Ayahuasca Retreat Reviews — Helping You Stay Safe with 5,000+ Independent Reviews
Santuario (The Sanctuary) Huistin is a center of shamanic healing and personal discovery located on the Pachitea river in the Amazon rainforest in Peru. It is here where one can begin a journey into total mind/body health and personal awakening. Set amongst the ancestral medicine trees in the Amazon rainforest and against a backdrop of a boiling volcanic river, Santuario is a center of dreaming, healing and detoxification, where one can restore oneself to a level of peaceful mindfulness in nature and recover one’s vitality away from the stress and innervation of modern life in the city.
Here, under the guidance of the gifted Maestro Santiago Enrrique Paredes Melendez, a master curandero (healer) and vegetalista with over thirty years experience in traditional plant medicine, you will have a very personalized experience with tailored “dietas” or medicine plant diets of flexible duration depending on your needs. Dieta can be as short as one or two days or extend for months in duration, depending on your needs. Working with ayahuasca in ceremony is only one important part of the process, with an infinite number of plant medicines in the jungle available to treat some of the even more resistant diseases and conditions as addiction, anxiety, epilepsy, depression, immune system disorders, diseases related to the major organs and nervous system, and yes even cancer! The results of working with the plants can be miraculous!
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marta83
November 4, 2025 at 8:49 pmIf I could put 0 stars I would. I am actually a little bit scared to even write this review because these people are brujos and are practicing brujeria. I will keep my story brief. It was several years ago when I went there for a 10 day retreat with 4 ceremonies and then we were going to do an isolation dieta afterwards. It was my partner and I and some other people. Enrique & Aime and Enger were the shamans for the first three ceremonies. It was weird looking back but I didn’t realize it then. In those ceremonies, they were not performing healing, but how do I say, like playing with energy…entering people’s mind. Everyone was telecommunicating and doing weird things. Not your typical, I saw my trauma from xyz and made peace with it. It was like playing with spiritual technology. The next ceremony, Enrique and Aime weren’t there. Instead it was Enger and some kind of dark vibes man from the town (well Enger has them too, to be honest) and they were also messing with people, especially my partner. Literally attacking him singing icaros in spanish saying “attack attack” and lyrics that were weird and dark. I don’t think they realized we spoke spanish. They wanted to get in and do something with us and they actually did to my partner, he was not the same person when he left. They did something to him. It wasn’t until months later when he was in a different ceremony the shamans said they saw black smoke coming from him and it took a few ceremonies to rid the dark energy. Fast forward a few years later and someone told us they (the shamans) and Enrique are known brujos, apprentice of Juan Flores and they fight amongst each other and steal people’s knowledge from dietas. They put their hands on their head after their long process and take it all. We obviously chose not to our dieta after our last ceremony with them, in fact, we all left and stayed up all night so they couldn’t enter our minds or our dreams. At first light, we ran out of there. It was like something from a horror film. I see now they have this girl, Daniela Riojas working as their siren. A very attractive woman with a beautiful voice to bring them new victims. I don’t think she even knows. I know…this sounds so crazy and it is. Its dark and scary stuff. Stay away!
Note: This review was edited for over capitalization and punctuation, but has otherwise been left in its original form.
loving one
March 1, 2021 at 2:53 pmI’ve been going to this retreat for the past 2 years and very grateful to experience mother ayahuasca in a safe + professional environment.
Maestro Enrrique, Maestra Ayme + Maestro Hegner held such sacred space for everyone in the group, and am very grateful for their icaros.
In the most intense ceremonial experiences, they held protective space.
The facilitators that helped around the sanctuary are professional and courteous,
and always very very helpful during ayahuasca ceremonies.
Kitchen staff is so kind! Such amazing elders, so motherly.
Food is deliciously good!
The stay comes with a room with a mosquito net bed, a desk and shelves
The rooster in the mornings are hilarious!
The environment overall is beautiful + serene,
a beautiful space to tune into oneself and learn from nature.
Travellink
May 12, 2020 at 1:57 pmNo facilitators, everybody in the ceremony was drinking the brew and when I called loudly for help a couple of times, nobody moved for a very long time, until my neighbor asserted I needed help. On another occasion, I was brought to the loo by a Aime and then left there without a light for quite some time and in utter panic, because she had to go get water for the toilet. Enrique was often not present at the facilities- sometimes for days. He also claimed I had cancer towards the end of the retreat (!?!), which thankfully proved to be a false claim, but isn’t a diagnosis to just throw at people. After two of the ceremonies with him I heard suggestions in my head that stated in my voice that “I need to stay here, I need to marry Enrique”. I was shocked and felt like I had entered the twilight zone. These suggestions came against my will and mortified me. So thats what it feels like to receive a brainwashing. After the first instant of this, I thought I was losing my mind, but in hindsight it got very clear to me what was done there. He never got outwardly aggressive and I don’t think he ever would, but I lost trust in him during the course of the retreat as there were questionable incidences that made me believe that he had lost -or never had- a professional attitude towards me. One of the staff was also dating a client upon my arrival and then started flirting with me (or “at me” because I certainly didn’t want any parts) behind her back, both of which made me very uncomfortable. One of the english gringo apprentices got flirtatious too and then later aggressive and bullying. I was told he was sent home later, after I sent them my complaint past-retreat. Hope so! Some of the staff was very nice, but some of them were also outwardly rude and you could feel their open resentment for the ‘gringo’ guests reverberating in their conduct. Shame, because the place was very beautiful and inviting from it’s vegetation and the hot river and has great potential. Potential that is being wrecked by unprofessionalism.
travmapacho
February 6, 2015 at 12:00 amGreat center, beautiful surroundings, and a great staff! This is a really quiet spot that many people havent discovered yet, and it is a real gem! The volcanic river the center straddles is a real gem, and the jungle her is remote and untouched feeling.
Enrique and his wife Aimee perform amazing ceremonies here, and the staff is all family. This is a family run operation entirely, and these are really great people to support. Some nights you may even find yourself in ceremony just you and the family (during nights when the center doesnt have many visitors).
Good prices, great people, and great ceremonies. I received a lot of insight and a friend of mine experienced some deep healing he didnt find at other centers.
Attilio
February 3, 2015 at 12:00 amI’ve just come back home today from a month retreat in Peru and 2 weeks at Santuario.
The place is POWERFUL, I could feel the good energies around ! I went there because I was surrounded by quite some bad energies which were affecting my health at multiple levels and creatings various blocages.
The 1st meeting with el Maestro Enrrique was great ! He took the time to listen to me and was concerned by the reason why I had come to him. He assured me that he would help me. And guess what ? He did !
After just the 1st ceremony I could feel things were changing, and after the 2nd one I had no more blocages anymore and all the bad energies had gone ! WOW ! Such a powerful shaman ! And he and his familly are so caring and loving people ! They make you feel like at home.
This place is magic and so beautiful !
Maestro Enrrique is so kind and here to help and offer you insights !
He did in 2 ceremonies what 6 shamans – in my first 2 weeks in another retreat – had been unable to do : get me rid of my bad energies and blocks !
No hesitation : if you need some healing, you have to go there ! Maestro Enrrique will help you, that’s for sure !
The escort man Elias has been very helpful and kind as well to get me there and back in town.
Everything was exactly what I needed to be healed and back on track !
Thank you El Santuario !