Ayahuasca Retreat Reviews — Helping You Stay Safe with 5,000+ Independent Reviews
The Hummingbird Center is a plant-medicine healing center offering ayahuasca retreats including san pedro, with an emphasis on mastering our thoughts and emotions to create the life we desire. It provides a beautiful safe, and supportive environment for your personal journey with ayahuasca. Located near Iquitos, Peru, we offer ayahuasca retreats in Peru of different lengths to meet your personal needs. Our ayahuasca retreats are designed to free you from limiting beliefs, and catalyze healing and transformation. All of our retreats include at least one san pedro ceremony, the visionary cactus of the Andes that is very complementary with ayahuasca. Our longer stays include a master plant dieta with a plant selected by our shaman depending on what you are looking to heal, address or learn. Ayahuasca retreats at the Hummingbird is an opportunity for deep personal and spiritual growth following traditional healing methods with a curandero of exceptional skill and ability.
If you are truly ready to change your life, if you are finally sick and tired of being sick and tired of the morass of your thoughts and emotions, this is the place for you.
Our Programs
We offer retreats of 9 and 12 days, and also have more intensive programs of 2, 3 and 4 weeks that include dietas with master medicine plants. The longer programs are for those looking to go deeper with the medicine, or wanting to address more challenging issues that need more time with ayahuasca and san pedro for significant, lasting change to occur. We strive to match what people are hoping to address with the appropriate length of stay and do not try to push people into a stay longer than our experience indicates is required.
While not overtly spiritual, our work is centered on Mindfulness and guided by the simple precept “Without self awareness, there is no healing.” We emphasize the importance of increasing awareness and understanding of our inner world, of the interplay between our thoughts, our emotions and our body. There is a 25 minute guided meditation before each ayahuasca ceremony, to help set the tone for ceremony and help develop or deepen this practice of Mindfulness.
Emphasis on Changing our Beliefs
Unique to the Hummingbird Center are a couple of talks about our conscious and sub-conscious minds, our belief systems, how they shape our experience of life, and how we can change those beliefs so we naturally attract events into our lives in closer alignment with our wishes, desires, and aspirations. We strive to teach our clients practical and simple skills they can use in their daily lives to shift their perception of the world and themselves so they can respond to life’s events and their own emotions in a more productive and peaceful way. The plant medicines will only take us so far. Ultimately, WE are responsible for our lives, and it is important to have skills to navigate our inner world and respond to life in productive and loving ways. Mindfulness. Transformation begins and ends with being mindful, with being self aware.
It is the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen. – Muhammad Ali
Safe For Women
The Hummingbird Center is a family owned business run by Jim Davis and his Peruvian wife Gina. Our son and daughter in law also work at the center and contribute to its smooth operation in a variety of ways. Our family lives at the center, along with our 9 year old grand daughter, the light of our lives!!
We understand that women have different and valid concerns around safety than men, and ensuring women feel physically and emotionally safe at our center is our #1 priority. Gina´s presence and loving heart, and her easy care of women’s occasional special needs, contributes to this sense of safety and security. Many of our female clients have commented about how quickly they felt safe and at ease, knowing they would be well cared for.
Your Role in Working With Ayahuasca
It is important to understand that ayahuasca and san pedro are not cure alls. They are not going to solve all your problems for you. These powerful and loving spirits can only give us what we are open and willing to receive. An individual’s commitment to their own growth, healing and transformation makes a huge difference in the results they receive. You have to do your part, and that is fundamentally being truly committed to change, and being willing to step into unpleasant experiences if that is what is required for the desired change to occur. Trust and surrender are the keys to getting the most from your time with these medicine plants.
What is clear from over 10 years of guiding people through this work is that the medicine spirits know and understand what each individual needs to bring about the change they are looking for. They guide each person through an individualized process. Your journey of growth, transformation and change will not look like another person’s and there is no value in comparing your journey and experience to that of another. It is clear that under the facilitation of a true ayahuasquero, a true healer, the medicine spirits want to help us and know how to do so. Our job is to allow them to.
We wish we could make some guarantees about outcomes, but we cannot. What we can say, is that if one shows up committed to change, with an attitude of “what ever it takes, I am willing”, enormous change is possible within a very short period of time. Your attitude makes all the difference in what you receive!
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January 17, 2014 at 12:00 amI had a great experience in my time there. Very safe environment for ceremonies along with great food and accommodations. Staff and shaman went above and beyond and the location was amazing as well. Jim went out of his way to make every person feel at home. Could not recommend it enough.
Imported Review
January 14, 2014 at 12:00 amMy trip to the Hummingbird Retreat was truly life changing. It is a place where real healing takes place.
If you are thinking about a trip to the Hummingbird, I highly recommend arriving a day early and staying at a hotel in Iquitos. I made the mistake of flying overnight and arriving a couple of
hours early prior to the designated meeting time. This was a mistake for a couple of reasons.
First, my flight from Lima to Iquitos almost had to return to Lima due to thick fog over the Iquitos airport. Thankfully, my flight did make it but it was a close call. If my flight had turned
around and went back, I’m not sure how I would’ve found my way to the Hummingbird since you can’t contact them by phone. Second, I regret not getting there a day earlier because flying all through the night like I did was exhausting. You kind of need to be on your toes in Iquitos and I was dead tired when I got there.
The city of Iquitos is the most surreal place I’ve ever seen. It reminded me a lot of some of the
cities in southeast Asia. It is commonly referred to as the “Capital of the Amazon.” It is also the
largest city in the world that is not accessible by car. You can’t drive to it because there are no
roads going to it. The only way to get there is either by boat (on the Amazon River) or by plane.
The primary mode of transportation there is either motor scooter, motorcycle, or a three-wheeled motorcycle taxi contraption. They call them tuk tuks in Asia. There are a few cars but they are the exception. Because of all of the motorcycles (thousands of them), the entire city is extremely loud. It’s really difficult to hold a conversation with someone on the street. Apparently, mufflers are optional here. I found out after returning that Iquitos is considered the loudest city in all of Latin America. The decibel level on the streets is around 115.
Your Hummingbird journey begins when everyone in the group meets at the Yellow Rose of Texas restaurant. You’ll meet everyone in the group and the retreat owners, Jim and Gina. You’ll also have plenty of time to get something to eat. The restaurant has a crocodile sandwich on the menu; I regret not trying it.
From there the group will take a bus to the retreat, which is about a one hour drive. You’ll drive
by the Amazon River and get a chance to take in a lot of the local scenery. You’ll also see how
many people in the area live, which is poorly. This is one of the poorest places I’ve ever seen in my life and most people live in shanties beside the road. It is truly heartbreaking to see the
grinding poverty that people live in here.
After arriving at the retreat you’ll have some time to get comfortable in your room and rest and
relax for awhile. The tobacco ceremony will happen later that evening.
Okay, let’s talk about the retreat a bit. First, if you are considering a trip here, it’s important to realize that there is no electricity, phone, or internet here. Jim does have a Blackberry and will make it available to you if you really need to send an e-mail. If you need to make a phone call or do anything more on the internet, you’ll have to take a taxi back to Iquitos. Making a phone call on Jim’s Blackberry usually isn’t possible because the reception is very spotty.
There are internet cafes available in Iquitos but they are shockingly slow. The one I went to was so slow I thought my computer was broken. After about five minutes it finally went to the home page. Also, there are public phones available but the reception is extremely poor. I tried two different places and finally found one that was “good enough.”
Back to the retreat… The retreat is absolutely beautiful. The grounds are nicely landscaped and there was staff doing grounds maintenance almost on a daily basis. You can really tell that a lot of work has been put into keeping the place up.
The showers are very nice. They are beautifully tiled. There is no heated water though. I tried to take a shower a couple of times early in the morning and the water was very cold. If you wait until the afternoon, however, it warms up nicely. It kind of feels like swimming pool water.
The retreat uses composting toilets. Basically, these consist of a wooden box with a regular toilet seat on it. Inside the box is a five gallon bucket with sawdust. Surprisingly, this system works extremely well and there was no smell. After you take care of your business, you simply put more sawdust in the bucket to cover everything up. The buckets were changed regularly by the staff.
You will need a good pair of sandals for your trip. I made the mistake of bringing sandals with
several velcro straps on them. This was a mistake because I was frequently putting them on and taking them off. All you really need is a good pair of flip flops. Some people call them slippers. Don’t bring anything with straps on them. You’ll regret it later.
The food at the retreat was simple but well-prepared. And there’s plenty of it, too. Jim and Gina won’t let you go hungry. For supper one evening they served some kind of fish from the Amazon River. I don’t know what it was but it was absolutely DELICIOUS! And that’s a lot coming from me, because I’m not a fish person at all.
The accommodations are simple but clean. And really, since you’re staying in the Amazon jungle, would you really expect anything fancy? I think anything more would just ruin the Amazon experience. The simple accommodations are perfect.
The staff is warm and friendly. They seem to be genuinely happy people and were constantly smiling. The retreat has people doing the cooking, grounds maintenance people, and there’s even a night security guy, so you can know you’re safe while sleeping.
Oh, there’s also a girl on staff who washes your laundry for you. You DO NOT have to pack a lot of clothes for this trip. Each room has a little bag you can put your dirty laundry in. When it fills up, it magically disappears and a couple of days later you get your clothes back cleaned. It’s not a fast process. All of the laundry is done by hand and it takes a couple of days for them to be washed and dried.
And of course, the main reason for coming here was the ayahuasca and San Pedro. I read where another reviewer said they had “weak brew.” I strongly disagree with this. I can assure you it had plenty of kick. There was nothing weak about it. The ayahuasca is powerful and effective but my favorite was the San Pedro. Simple amazing.
Jim and Gina really go above and beyond to make sure everyone is taken care of. I got a little
under the weather one night and they both stayed up with me for awhile to make sure I was okay. Also, I needed to make a trip to Iquitos once to deal with a problem I was having with my return flight. Jim went with me to make sure I could get around Iquitos okay and to make sure the problem was resolved. Like I said… above and beyond.
Jim, if you read this I want to say “thank you” for all of your help and for making my trip to the
Amazon Jungle one that I will never forget.
If you are considering a trip to the Hummingbird Centre, just do it! My visit to this amazing place was life changing. it is a place where real healing happens on a daily basis.