A walled house on the valley floor at Písac, under the Intihuatana terraces, an hour down from Cusco and two thousand feet lower. Four ceremonies across seven nights, twelve guests, and a physician who reads your file before anyone takes your money.
Písac sits two thousand feet below Cusco. Guests eat, sleep and breathe better here in the days before a ceremony, which is exactly the week it matters.
We collect you at Cusco airport and drive down the Písac road the same afternoon. Losing elevation is itself the acclimatisation, so night one is rest rather than recovery.
Písac belongs to day tours until late afternoon, then it empties. No bars, no through traffic, no hostel courtyard. After nine you hear the Vilcanota and the dogs.
Písac has grown food on those terraces for six centuries. Our dieta kitchen and every plant bath come from the garden and the chacras around us, walked rather than ordered in.
The trade is honest, and worth stating before you ask. Being in Písac rather than Cusco puts a hospital an hour away instead of twenty minutes. We staff for that: a physician on site every night, supplemental oxygen in the maloca, and the clinic at Calca twenty five minutes down the valley road.
A walled property on the valley floor at Písac, five minutes from the plaza and out of sight of it. Twelve guests, one maloca, a plant garden, and rooms nobody shares. One physician who stays every night, and one integration lead who stays with you for a year.
The four maestros who hold ceremony here come from the Paoyhan and Nueva Betania communities in Ucayali and travel to Písac for the weeks they work. We say that plainly rather than implying a local lineage we do not have. This is a Quechua valley; the medicine and the icaros are Shipibo, and the people who carry them are named, credited and paid. We run twenty two weeks a year rather than fifty, photograph the maestros only with permission, and never reproduce Shipibo textile patterns as decoration.
Guests, with two maestros in every ceremony
Weeks a year, so the maestros, the team and the garden recover
Years our senior maestro has been in practice
Months of integration, included in the price
Never on the same day, never sold as a package, and always assessed against the altitude we are at. Clearance for one is never clearance for another.
Tap a panel to open it. Kambo and Bufo carry no extra charge and neither is ever suggested to a guest who did not ask.
The application runs to thirty four questions. Six of them do most of the work, and every one exists for a reason we can name. Ayahuasca contains MAO inhibitors, which is why this reads like a pre-operative form rather than a booking page, and why altitude puts one more question on the list than a jungle center needs.
A licensed physician reads every file. Roughly one application in five does not proceed, nothing is charged before a place is confirmed, and declined applicants receive the reason in writing plus a referral list.
See the full applicationWe are looking for MAOIs, SSRIs, SNRIs, lithium, tramadol, triptans and stimulants. Some need a taper planned with your own prescriber; a few are a full stop.
Ayahuasca raises heart rate and blood pressure for several hours, and 9,750 feet has already done some of that work before you drink. Písac is kinder than Cusco on this; it is not sea level.
First degree family history changes the risk calculation even with no diagnosis of your own. We would rather ask than find out during a ceremony.
If the answer is a specific medical outcome we say plainly that we cannot promise it. Guests who arrive expecting a cure tend to leave disappointed.
Integration is far easier with one honest person who knows where you went. If the answer is nobody, we talk about that on the call.
No alcohol, no fermented food, minimal salt and sugar. Not a preference. Tyramine rich food is the specific reason the list exists.
The retreat is the shortest part. Most guests say the preparation was the hardest and the year afterwards was where anything actually changed.
Thirty four questions covering medication, cardiac and psychiatric history, and what you are hoping for. A physician reads it within 48 hours.
Forty five minutes with the integration lead who stays with you for a year. Only after that is a place offered and a deposit taken.
Planned with your own doctor and never rushed to fit a retreat date. If the timeline does not work, we move you to a later week.
No alcohol, no fermented food, minimal salt and sugar. We send a grocery list written for US supermarkets and a day by day plan.
Collected at Cusco airport and driven down the same afternoon, losing two thousand feet on the way. Medical intake, blood pressure and oxygen saturation, coca tea, one slow walk along the river, an early night.
The first is mostly spent learning how to be in the room. The second is usually the one people describe afterwards.
No screens, and no market or terraces. The plants in your bath were cut from the garden that morning. Kambo sits here for guests cleared for it, and the optional group session runs ninety minutes with nobody asked to speak.
Closing as first light comes down the terraces above the house. Bufo the next morning for guests both leads cleared. Transfer back up to Cusco that afternoon.
Do not book a Monday meeting. Hold the dieta one more week. Sleep badly for a few nights and expect it.
Scheduled on your time zone with the lead who read your file. Included, and they call you rather than waiting to be chased.
The eight month call is the one guests mention most. Nothing feels urgent by then, which is exactly why it works.
Difficult months happen. Support does not end because the year did, and we will refer you on where that is the right call.
Here, a licensed physician and your integration lead. Nobody else, and never the maestros.
Písac is 2,000 feet below Cusco and you descend to reach us. Two settling days regardless, blood pressure and oxygen saturation measured twice, and supplemental oxygen in the maloca.
Twenty five minutes to the clinic at Calca, one hour to a Cusco hospital we hold a standing arrangement with. Ask any valley center this and expect a number rather than a reassurance.
About one application in five. Declined applicants are never charged and always get the reason in writing plus a referral list.
We make no medical claims. Ayahuasca is not a treatment for any condition. Participants report lasting change, and we cite the peer reviewed research with its limitations rather than around them. Nothing on this page is medical advice.
Not included: flights, budget $700 to $1,300 from most US hubs. Travel insurance, which we require. Any nights in Cusco or Písac either side of the week, which we will book for you at cost.
No deposit until a physician confirms a place. Then 30% to hold and the balance 30 days out. Payment plans over three or six months. Full refund to 45 days out, and medical withdrawals refunded in full at any point.
What two thousand feet actually changes about sleep, appetite and blood pressure in the week before a ceremony.
Why the tapering question has no single answer, and what a responsible screening process does with it.
Guests consistently underestimate the first four weeks home. Here is what to plan for before you fly.
Písac sits at about 9,750 feet, roughly 2,000 feet below the city, and you descend to reach us rather than staying high. That difference shows up in sleep and appetite during the days before a ceremony, which is exactly when it matters. It is also a village of a few thousand people rather than a city of half a million, so the nights are genuinely quiet.
About an hour by road over the pass and down into the valley. We collect you at Velasco Astete and drive the same afternoon, so the journey itself begins your acclimatisation.
Twenty five minutes to the clinic at Calca and an hour to a Cusco hospital we hold a standing arrangement with. That is the honest trade for being in Písac rather than the city, and it is why a physician stays on site every night with supplemental oxygen and an emergency protocol rehearsed monthly.
Not during the seven nights. Rest days are for plant baths, bodywork and sleep, and the Sunday market with its food stalls is the opposite of what a dieta needs. Stay two extra days at the end and we will send you up to the Intihuatana terraces early, before the buses.
MAOI medication of any kind, diagnosed schizophrenia or bipolar I, uncontrolled hypertension, epilepsy, severe liver disease, a cardiac event within twelve months, and pregnancy. SSRIs, SNRIs, lithium, tramadol, triptans and stimulants are reviewed one at a time by the physician.
Yes. It is legal here and was recognised as part of the national cultural heritage in 2008. It is illegal to carry into the United States, which is why the work happens here and stays here.
$5,800 covers seven nights in Písac, four ceremonies, a single occupancy room, two settling days, the dieta kitchen, transfers to and from Cusco airport, an optional Kambo session, and twelve months of integration calls. Flights and travel insurance are not included.
At any point, without argument. You keep the room, the food and every integration call. Nobody is talked into a ceremony here.
Nothing is charged to apply. A physician reads your file, your integration lead calls you, and we either offer a place on a named week in Písac or explain plainly why we cannot. There is no follow up you did not ask for.