Etnikas Ayahuasca Retreats

The day starts at 9:00 am in Cusco's Plaza Nazarenas, where a shuttle bus collects the group and carries it out to the Sacred Valley. Guests are asked to arrive two days early to acclimatise to the altitude. Anyone struck by altitude sickness may not be able to take part in ceremony.

The Sacred Valley centre is in San Salvador, a quiet rural community about an hour from central Cusco and two hours from Machu Picchu. The pages call it a temple set among high Andean mountains and native forest, looking over a small valley with a stream at its base. Rooms sleep up to three, with shared bathrooms.

The ceremonies are directed by Q'ero healers from the high Andes and Shipibo healers from the Amazon, working with icaros, the shamanic chants, and Inca cosmovision. Etnikas prepares its own brew from two plants, ayahuasca and chacruna, for groups of up to 18. A doctor attends every ceremony with emergency equipment, examines guests beforehand and checks on them through the night. Psychologists are part of the team, and one makes a follow-up call a week or two after the retreat. Munay, a meditation on unconditional love, is taught as preparation and integration, with a free monthly online session afterwards.

The Sacred Valley retreats run three, five and seven days, with two to three ceremonies; the seven-day programme adds two days at Machu Picchu. A second centre in Manu National Park, on the Madre de Dios and Río Soga de Oro rivers, is reached only by riverboat. Its groups of 6 to 12 stay seven, nine or ten days, with three to five ceremonies.

In 2015 Etnikas founded the non-profit Human Actions, built on the Andean idea of ayni, or reciprocity. Guests can volunteer with children, with neglected dogs, or in a nursery growing native trees for reforestation.