Ayahuasca Retreat Reviews — Helping You Stay Safe with 5,000+ Independent Reviews
In the rainforest near the city of Iquitos sits Maya retreat where we offer traditional Ayahuasca, San Pedro and Sapo/Kambo Ceremonies in a beautiful rainforest setting.
We have an amazing natural spring water pond for swimming, a mud bath, individual and shared traditional style rooms as well as double rooms for couples, nutritious food and much more. We aim to offer you a safe, comfortable and relaxed environment for you to experience the sacred plant Ayahuasca and the other plant medicines we work with.
We are a family run centre with first hand experience of the healing potential and spiritual enlightenment this beautiful plants have to offer. Here at Maya, we consider ourselves very privileged to be the bridge between yourself and Mother Ayahuasca.
OUR SHAMAN: Isidoro Conde Acho, of the Yagua people, was born in Masan on the river Napo one hour from Iquitos. He is 30 years old and has been studying and working with Ayahuasca for the past twelve years and is an Ayahuasquero vegetalista. Besides their work with Ayahuasca, Vegetalistas gain their power to cure from the ?vegetales?, the native plants of the region.
In order to work in this way a Vegetalista will undertake many different plant diets, in which they will spend a certain amount of time in solitude ingesting the plant itself and a minimal amount of plain food. This allows them to gain a deep relationship and alliance with the spirit of the plant. These plant spirits will then help and guide them in their healing work. The more plants they diet, the more powerful their healing will become and Isidoro is a dedicated partner to the spirit world of the vegetales.
Isidoro has been regularly dieting Amazonian plants for the full twelve years alongside his progressive work with Ayahuasca as well as researching further plants and has a great breadth of knowledge on this matter. This deep knowledge has lead to him successfully healing people from his community and visitors for a number of years.
Isidoro is a hard working, loving and humble family man and has been part of our lives in Peru and of our Maya team since day one, we feel very privileged to have him working at our centre.
At Maya we have various options of length of stay for you to choose from depending on your needs. 10 days is the shortest length offered as we feel this is really the least time possible to make significant progress in yourself and with Ayahuasca.
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aruna
June 8, 2015 at 12:00 amIf anyone is searching for a great place to do ayahuasca I highly recommend Maya retreat for a number of reasons. The people who run it , Brett & Naho, are fabulous hosts, the food is healthy and beautifully prepared, the Shaman is very experienced and really cares about the people who come to him, he has vast knowledge of the Amazon healing plants and he has a very strong but quiet presence. The accommodations are clean, private and well furnished…you don’t share ( a big plus!). The environment is gorgeous, there’s a clean water pond to swim, a mud bath and jungle to go for walks.
I chose the Maya retreat as you can stay for any length of time other than the set dates, I stayed for 16days…they also do san pedro as well as sappo, which I wanted as well, the combination is very complimentary. It’s also inexpensive yet excellent quality…no cutting corners here.
I want to say a big thank you to Brett, Naho and their crew for providing such a great environment with so much love and care.
jt1111
March 19, 2015 at 12:00 amI had the most incredible time at this retreat and I would recommend this place to anyone!
If you are female and want to experience ayahasca and want to do the journey by yourself I can assure you with a 100 percent certainty this is the place for you. I came to Peru by myself, which I was a little nervous about. Every
londongirl
February 18, 2015 at 12:00 amI stayed at Maya last autumn for my very first Aya experience and I had an incredible time. I really went without any expectations, other than to surrender to the Mother for an inside out deep cleansing. Which is excactly what I received – and on so many levels. As well as Aya I had San Pedro, Kampo (very powerful!) and tobacco purges. Each helped me heal from a medical condition that usually takes months or even years to recover from.
Accommodation – was very comfortable – warm and dry and great mattresses!
Showers were lovely. The whole property was always clean and well cared for.
The environment is amazing – a beautiful lake for swimming after the medicines was not only therapeutic to bathe in, it was absolutely gorgeous to wander around in as well.
Naho’s cooking is out of this world. Each meal beautifully prepared to fit the Aya diet and so so tasty. You get hungry doing medicine work and so meal times are a time to treasure. Naho is very skilled at providing great nourishing food and plenty of it. One of the many highlights for me!
Brett always has time to listen and he was incredible supportive to me – and my fellow travellers – at each ceremony. I always felt safe and looked after. He was always around at other times too, ready to listen and be supportive.
Isidoro was a brilliant shaman and I particularly loved his singing of the icaros.
Highly recommended experience.
So my advice to anyone considering trying Aya is to go to a place that is recommended to you. And to trust in the natural healing ability of this incredible plant medicine. Get out of your own way. And don’t jump into the fear… anything you will see is from inside of you. So don’t identify yourself with your fear. Remain an observer and you’ll have a blast – however challenging the experience might be.
There will be times of bliss, and at other times you’ll wonder what the hell you’re doing there. Par for the course. Just surrender, let go and let the consciousness of the plants work their magic.
RemusBilegan
February 13, 2015 at 12:00 amI returned from here 2 days ago, and I had a great experience !
I was at Maya Retreat Iquitos for 14 days and I had 5 ayahuasca ceremonies 1 San Pedro and 2 Sapo. I went there as opposed to other centers based solely on my instinct and due to the fact that I couldn’t find any negative feedback on line about them.
My instinct was based on the fact that the place looked neat and I could sense an ego free environment from the pictures!
I was a bit unsure that they will be qualified in shamanic aspect of ayahuasca and also in the quality of the brew, but I was willing to risk it, so I went there.
I arrived late at night and there was someone to pick me up from the airport in Iquitos and deliver me safe to the Center.
The rooms are new and comfortable, Naho does a great job cooking so food is amazingly clean and tasty. Brett has this superhuman ability to empathize with anyone and he is a very patient hoast, giving all the time I needed and never rushing me. Ishidoro, the shaman, is only 31 years old but one can feel a deep wisdom and maturity behind his sharp eyes, he is very knowledgable and experienced in “curanderismo” , working with a multitude of plants and insects as medicine.
The ayahuasca brew, San Pedro and Sapo are all made on the property and are very potent as opposed to being bought from outside, which is a big plus, one can feel the love and care applied there 🙂
Overall I appreciate most the lack of ego that I found there, felling secure by watching the care and decency that the women were treated with by the shaman and the owner, a remarkable aspect not to be taken lightly. I have heard so many stories about women being abused while under the effect of the medicine, so this is very relevant for a female when she makes a decision based on personal safety !
A great personal experience for me! I felt like I went in 3/4 full of wellness and I came out overflowing of it. Also I felt I got some of my sense of wonder back and that was no easy task, and it was a result of the harmonious human interaction that I experienced while there!
Thank you Brett and Naho!
I will be seeing you again….!