Ayahuasca Retreat Reviews — Helping You Stay Safe with 5,000+ Independent Reviews
Our Program
At Arkana, we create the space for you to get in touch with your truth, opening your path for deeper meaning and greater fulfillment in your life. We work with ancestral medicines such as Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Bufo Alvarius, Rapé , using the traditional practices of the indigenous cultures of the Peruvian Amazon. We currently operate two centers in Peru, one in the Peruvian Amazon and a second one in the Sacred Valley (close to Machu Picchu), and one in Mexico, the choice is yours.
With great respect for the plants and the knowledge and healing that comes with them, our lineage of Shipibo shamans set the stage for truly deep and profound healing. Awaken your inner power through their sacred and powerful icaros (healing songs), and discover your connection to all things by exploring some of the 2.2 million hectare Pacaya Samiria National Reserve which is our backyard. Nourish your body and soul with fresh, clean, delicious meals that promote your Ayahuasca experience, and integrate healthy habits into your routine with our yoga classes and extensive selection of gym equipment for all levels. We believe the health of physical body sets the foundation for the health of the energetic body – Often ignored in this type of spiritual work, we find this to be an important part of the healing process, so you can begin implementing the healthy habits that will carry this work with you into your life back home. Finally, relax your mind and spirit with sound baths, meditations, breathwave sessions, and OM circles, or simply enjoy the tranquil views of both sunrise and sunset from our front porch on the banks of the Ucayali River, surrounded by lush biodiversity and the mesmerizing sounds of the jungle.
Arkana’s exceptional team of highly-trained Shipibo Master Shamans represent an unbroken lineage of plant medicine work. With a combined history of over 70 years of experience working closely with Ayahuasca and other master plant teachers of the jungle, our compassionate healers lovingly share their teachings, healing songs (icaros), capabilities, and knowledge with integrity and honor. We strive to maintain the traditional practices passed down through thousands of years of indigenous Amazonian culture, in order to continue to promote the true purpose and nature of plant medicine work.
Experiencing the medicines with us is a transformative personal journey, and so much more. We also work closely with our local community, the Amazonian village of Libertad, to ensure that our Center can benefit and give back to the people who have so generously let us into their homes and hearts. We create employment opportunities, teach free English classes, provide a space for the ladies to sell their handmade crafts, and assist in construction projects, among other things. Our latest endeavor is outfitting the entire village with free solar panels, so every house can have light and electricity. When you join us, you are helping the rainforest and the Amazon communities that live here.
Guests that come to our Center often say they feel like “part of the family” with us – that’s no coincidence, as we are one big family at Arkana! The people that are with you throughout your experience can simply facilitate your own healing journey or become an integral part of it. Our experienced, loving, and professional team of caregivers welcomes you to join our tribe, where we strive to make you feel at home and at ease, supported and cared for with all the love and compassion that is at the core of the plant medicines and people we work with.
Ayahuasca is a powerful medicine that offers us the opportunity to understand our true nature, by shining a light onto our darkness, and holding a mirror up to our fears, negative thought patterns, and self-limiting beliefs. We provide the environment and expertise of a team of highly skilled, warm, compassionate Shamans and facilitators to guide you through the process of awakening, of choosing differently, healing, and expanding. It is a slow but steady path towards freedom – from fear, from illusion, from self-constructed boundaries – resulting in a lighter, brighter, more authentic self, and the full experience of love. It is our honor to help you on this most fulfilling of all journeys: the journey back home.
We look forward to having you with us!
Lots of Love,
The Team
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Last_of_the_Unplucked_Gems
July 16, 2018 at 1:19 pmI attended the 7 day Arkana retreat in the Amazon, and the trip surpassed all expectations. It probably surpassed them in the first two days alone. Also, I didn’t even have expectations, but since I can’t think of any way for the trip to be enhanced, I’m just stunned that such a place really exists. There were times after a ceremony came to an end where we simply looked at each other and thought aloud, “Is this real?”
It might be worthwhile to note that Ayahuasca wasn’t a singular, life-defining experience for me. I understand its healing power, it opened a tremendous amount to me and will be a special moment of my life; I felt it accelerated my journey to understanding aspects of my life in a manner no other substance could, but in a grounded way it has limits. What does not have limits and what was more significant to me was the work of the staff and shamans at the center.
This is a serious substance and environment is everything. The kindness, preparation, and enhancement provided by the facilitators was so very, very helpful and meant so much to each and every one of us. They’re super-talented, selfless individuals called to do amazing work, and their examples was as inspiring as the medicine I experienced. They were open, knowledgeable, and giving of all they had. It’s much more difficult to describe the shamans… but they contributed about a million times more to the ceremony than I had expected. Can I say that I possess the skills necessary to review the shamans? No. Can I say they were unlike anything I had witnessed and quite clearly had dedicated their lives to plant medicines and healing? Without a doubt.
I apologize, this isn’t comprehensive, but I was trying to make the people standout since they deserve it and it wasn’t even on my radar before the trip. If I was looking for a difference maker – something that couldn’t be replicated elsewhere, they would be it. The facilities are wonderful, food perfect (tasty yet ideal for the situation), medicine is strong, every aspect of the trip was utterly authentic, and for my week – and what I suspect to be the case in the vast majority of weeks, the quality of people that a place like Arakana draws really can’t be assembled elsewhere. Thoughtful, talented individuals seeking the most out of life. Probably funny as well, although be wary of Ukrainians, or whatever nationality the trickster figure chooses to hide behind (just kidding my Kievan companion).
ayauser01
July 15, 2018 at 12:06 amI just attended a 7 day retreat in the Amazon, and had an amazing time. Most of the reviews focus on the medicine, but I’d like to bring attention to the rest of the trip since it was so impressive.
I got to Iquitos a day early and walked a few blocks from the town center, where the hotel is, and was approached by one of several tour guides with green shirts. They seem to have a similar tour, where you get in a boat on the Amazon and stop at 5 locations. I went to a zoo where you can hold an anaconda and a baby sloth, danced with a couple native people at a few stops, went to a butterfly farm. It was a pretty cool way to spend the day. You can get a lot of great pics to justify your Peru excursion to the squares back at your office. I was a little resistant to just go at first. It’s a pretty poor country and can be a little intimidating at first because it is so foreign, but the people are all really friendly. I can speak high school Spanish and my guide could speak less than that amount of English, and we still managed to understand each other (at least I think) and had a great time.
I met the group of people going on the second morning and everyone who attended were really cool, friendly people. We all got along great and everyone had a great time. The people who work there were also friendly and really helpful, especially when shit got real!
The facilities blew me away and the pics on the website don’t do it justice. It is a small village on stilts on the shores of the Amazon. It’s would be a great trip even without the medicine. They have a ton of activities and a ton of time off to relax. You’d have breakfast, group share, yoga, lunch, an excursion, a floral bath, then the ceremony. It was the perfect mix of things to do and time off. You can skip whatever you want. You also had a lot of time between things to either sleep or do something else. The excursions included going to a nearby village, going into the jungle, going to see and feed monkeys, fishing, swimming in the Amazon, etc. The food was also great.
All of the people that worked there, in addition to the shamans, were incredibly nice, helpful, and cool to hang out with. I highly recommend the Amazon trip. I loved it!
I don’t think I need to sell you on the other stuff….
bh8690
July 14, 2018 at 3:32 pmSublime … one of the most fulfilling, significant and wonderful experiences of my life. Arrived as a tourist and left as an intricate member of the family circle. This moment will live with me the rest of my life. In a safe, loving, secure and beautiful environment, spiritual medicines and ceremonies entrapture and heal. Shamin Celestine and Roberto are the Word. Pamela and Chandra are beautiful inside and out. The entire staff including Daniella bend over backwards. The facilities are gorgeous. Go with intention! Just go! I love my new family. Nemaste.
Christiano
July 8, 2018 at 5:44 pmI just got back a week ago from a 2-week stay at Arkana Spiritual Center. I did the 1 week in Sacred Valley and 1 week in the Amazon Jungle and I had one of the most amazing 2 weeks of my life.
The staff, shamans, facilitators who work there are all absolutely amazing. They took such great care of me and the group and I really felt comfortable from the moment I got there till the moment I left.
It was one of the hardest things I have ever done but also the most rewarding.
The Sacred Valley really sets you up and filled me with self-worth, opened my heart and the Amazon Jungle is like the deepest cleanse of the deepest energy in your mind, body and spirit.
I can’t recommend this place enough and I will 100% come back at some point in my life when I know I need it.
If you are looking around, deciding on where to go for an ayahuasca retreat then look no further than Arkana. I can’t rate it highly enough because 5 stars is just not enough. It should be a star for every star in the sky that you can see when you are in the Sacred Valley (the view at night is phenomenal).
The group of people that I met will be friends for life and I look forward to keeping those connections aline.
Thank you Arkana from the bottom of my (now opened) heart.
Rex83
June 30, 2018 at 6:25 pmI spent a week at Arkana Sacred Valley and was quite impressed with the work they do there. They were my first ayahuasca experiences and the setting and guidance was really good. Everything is taken care of so you feel as relaxed and ready as possible for something that is going to be really transformative. The ceremonies, the shaman and his wife, the facilitators: they are all amazing and warm and make you feel like a family. I really helped to have a good group of people staying there as well, working together on themselves and for each other. The food is nothing short of amazing, I don’t think I ever had ever such plentiful and delicious meals outside of home.
I cannot give this place a perfect review though, because at times, like mentioned before in another review, the place seems somewhat disorganized. For example, they forgot to book my Machu Picchu tour and had to do it at the last minute when I enquired about it myself. With a little less luck, I wouldn’t have been able to go. The schedule on the website says you book until Sunday, but actually the last activity is on Saturday and you can leave the retreat that day in the afternoon without missing anything. Would have been nice for planning purposes to know these kind of things beforehand.
Still very much recommended and I’d like to go back one day for sure. The memories I made there and were made for me will stick to me for the rest of my life.