

Participate in an Ayahuasca retreat in Cusco; Ayahuasca is the Quechua name to refer both to the liquid resulting from the slow decoction of an Amazonian vine called Banisteriopsis caapi, and to the vine itself, which contains the compounds Harmine, Harmaline and Tetrahydroharmine.
Based on the liana decoction called ayahuasca, each Amazonian group or each healer adds different plants with the aim of communicating with a specific spirit depending on the disease they are going to treat, or the specific ritual they are going to perform. Ethnographic studies have reported that there are more than 5,000 different recipes to prepare Ayahuasca and more than 200 plants that can be added to the decoction.
In pre-Columbian times, it was believed that the healer or commonly called shaman had a great capacity to make contact with his extrasensory consciousness through psychophysical techniques and/or the intake of psychotropic substances. In this way they managed to enter a state of consciousness that provided them with divinatory and therapeutic wisdom.
Ayahuasca is a shamanic medicine originating from the Amazon Rainforest, brewed from a combination of several plants that are legally available in Peru. It is associated with rituals and religious ceremonies that are specific to a complete Ayahuasca experience. The immediate effects of the medicine can be felt in about 20-60 minutes after the oral intake, but the intoxication can, on occasion, last on a person for up to 8 hours. Ayahuasca has a broad spectrum of some amazing positive effects on the body, mind & soul, making one feel completely different in every single ceremony.
Hampiq Wasi : 01 Night
Our Hampiq Wasi is located in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, just one hour from Cusco and two hours from Machu Picchu. Year after year, Hampiq Wasi is rated as one of the best Peruvian ayahuasca retreats, due to its four decades of experience and its remarkable healers who hail from both the Andes Mountains and the Amazon. The calming environment at Hampiq Wasi makes this an excellent choice for anyone who’ll be having their first interaction with ayahuasca. They’ve even taken additional safety measures, like having a general practitioner, psychologist, and shaman on-site to ensure each guest is cared for physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The ayahuasca ceremony takes place in the sacred valley and it is a personal ceremony, that is the reason why we start the service to pick you up in the city of Cusco, then we move to the retreat house in the sacred valley, We pick up at 11:00 a.m. at your hotel, the transfer time is 1.5 hours to reach our retreat house. Then we have a meeting with the Shaman known as “ayahuasquero”, they are from the Amazon of Peru-Pucallpa, who is responsible for analyzing your personality and participating in the ceremony.
The ayahuasca ceremony begins at 6:00 p.m. with the prior permission ceremonies performed by the ayahuasca shaman with different rituals that include tobacco rituals and Iqaros. The dose that is provided to people depends on the energy level and mental strength, the shaman does not provide the same dose for all people.
During the ceremony, you will take a place on one of the beds lined up around the room. A bucket and toilet paper at the base of each. They will then sit and watch the shamans and assistants prepare the Ayahuasca and perform the medicine blessing ritual. Shamans, facilitators and musicians will also drink the medicine.
During purging it looks like many things: you will cry, urinate, vomit, have a bowel movement, wince or yawn. We will be aware of all these reactions that are coming and we will be able to act on them. The main mantra is “Don’t think, baby”. The only real way to ruin your experience is to not drink.
Over the course of the night, you will experience a great deal. Or possibly just one significant thing. Or very little. The ceremony is accompanied by a soundtrack of recorded and live music that has an uncanny ability to match the journey. Some people have what’s called a “nothing” where they fall asleep and wake up when it’s over. They only have their realizations at a later date.
The ceremony ends sometime after midnight, when the lights are turned on. The group then meets again for the volunteers to share their experiences. That’s another journey of knowledge that isn’t even yours, but makes a big impression. People’s experiences tend to be profound. In the course of the week.
Ayahuasca is becoming well known, and Ayahuasca tourism to South America for ayahuasca ceremonies has doubled in the past couple of years. Everyone wants to attain a higher consciousness and peek into the vast unknown universe within.
Ayahuasca is called by some the Spirit Molecule, and by others the God Molecule. It helps people discover the divine within us all. DMT has been the spiritual medicine of indigenous tribes in South America, particularly in Peru and Ecuador. It is a medicine of the jungle. It is a combination of several ingredients, all plants that grow in the jungle, and DMT ayahuasca is a brew of this combination of plants. Spirit vine contains DMT, the God Molecule, or the Spirit Molecule because it puts a person in an altered state of consciousness, a hallucinogenic entheogen.
Many people tout the healing effects of DMT ayahuasca, from the physical level, the emotional level, the mental level, and most importantly the spiritual level, where all illness starts from. If the illness is addressed from within, deep within, the physical manifestation of illness often disappears. If old resentment and anger is let go, health in mind, body and spirit takes its place.
Everyone is different, and the plant medicine reacts differently in each person’s chemistry, mental constructs, and emotional environment. What can you expect? It is a very individualized experience for each person.
There are as many paths to God as there are individuals on the planet; likewise, there are just as many possibilities for an Ayahuasca experience as there are individuals on the planet. Your experience with Ayahuasca will be unique and will be your own. Just as with meditation, some people are very visual types of people (clairvoyant) and will see colors, patterns, and visions.
Some people are sensing types and will feel emotional and mental changes, or will sense magnetic forces; they seem to “know” (clairsentient). Some people “hear” voices, explanations or sounds (clairaudient). For yet others, it is a combination of all of these. All report feeling physical changes, and this is to be expected when you ask, “what can I expect?” Ayahuasca spirit and all plant medicines are healing vessels and each individual perceives what they do with different senses.
Ayahuasca is used extensively for healing and religious ceremonies. In recent decades, there is a growing interest in the said substance due to its potential in treating mental disorders like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction.
Some felt that they were lost, but came to their senses again after using Ayahuasca. Others felt that they were too consumed with their personal issues, but Ayahuasca awakened them to feel alive again. In most ayahuasca ceremonies, nausea and vomiting are a common side effect. Some even experience diarrhea. Aside from these, there are obvious physical side effects. Some ayahuasca users experience profuse sweating and shivering. Their heart rate and blood pressure rise. These ayahuasca effects, which are likely due to DMT intoxication, subject one to risks of hypertension, agitations, dizziness and muscular incoordination.
Ayahuasca may also affect one’s emotional state. As some put it, ayahuasca makes one reflect on his experiences and loosen up from his normal way of thinking. It gives one the strength to think about his traumatic past and confront those things that he usually pushes out of his conscious mind. It can stir up your traumatic past and result in distress. It may also heighten one’s fears and result in anxiety and paranoia.
In preparation for your ayahuasca ceremony, it is suggested that you adhere to ayahuasca diet guidelines. It is not required to be on the ayahuasca diet to have a good experience but it helps to prepare your body to receive ayahuasca. It depends on how clean you already eat and how healthy you are. If you are already a healthy eater, you will probably be fine and have a good experience. The ayahuasca diet is simply a suggestion to prepare for ayahuasca ceremony.
There is a specific way an ayahuasca shaman suggests preparing for ayahuasca ceremony. Shamans suggests that, if possible, using the ayahuasca diet for 2-4 weeks prior to your ayahuasca ceremony. If you don’t have 2-4 weeks to prepare, try to be disciplined for 2-3 days before the ayahuasca ceremony.
These plant medicines seem to “know” when you’ve been bad or good in your diet, and your experience will reflect what is in your body. Make sure your body is a clean vessel in which this medicine can function the way it is intended to. For the most part, the ayahuasca diet is like an alkaline diet, which excludes acidic foods.
PRE-RETREAT REQUIRE RESTRICTIONS
TWO WEEK PRIOR, ABSTAIN FROM:
ONE WEEK PRIOR, ABSTAIN FROM:
ADDITIONAL RESTRICTIONS:
We require that you NEVER enter an ayahuasca ceremony combined with any recreational substance, pharmaceutical drugs, nor health herbal formulations that can affect the physical body in any way, including seemingly non-impacting vitamins or herbs.
All that is being required is three days before the start of shamanic ceremonies you go all natural and have your body in its unadulterated state so you can truly connect with these plant medicine spiritual experiences. Ayahuasca must be used alone, by itself, and never combined with other medicines, stimulants or depressants. There shouldn’t be any chemical altering of your body or brain even if seemingly for something minor.
No documentation or scientific study has been done to examine any substance in combination with Ayahuasca, so no one really knows what would be safe. Therefore, it is safe to say that abstaining from everything for the three days before the ceremony would be the best avenue. That includes your normal medications as well. (Always consult with your doctor about this.)
One reason why there have been complications for some people with ayahuasca ceremonies, is that some shamans mix other substances into their medicine, like datura (which can give nightmarish experiences and cause death) or high quantities of nicotine (to open the body more to medicine), or other substances that change the nature of the medicine somewhat.
By contract with our shamans, we do not allow our shamans to mix anything into the medicine that is not part of the traditional ingredients. Our shamans practice the utmost of safety when it comes to making sure our medicines are pure and unadulterated. When deaths are connected to Ayahuasca, it is normally the person who ingests the ayahuasca has mixed with other substances.
No deaths from Ayahuasca DMT, Ayahuasca, or the Spirit Molecule / God Molecule are known, unless pharmaceutical or recreational drugs are mixed, or serious health issues are aggravated, like respiratory illnesses or heart diseases. Blood pressure can rise too. However, death has not been associated with DMT ayahuasca no matter what the dose.
If you are considering partaking in such a journey, prepare to encounter the divine, the infinite, the mystery—whatever you choose to call it—that which is beyond the limited perspective of your mind. You must also be willing to accept that the divine/infinite/mystery cannot be experienced in a way that will make sense to your brain. The infinite is infinite, while your brain is still finite.
The icaros, sung by a Shaman, are an integral part of the ceremony. It is through these songs that your mareación (the visionary effects of Ayahuasca) is enhanced. It is also quite likely that you will gain a greater appreciation of the power of music through the icaros.
Be wary that you might not necessarily like the information that the divine/infinite/mystery chooses to share with you. In the documentary Vine of the Soul: Encounters With Ayahuasca, one user reported that the horror she experienced was truly indescribable and that she thought she was going to die. But another participant in the ceremony said that Ayahuasca opened her heart in a way it had never been opened before.
Ayahuasca is always referred to in the feminine because users have said that the voice of higher intelligence that they’ll hear during the ceremony is female. She (meaning the plant) speaks to you directly and tells you what you need to work on in your life.
The experience will be ineffable, beyond language, and you will likely find that trying to put it into words after the ceremony has ended will be daunting if not impossible. “Ten years of therapy downloaded in a night,” seems to be a fairly universal analogy to convey the possible take-away from a ceremony. Another possible outcome of an Ayahuasca ceremony is that you will realize that everything perceived through your five senses and assimilated by your mind is contrived or false.
Returning ceremonial participants should also be aware that each time you experience the divine/infinite/mystery, it will be different. Each experience is akin to just a small drop in the ocean.
If you do not adhere to the recommended dieta (diet) before the ceremony, then the plants will assist your body in ridding itself of the chemicals—salt, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, etc., by fleshing out the toxins and impurities that you have crammed into it over the years. This is commonly known as purging, which translates to literally just that. You’ll probably vomit profusely, but purge buckets will be provided. But fear not, if your body (including the subtle energy body) is clean, then there will be nothing to purge.
It is possible that plant medicine allows the subjective self to temporarily shed and merge with the infinite “other.” After a ceremonial night of purging, you might find that you gain a fresh new outlook on what was once a seemingly mundane reality.
Ayahuasca does not cause hallucinations, but rather takes you on a journey into the unconscious.
Due to its chemical composition, ayahuasca is considered an entheogenic and non-hallucinogenic substance, which means that the altered state of consciousness it produces connects us with our most spiritual part. Etymologically, “entheogen” means “being inspired by the gods”. That is why it is usually taken to connect with sleeping or blocked parts of our unconscious or to connect with the sacred in the world.
It is not the ayahuasca that produces the “journey”.
The psychoactive substance that modifies our state of consciousness is DMT and it is not found in the ayahuasca rope, but in the leaves of a low jungle bush called chakruna. Our body (which by itself secretes DMT in very small quantities, for example when we are newly born) has the ability to neutralize the effect of the psychoactive substance. That is to say: the chakruna by itself cannot cause us anything. Ayahuasca is the one that has the ability to block the enzymes of our liver so that DMT is successfully metabolized.
The curious thing is that ayahuasca is the only plant in the jungle (among millions of species) capable of blocking these enzymes in our body. How did the shamans know?
The shaman is the mediator between the visible world of things and the invisible world of energies and spirits. No matter what you ask a shaman, he will always end up answering whatever he wants. We, the outsiders, come with such a desire to know everything, to know what is in that other invisible world that is there but that we can barely touch, that we do not stop launching questions like arrows. However, shamans know that each one must find their own answers and they practice their role as guide very well.
The mission of the shaman is to direct the ceremony, that is, to call the spirits (especially the spirit of Mother Ayahuasca) so that they heal us with their wisdom and show us what we have to see.
Want an in-depth insight into this trip? Essential Trip Information provides everything you need to know about this adventure and more.
View Essential Trip InformationThe best time to visit Peru is during the dry season, between May and November, when the weather is dry and bright, with more frequent rainfall occurring between November and April.
To book this tour, a minimum of $ 100 USD per person is required, the remaining balance will be paid upon arrival in Peru, at the Cusco office.
Any other additional information, please coordinate with your travel agent.