Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual

Llanchama, Peru

We are an ayahuasca retreat healing center, operating as a lodge in the Amazon rainforest. We are located 90 minutes outside of Iquitos, Peru near the small village of Llanchama along the Nanay River.

We provide traditional Shipibo medicine services wich includes: healing and learning diets, master plant medicine, and traditional Shipibo ayahuasca ceremonies.

Once you are here, you will meet with our shaman master healer Ricardo Amaringo, and with the asistance of a profesional translator, you can explain him your intention for the healing procces.

Your treatment will then be tailored to your personal needs, often including further treatment with a master plant. Furthermore, in traditional style, you will then adhere to a strict healing diet developed to promote the healing work of the curanderos and our medicinal plants.

Once on the diet, you will be invited to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies four times a week, for further ceremonial healing under the guidance of Ricardo and his assistants shamans. In ceremony, you will be further treated by the curanderos through the traditional healing song, called icaros.

The day after every ayahuasca ceremony, with the exception of Fridays, there is a group discussion led by Ricardo to review experiences in the ceremony and the progress of all of our participants, apprentices and visitors.

In some cases, further treatment techniques are also indicated, including healing plant preparations for bathing and vapor treatment, or cataplasm.

Traditional treatment requires time, so visitors are encouraged to visit us for one week or more. Group programs are often designed for 10 days or 2 weeks and more advanced treatment can take one/two months or longer.

For particular individuals, we also offer traditional diets for learning under the guidance of Ricardo. This level of training is best discussed in person with Ricardo himself.

We charge an all-inclusive daily fee for our services, which covers transport from the Iquitos airport, private room, modern bathrooms and showers, diet meals, laundry service, electricity, wifi internet, traditional medicine and experienced international facilitator staff support.

If you are interested in visiting, please email us to establish contact and verify availability at our center. From that point, we can plan your visit!

Reviews (147)

4.6 out of 5
Overall 4.6
  • nicolas
    May 10, 2022 at 5:26 pm

    I lost 675 USD and unfortunately I never was welcomed there. I wanted to go there because it was highly recommended to me but due to a total lack of answers, support and bad management the Nihue Rao center made me waste a good amount of money.

    Nine month before going there I paid my deposit for me and my girlfriend who was just planned to stay with me but not drink ayahuasca. Everything was confirmed and okay. Until one month before where I had a few questions by email.They first denied my deposit and told me there was an issue with the person not drinking. That it might cost more.They never replied to my questions, ignored me went they where online, and it has been a festival of excuses. Covid, malaria, connexion, …

    They never took responsibility in their awful management and they sneakily stole me some money.The center and the master are probably good, but the management were disgraceful to me. Just be aware. If you feel that anything is not right just pass on and find some more reliable center.

  • carsonst
    July 12, 2021 at 9:04 am

    This was my second time staying at Nihue Rao and my first time doing a 1-month long plant diet. Although it was a challenging experience, it was exactly what I needed. During this month, I learned a ton not only from my plant teachers but also from integration sessions with the head shaman, Ricardo, who willingly shared his deep knowledge of the world of Ayahuasca and Shipibo shamanism. Ricardo and his fellow shamans are second to none in regard to the strength and healing power of their icaros. Also, they really do care about your well-being and it is clear that they put your healing at the forefront.

    Lastly, since coming back for a second trip, it is clear that management has improved and is only going to get better. The group of facilitators was amazingly kind, caring, and full of wisdom. When embarking on a plant medicine journey the most important thing is to feel safe and supported and that is what you will get at Nihue Rao.

  • Mishaleader
    June 14, 2021 at 3:59 pm

    Amazing place! I was there three times and definitely planning to come back. Shaman Ricardo does incredible work, kipping up with the shipibo traditions and enlightening others. Facilitators, who truly enjoy helping passengers. Variety of master plants to meet everyones need. Great, magic ceremonies of Mother Ayavaska. Thank you Nihue Rao for everything!

  • Royal Celestial
    January 11, 2021 at 10:54 pm

    I was one of the long term dieters, and I know that people who run this center are more concerned with their reviews on Aya advisors as opposed to their relationships with their pasajeros/dieters and their privacy. So after paying this center more than 14k of my hard earned money, it’s only fair that I leave this review.

    When you diet trees, you go deep. The wisdom you learn from the trees is superior to the knowledge that can be gleaned from the books, for that wisdom comes directly from the Cosmos in its purest and most unadulterated state. As one of the long term dieters, I had a very intense process. It was profoundly healing, and I had amazing breakthroughs and results. I am thankful for the healing I received here. Yet I can’t help but feel betrayed and violated by the people who work here and were supposed to keep my personal and intimate information private.

    As with every long term diet involving an intense and powerful tree, there are tests that come up and challenges one must face and overcome. I shared some of my personal challenges with the manager of the center, Benoit [last name removed] (who I used to trust and have a lot of respect for – past tense). Benoit used to work with all long term dieters and assist them during the more challenging aspects of their diet (which is a fairly standard thing on a long diet). What was highly unethical and unprofessional, however, was the fact that the manager of this center and people who work there violated my privacy and shared very personal and private information (that was not even written in stone at the time) with others who worked there or just happened to be in the Nihue Rao clique of friends. It felt like sacrilege. Low level aggressive people affiliated with this center (who I don’t even know and who don’t know me) went out of their way to speculate on the state of my diet, life, and even well-being thanks to Benoit (the girl he started hooking up with and others who work there and can’t honor dieters’ privacy).

    They attack long-term dieters’ dietas, they say lies, and they even steal people’s dietas by blocking their medicine. The two women who worked there as temporary facilitators were highly jealous, aggressive, disingenuous and competitive types. One of these insecure women shared a lot of woo woo type stuff that was not plant-medicine with pasajeros who were still very under the influence of Aya (i.e. open energetically), blocked their medicine, and put her own low vibe energy into them. When confronted, she started emotionally blackmailing and slandering. I find it truly fascinating that this jealous and competitive woman deluded herself into thinking that she had the capacity to know an iota of what I went through during my long term diet and what my personal transformation entailed. And that was after she tried to copy-cat my diet and dieted the same tree in the summer of 2018 (clearly without the same results). Not only what she did was highly unethical and out of integrity, it was straight-up malicious and sociopathic. I am truly disgusted by the fact that people who work at Nihue Rao can’t honor someone’s process and even go as far as violate their privacy and the sacredness of their diet. It doesn’t matter how much you knew or didn’t know about my diet and its intimate details – it was not your place to inquire, be nosy, speculate and spread lies. I didn’t pay you all that money for you to be talking about me and my diet. Find better things to do with your lives.

    And yes, it’s true that they are very money-driven. Also there’s an overall lack of empathy and a sense of fear that permeates this center. They’re afraid of everyone who has a certain energy that may “jump” onto them. To the point that they’ll do or say very rude, inappropriate and inhumane things and treat others as lepers.

  • Travellink
    May 22, 2020 at 7:40 am

    I felt that this was very business and money driven. Much more professional than other retreats I have attended, which didn’t even offer a plant based vomitivo before the ceremonies, but still not up to par to invest time, trust and money in. Martina wouldn’t even bother responding to me asking for a discount after my stay there. Ricardo has a harsh tone with the pasajeros sometimes and recurringly spit out in front of my feet when I walked by. Which I then excused as being a shamanic thing, but it made me highly uncomfortable and obviously lacked any kind of human decency. I had a feeling of distrust with him from the start, but that of course was my personal intuition which may differ for others. Some of the guests, during the short time of my retreat there, also had really bad vibes and bullying behavior. Big ego energy. After one ceremony when we were offered fruit from a bowl and I declined, Ricardo facetiously commented “no quiere banana”? I was then told by another female guest – who overheard the remark- the next day, that he had likened her to a monkey a few times before. I saw that she wanted to shrug it off as funny, but I felt deep down that she as well knew it was demeaning and verbally abusive. For the benefittees of the doubt, there can be cultural differences, but the gist is in the tonality and intention in which things are presented and these translate globally. I am grateful and glad that these days I am healed enough and have be able to heal my self esteem to the point, that I wouldn’t ever even consider paying someone to abuse me.

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