Oni Shobo

Jorge and Vera are a peruvian-czeck couple who are running the Oni Shobo center since almost a year. It seemed though that many things are still in a phase of development!
If you are looking for a clearly organized, structured, healing and treatment oriented setting, you may definitely want to go to one of the other, more established and structured centers, with focussed and experienced staff, who are serious and professional about the work with the medicine!
Jorge works as a journalist in Iquitos and usually spends the nights in the city. At times it happened though that he worked during the evening with his laptop in the day time kitchen of the center, while a ceremony was held there, which I found to be not the ideal atmosphere to say the least. At other centers such and many other things that I experienced at Oni Shobo, would definitely be considered a big no-go!
Vera for example was the only fascillitator during one ceremony while being pregnant almost in 3rd Trimester. While of course it is solely her choice to do so and to accept being exposed to mapacho smoke for example, I had the overall impression that the whole setting was not very focussed and professional!

Another problem was the (english) language barrier. It is very important to be able to communicate with fascillitators properly, when working with the medicine. At this center though you’ll find yourself often in a situation when you have to simplify what you actually want to express and even then end up not being understood. It is though very important to express yourself, be understood and maybe even receive a helpful, guiding answer when you want to benefit the most, when working with plant medicines at a retreat center.

The shaman of Oni Shobo is a 75 year old gentleman from the murui tribe, who has a very outgoing character, likes to tell all kinds of stories and holds coca ceremonies on alternate days. The former shipibo shamana celestina apparently left the center not long ago for some unknown reason!

If you have an intellectual and/or spiritual approach to the topic or if you are even slightly experienced with plant medicines I’d definitely recommend you to chose a professional center to get the most out this experience! It’s definitely worth spending a little more money. If it’s your first time working with Ayahuasca you’d probably not recognize some big disadvantages of this center. But for me having had experience at other centers I can only advise to chose carefully. I rarely write reviews but considering the fact that the whole Ayahuasca scene/industry is growing dramatically especially around Iquitos and many centers are popping up, I find it very important to have critical testimonies. I was researching myself for a center for many weeks and chose this one mainly because of the cheap price. In retrospect I would have definitely go to another place or avoid Iquitos at all.