their hands and feet showed scratches and insect bites.

Read more: Colombia jungle dad admits he DID have affair and wife took children on fateful flight to try to win him back as he reveals rescued kids are ‘delicate’ and too sick for visitors as they recover in hospital

Mr Ranoque said Lesly reported that her mother died about four days after the crash. The children survived by collecting water in a soda bottle and eating cassava flour, fruit and seeds. They were found with two small bags holding clothes, a towel, a flashlight, two phones and a music box.

Tien and Cristin had birthdays while searchers looked for them. All four remain in hospital. 

A custody fight has now broken out, with some relatives claiming Ranoque was violent against the children’s mother. He has admitted to verbal and occasional physical fights, which he called ‘a private family matter.’ 

Officials, medical professionals, special forces and others have praised Lesly’s leadership.

‘The jungle saved them,’ President Gustavo Petro said. ‘They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.’

The youngsters grew up in Araracuara, a small Amazon village in Caquetá Department that can be reached only by boat or small plane. 

Mr Ranoque said the siblings had happy but independent lives because he and his wife, Magdalena, were often away from home.

Weeks before the crash, Mr Ranoque had fled his home village, an area where illegal drug cultivation, mining and logging have thrived for decades. He said he feared pressure from people connected to his industry, though he refused to provide details about the nature of his job or business dealings.

‘The work there is not safe,’ Mr Ranoque said. ‘And it is illegal. It has to do with other people … in a sector that I can’t mention because I put myself more at risk.’

He said he left Mucutuy $9 million Colombian pesos, about $2,695 US dollars, before leaving to pay for food, other necessities and the charter flight. He wanted the children out of the village because he feared they could be recruited by one of the rebel groups in the area. 

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