I kicked off my sabbatical with a two week stay at an ayahuasca center in Peru. An intense opening move, even for me, but the inspiration and logistics all lined up and provided an opportunity to start my trip on the right note.
I’m sharing everything about the experience. These two weeks were intense so I’ll be splitting up the write up across two posts. This first post is mostly objective, FAQ I often get; and the second I’ll get more into my personal experience and take away with ayahuasca.
What is ayahuasca?
Ayahuasca is a sacred beverage used for spiritual and religious purposes by Amazonian tribes. It’s brewed and distilled into a drink from leaves and plants found in the Amazon.
The plants used in making ayahuasca have hallucinogenic properties, including DMT. Overall, the drink is a powerful psychedelic that alters your state of consciousness. There has been promising studies that ayahuasca is beneficial for neurological health but more famously, psychological well-being. Similar to psychedelic mushrooms, ayahuasca is being seen as a treatment for depression and PTSD because it increases mindfulness, breaks down emotional barriers to actively treat sources of trauma, and decreases the ego to promote a higher collective sense of connectedness.
For people not part of the Amazonian culture, it’s considered a medicine for internal trauma and to re-connect with nature***.
Ayahuasca is part of a larger interest and movement in investing in your mental and emotional health, acknowledging options outside of pharma industry, taking advantage of the brain’s elasticity, and appreciating the healing nature of plants and mother earth (and acknowledging how Indigeous cultures have always had this).
Why did you take ayahuasca?
I’ve always been interested in personal development and healing, and am a huge advocate for therapy, community, and psychedelics.
Ayahuasca seems aligned in this trifecta. Unlike psychedelics, there’s a cultural and spiritual component to it. Many people have relayed their ayahuasca experience as 20 years of therapy in one night- exposing the raw nerve and peeling back the protective ego layers that are now self destructive. And, you take ayahuasca in ceremonies in tandem with others- you hear and see the purging (purging is a reference to the common vomiting and diarrhea that comes with the visual and auditory hallucinations of an ayahuascua trip), feel connected to the group en masse, and discussing your experience the day after can be an important part of healing.
You can find opportunities to take ayahuasca in urban cities, by facilitators, but I wanted the full spiritual experience of it.
Where did you take ayahuasca?
Different countries, cultures and peoples have their unique relationship to ayahuasca. I can only speak to my experience in Peru with Shipibo shamans.
I was also conscious of stories of male shamans taking advantage of the physical and emotional vulnerability of women taking ayahuasca. As a solo female traveler, I wanted to reduce the risk of danger as much as possible.
I found what I was looking for with Mai Niti, a father-daughter shaman team who had cultural and generational ties to the practice, and lots of positive reviews.
To properly set expectations, Mai Niti is definitely not a luxury wellness resort center, and for most guests, that’s not a problem. You live quite simply in the compound: bare feet is a common site, there are two shared outhouses and shower stalls, and you sleep under misquitos nets and with fans in the jungle. The containment is unpaved, trees and hammocks aplenty here, and most buildings are little wooden shacks with dried leave thatched roofs. When it rains, it pours. There are hammocks to relax in, if you don’t mind the misquitos eating you alive. There is laundry service available, but most guests tend to hand wash their clothes because it can take a while to get your clothes back.
There is infrequent and not very strong Wi-Fi, I would daresay you should behave as if there isn’t any. The power often goes out. Bring your own entertainment, although most people spend their time sleeping, reading, relaxing and recovering from the plant medicines without electronics and internet easily. I read and journaled a lot during my time here.
Mai Niti also runs primarily thanks to the help of a staff of bilingual volunteers, as Lucila speaks primarily in Spanish. The volunteer aspect provides for a lower cost of an ayahuasca experience comparatively to other centers. I truly appreciated the volunteer staff that conducted the translations, assisted in ceremony, and helped take care of guests. They are providing an incredibly selfless service.
Choosing an ayahuasca center can be incredibly personal. Take time to check-in with yourself about what kind of settings you flourish in, what’s your comfort circle, and what’re you’re looking out of your experience. Mai Niti is much more of a center of a casual and fluid nature.
What do you do in preparation for ayahuasca?
The experience starts before I even arrived at the center. I was told to observe a strict diet that abstained from salt, fat, oil, and overall flavor and the joy I usually associate with food. There are also other risks with ayahuasca that doesn’t come with other psychedelics, for example, most pharmacological medication— it can either interfere or worsen psychiatric conditions. I had to abstain from my ADD medication. It’s to prepare your body and cleanse it from any substances that could interfere or make the ayahuasca experience less intense. During your stay, the diet is strictly observed and I realized my attempt to observe the diet before my arrival was truly inadequate: we mostly ate meals of healthy, naturally flavored fruits, oats, quinoa, vegetables, soup, and grilled fish on lucky occasions. No meat, processed food, alcohol, caffeine or cold temperature food/drinks.
While it’s easy to start conversations and while the time with others, you are also recommended to focus on your healing journey and spend time alone doing so.
At Mai Niti, you’re also required to take daily plant showers or saunas. The mornings are begun with the staff on site chopping wood to make this broth for the plant shower/sauna. In a plant shower, you pour this solution over your head and make sure to wet your entire body with it. You are then to air dry, no wiping, to facilitate the plant connection with your ayahuasca ceremony later that night. A plant sauna is when they boil this solution in a pot, put underneath your legs, and you are wrapped in blankets before they remove the top.
Daily plant bath that's prepared early in the morning
On days you take ayahuasca, you stop eating at 2 pm and drinking water at 6 pm to prepare for the purging that might come.
What is the ceremony like?
All the ceremonies take place in the maloka, a circular hut with one room. Every person gets a mattress and their personal purge bucket with a portion of toilet paper for the purging.
You bring your pillows and blankets from your bedroom. Because the maloka is circular, you sit facing one another. However, the ceremony is conducted mostly in the dark so you don’t see each other the whole night, although it’s easy to pick out one another through sound.
The ceremonies start at 9 pm, and end around 2 am.
There is a small bucket of fire in the center of the room that’s briefly lit at the beginning of the night, but it’s let to go out throughout the night.
Lucila and her father conduct the ceremonies. They sit near the door. There’s usually a volunteer staff translating the beginning of the night, and any conversations guests might have as they’re being called to sit and talk to Lucila throughout the night. Lucila usually starts with opening remarks, and then she pours individual shots of ayahuasca per person, the amount varying. She and her father also take ayahuasca, and smoke specific plants to help facilitate and regulate everyone’s ayahuasca experience. They also sing icaros for the same effect.
Each person comes to Lucila to drink their portion of ayahuasca. You then return to your mattress for the remainder of the night. You are allowed to leave for the bathroom but you’re recommended to stay or keep physically close.
Throughout the night, Lucila may call you- to discuss your trip, to commend you on how you’re doing, to aid you if you’re feeling particularly in need of help. There is always one volunteer staff on hand for translations or if you need some extra help during a particularly hard ceremony.
The night passes as everyone descends into their own ayahuasca trip. It’s dark, so you will take notice of the infamous purging, the icaros, and your neighbors movements.
After the ceremonies end, Lucila and her father will return home. You can stay in the maloka if you’re too exhausted to move, or you can return to the comfort of your own bed.
The next day is usually spent recuperating and relaxing, especially since there’ll probably be another ayahuasca ceremony the day after. You also get a brief touch base with Lucila and a translator to discuss your experience the night before, and for her to answer any questions you might have.
At Mai Niti, there are ayahuasca ceremonies Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The first ceremony you only take half a regular portion, so Lucila can see how you handle the ayahuasca and the ceremony itself.
The difference between a facilitator and a shaman is that a shaman can see and experience whatever it is you’re experiencing on ayahuasca, and can help regulate the intensity of the experience. Lucila can do this for each and every person participating in the ceremony. To be a shaman usually requires years of training; for example, Lucila spent three years in isolation and took ayahuasca every day.
What does ayahuasca taste like?
Every brew of ayahuasca varies not just from shaman to shaman, but from night to night.
It presents like a thick, black sludge. The more bitter, the more I interpreted it to be stronger formula.
A serving is proximately a shot. Half a shot is easy to swallow, but a whole shot makes me personally gag and shudder it down. Psychological hesitation and memories of traumatic trips can also make the taste and experience unpleasant.
Did you only take ayahuasca at Mai Niti?
No, and in the next post I’ll go more into detail, there are countless plant medicines that are available and can treat specific conditions.
***
Unlike other counterculture treatments such as LSD and MDMA, there is a spiritual component to ayahuasca. Not only in the presentation (shaman and ceremonies) but in the essential purpose of the experience itself. Some people refer to ayahuasca as Madre Ayahuasca (mother ayahuasca), and believe Madre Ayahuasca is the same as Pachamama (the Quecha, a group of Indigenous Peruvian peoples, word for Mother Earth). The reason why she is so selfless in helping people heal from their trauma is so that they can also help heal Mother Earth from the damage human beings have done to her.