The physical center itself is about the same as others in South America. The food was not so good, cooked with oil (contrary to dieta standards), and sometimes they ran out of things like quinoa, which, if you’re doing a dieta, is a key staple. The medicine is quite good. What makes this center unique though is the clear intention to heal. Many centers attract people who want to explore spirituality or who like journeying. That’s fine. But this center is unapologetically about healing. To facilitate that, you get to share your intentions before the ceremony so that the Shamans can work on that for you with their Icaros (the chants that activate the Aya). However, I got the sense that some shamans sang the same Icaros regardless of what they were told or, since the list of things you’re working on may be as many as four or five, they couldn’t keep them all in their mind so you got whatever. That aside, there is a lot of good healing that takes place here. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, the main Shaman, Ricardo, tries to manipulate people to have a private ceremony, which is $1500. Yes, dollars. He told me that I had demons that he could not help me expel in the regular ceremonies, for the protection of the others. Feeling stuck after a couple of weeks, I scheduled my session. I was careful to drink just the right amount of Aya so that it was strong but not too strong (what Ricardo calls a Bomba, something encouraged for public ceremonies but not helpful during privates). I achieved the exact right dose. I made a list of my intentions with the caveat that what I really wanted was to address the so-called demons and if nothing else got done, that was fine. Ricardo started to work with me and I was feeling some release of this darkness. I had been told previously that I should be more considerate of the shamans and that when releasing, to face away from them so they don’t have to work so hard to ward off the evil spirits I’m emitting. I was being very conscientious about this. After we finished one particularly fierce round, still fairly early in the night, I was releasing rather strongly – by coughing and sounding, which I did into my bucket, so as to contain it. I was facing away from the Shamans, on my hands and knees. But, to be even more considerate of them, I tried to move away from them back to my seat, where I was heading. But because the releasing was happening, I stayed on my hands and knees to hover over the bucket, and dragged it across the floor as I crawled. When I got back to my seat, I sat upright again, just as I had the whole ceremony thus far, including in front of Ricardo. (Now, it is important to note that when you are having a bomba, you generally cannot walk, stand, or even sit upright; you are floored. In my case, my speech would be quite slurred too.) I continued to communicate with the assistant/translator with no affect to my speech. I was FINE. But Ricardo decided, on his own, because I had crawled away from him to protect him from the “devils,” that I was having a bomba and that therefore, trying to continue working on that was fruitless. At least, that was what he later claimed his reason was. He may have just been exhausted, as I am sure it was hard work. (Never mind that he assured me that he could battle those demons during a private ceremony and win, and they would be gone. Never mind that Ricardo was always tired and would routinely fall asleep during our integrations.) So he stopped trying to exorcise these so-called evil spirits in me. He even stopped having me come up to sit in front of him for my Icaros and instead had me stay at my seat across the room the whole rest of my ceremony. (Maybe he just didn’t want to be exposed to whatever I was releasing?) I did not feel a thing from whatever singing he did after that, which was solely geared toward the rest of my list (to the extent I heard him and he used Spanish, I was able to tell what he was singing about. He also later admitted that he had stopped working on the devils at that point.) He later said not to worry, that he would continue doing so during my last week there, in the group ceremonies. (Yes, now all of a sudden that was OK.) But I expressed anger toward him in the integration, when he said he didn’t work on the demons anymore because I was having a bomba, which I explained I was not. His ego got bruised and after that, he refused to work with me at all in the group ceremonies, on anything. So, did I get my money back for the private ceremony – money I had to get from a friend, no less? What do you think? Not a chance. Did it help me? Not really. Did I leave the Center feeling like some good healing took place? Yes, because I took charge of my own process, understood that the devil was just trauma, and prayed for that to be released. The assistant was very helpful in guiding me to pray for my healing, which somehow was either not mentioned earlier or I missed. However, that same assistant came over to me during my private ceremony and told me to stop screaming, which was how I was organically releasing and did not feel possible to stop, without thwarting the process. He was convinced that the screaming part was optional, but, in my being, it was not. He imposed his personal beliefs onto me and basically forbade me from having the experience I needed to have. (In a subsequent ceremony, or actually two in a row, another participant was screaming like crazy, and I don’t think he was told to stop – well, he certainly didn’t. Another participant from earlier in the retreat talked to me about his experience of being told to stop screaming, which he went to the bathroom to do, which was really upsetting to him.
This place may be coasting on the good name it earned back in the day when it was co-run by westerners, who left, apparently, because of not being able to resolve issues with Ricardo.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Ricardo assigned me a plant to diet that did not match what I was presenting with. On the intake form, I listed all my injuries and arthritis, so he assigned me something for physical pain, but I was not experiencing physical pain (perhaps another unchecked assumption?) but rather emotional pain, which was my stated intention, along with deepening my spiritual connection . So I asked to switch. So then he assigned me something that is good for the latter but also has a lot of Shitana (dark energies), when what I really needed was something to bring in the light. (There are plants that deepen spiritual connection and are also light. It seems like not a lot of thought goes into this assignation.) After 2 weeks, Ricardo was supposed to clear the shitana, per protocol with this dieta, and I kept asking him to, but he just kept putting it off (which was really challenging to be with) and only did it on my last day (four weeks). Well, he supposedly did it, but given his unwillingness to work with me at the end, when he finally saw me on the last day to close my diet, I couldn’t actually say if he cleared the shitana or not.