Dear fellow pasajeros and Ayahuasca curious people, I have posted this in reviews of the retreat on various pages (where it has now been deleted from, the only one left is on reddit) so it can be a good and visible warning. I want to warn you of this place called Caya Shobo in Iquitos with cult like structures, danger of sexual abuse, harassment, brujeria and other dangerous malpractices being put to work on the participants. This is Ayahuasca exploitation at its finest. So here goes: The owner was a loudmouth who disrespects his guests and seems to love condescending misogynist jokery. You are asked to share your reasons for attending retreat in front of the team and then they might make jokes and facetious or arrogant commemts back at you. Happened to me (until I cried! because they purposely riled me up with snide remarks, malicious smirks and facetious questioning) and I witnessed it happen to another guest. They don’t do compassion well there. The owner made a joke about me paying them some more right upon my arrival. Very funny, I should have left then. As they say: the fish rots from the head down. The shamans there have turned out to be great impersonators of trust and professionalism, but with lacking integrity and morals. I guess overall the intentions were off. Arturo Izquierdo wanted me to take my dress off in ceremony. I looked to my left, because I couldn’t believe what I heard and wanted the facilitators to “translate” for me (though I speak Spanish). Their places were empty. I also realized that he had skipped a few people and went right for me. He was heading straight towards me from the middle of the Maloka, probably having seen the facilitators were MIA. When I didn’t budge, he got upset and SPIT the Agua de Florida in my face HARD for the bendiciones. So hard that I would twitch for the rest of the ceremonies when an icaro ended, expecting to be spat at. Which he KEPT doing. Mine was a history of abuse (like probably most guests there) and I must have been dissociating and gaslighting myself into believing that I had the healing experience I so wished for, so don’t judge me for not leaving. He proceeded to attack me with bad energies and darts in ceremonies, which made me extremely tired and depressed through the course of the retreat. Once it felt like he was “pulling at my light” for lack of a better expression. Still I stayed in-suspicious, although something felt very off, but was confronted with the harsh reality, when I went to another retreat afterwards, where I projectile vomited and heard and saw Arturo sing icaros with vile content and horrible intentions to my head and chest and spew bad spirits out on me. Screaming, alien looking creatures and evil looking cheetahs running toward my head. I had horrible nightmares until it finally got cleaned out. I remember that my head felt very confused and dizzy when he sang to me from some point on. I couldn’t focus and felt helpless and confused but thought it was my fault. I remember that his breath stank horrifically, which I later read online is a sign of the brujo. (If anyone knows more on this please add the information, this could be interesting. I guess it’s probably due to an unclean dieta and maybe bad energy/ spirits too.) I also remember people during and after the retreat telling me about suspicious nightmares that had common themes, such as attempted rape (even rape from the shamans. But hey, we all thought it was us..) and murder. One of the guests looked very pale after a ceremony talking about seeing “demons everywhere in the maloka penetrating in and out of people”. Apart from that experience, the Ayahuasca brewer hugged me in a disrespectful manner, while I was on a “no touch” dieta. Which he knew, because he’s the one to prepare the plants. The Ayahuaca there didn’t taste right either. Like a sugary rip off for unsuspecting gringo tourists. The color was sort of light red (idk if that’s out of the norm but the other cups I had were much darker and had a much less watery consistence.) I heard it was “bought”, whatever that means. I thought they bought the vine, but seemingly they just bought whole bottles of instant brew somewhere at a market and put it in the microwave. So to speak. That’s what I suspect. Many people got digestive issues, such as heavy stomach pains, non stop diarrhea and air in the stomach, which seemed to get worse and be well out of the ordinary Ayahuasca purge. I found out I had gotten a severe gastritis from it. Apart from that plight, facilitators were having loud and long talks in ceremony. It felt very desecrating and disrespectful over all. People being asked to buy some shamanic perfumes for a special night of the retreat and a staged photo op with the shamans which I refused to take. Very tourist-trappy. Organization a mess. Group talks full of doctrine and spaced out BS. Definitely a cult like and very “control through fear” based vibe. The facilitator kept saying how humans are so dirty, stay away from humans and their energy to keep your Ayahuasca glow post retreat. At best isolate yourself forever on an island I guess. Or at Caya Shobo so they can get paid more.(?) And a woman on her period is apparently the worst energy and health hazard since Fukushima and you shouldn’t come near her or god forbid let her cook your food or touch you. If you’re at a restaurant in the non-cayashobo world, please make sure the cook isn’t a woman on her period! I kid you not!!! That’s how they talked there, literally. It’s a place full of doctrine, misogyny and the impure intentions of confused people. Sad. Arturo seemed psychotic at times, though he was well skilled in concealing it. But I saw rage and hatred coming out of him here and there in passive aggressive ways during daytime too. Like a double personality. The outwardly beautiful amenities there can’t make up for all of that. Not to mention they are strongly affiliated with Guillermo Arevalo (I think they are touring the states and Canada together and business affiliates as well as trainees of sorts. If their page had openly stated that, I would have never went.), whose name has been linked to sexual predations and various other failings quite continuously now. (Check out the Netflix documentary “The Last shaman”). They seem to have the same moral for conducting their business(!) (or the same Ayahuasca brewer;) because I read about the “dirty” and watered down Ayahuasca that was used at his retreats.

Shamans drinking their Ayahuasca from a different bottle at his former retreat. So this exploitation was intentional there. Might be the case at Caya Shobo too. Mr Arevalo had several centers closed down and then reopens others apparently. And it’s always someone else’s fault. I found out later that him and Arturo were acting in a film together, too. Playing shamans. The irony was definitely not lost on me. These guys are too damaged to ever help heal somebody. But I also think it’s not really of their interest if they do or don’t, the true intentions definitely seem to lie somewhere else far off, on a lower consciousness level. Possible psychopaths looking for admiration, stimulation and material gains. Never hand your power over. “The energy Guillermo gives in ceremony is that of a healing (?) “lover” instead of a fatherly shaman. “ That’s what another guest told me, idealizing his coming too close to a woman’s face when singing and inappropriate jokes about his sexual prowess. Heck he almost kissed me on the mouth, I was so confused. Stay away, especially if you’re a woman. You can only go there at the risk of getting messed up and having to have brujeria, darts, demons and bad spirits removed from you later like I did. My suggestion if you are looking for a good and integre ayahuasca retreat, is to stay away from Iquitos, which probably has become the capital of Ayahuasca-exploitation. Or to only go by personal recommendation of someone who has it together and is honest, those cookie cutter five star reviews can’t be trusted as people are highly impressionable and euphoric post retreat (and then asked to write a review by the center, stating fawning generalizations of “life transforming experiences” in there, like they all do, but not all “deliver” further down the line). And many guests are too invested into buying into the illusion of not having been ripped off. Unfortunately at the expense of honesty and the well-being of others as well as themselves. I hope you heed this warning and trust your gut the utmost when making your – thoroughly informed- choices for your next retreat. Or to learn energy healing modalities that you can safely use on yourself for free and out of the comfort of your own home. ( Just as effective, but maybe less flashy 😉 Xx and be safe out there. Another big red flag that I forgot to add up there was that the co-owner (Miguel) is a shaman himself, who purges (vomits) loudly and violently during ceremonies, I felt very dark energy from him. You make your own judgment on that, but it’s not something you’d normally encounter from a shaman. Another account from one of the several now closed centers that were connected to Guillermo Arevalo and shows a very similar pattern of conduct to what I’ve experienced:

“Ultimately ended up going to the sister retreat at Baris Betsa … which we all ended up fleeing due to bad ayahuasca and groping of women by the Shamans …” Seems like a lot of people got displeased and/or abused, I bet there’s more accounts out there. Adding that they also encouraged me to keep drinking their Ayahuasca, when I was in pain precisely due to its lack of quality. I had a reddish color and tasted like it was laced with pure crystalline sugar. Towards the end I had the most horrible pain in my stomach, it felt like I had a hole in my stomach and as I told Kati, she ignored me. I remember the brewers name by the way was Vilder/Wilder, so when shit hits the fan again and these people bounce off to the next retreat, you can bounce too. He was a more voluptuous guy and a rather sympathetic person mostly, though not much integrity it turns out. I remember they gave me gallons of water to drink until I’d vomit, instead of a plant vomitivo in the beginning. The water being cheaper and easier I guess. Im reposting this account from reddit where I was attacked and denigrated by a swarm of people who had been to this retreat. They were aggressively disapproving of my experience. Now imagine what would happen if I was on site there alone and something more serious would have happened to me? These people were more than willing to defend abuse. But this post is still to speak my truth and to prevent damage for others. This is a few years after my reddit review and I see they are still getting on with this number. All of my other reviews have been removed as I think they can easily do on commercial sites. I also want to add that after the retreat I left a stellar review online and recommended it to my friends, talked about how good it was constantly to everybody in the most uncalled for circumstances. I wanted to scream it out into the world, which is pretty unlike me. Like I was obsessed. I had a lot of daydreams and fantasies about being there. Their maloka was always the setting of those fantasies. It felt like euphoric fever dreams. Going on for a long time after the retreat. One of my friends went there upon my recommendation unfortunately. I suspect they use a type of hypnosis or suggestive magic on their guests to induce this hubris and euphoria, like some other retreats have been exposed to do. That could well be the reason why a lot of these reviews sound like they came out of the same cookie cutter. A spiritual worker who did a cleanse on me told me later (without knowing about any of this) that she found multiple cords from “toxic occultists” in my solar plexus energy. I immediately was reminded of this experience. Don’t be fooled, there is big money to gain in this industry (because by now, this is an industry) as well as “power” or influence and exposure and it attracts these types of people.

Note: External links were removed from this review, but it has otherwise been left in its original form.