12-Day Ayahuasca Retreat at the Hummingbird Center

A 12-day ayahuasca retreat is designed for those who feel called to extended, immersive work with the medicine—work that unfolds over time, with space for deeper integration between ceremonies.

At the Hummingbird Healing Center, our 12-day retreat offers a slower, more spacious rhythm than shorter programs. With multiple ceremonies, rest days woven throughout, and ongoing guidance from experienced facilitators, participants have time not only to encounter challenging material, but to stay with it, understand it, and integrate it more fully before returning home.

We are a small, long-established center (founded in 2010) working within a traditional Amazonian lineage under the guidance of a highly experienced curandero. Group sizes are kept small, screening is careful, and the retreat structure emphasizes steadiness, safety, and respect for each individual’s process.

The 12-day retreat is often chosen by people who feel ready for a longer immersion—those returning for deeper work, or those who know they benefit from having more time to settle, process, and integrate. The sections below explain how the retreat is structured and how retreat length can support different stages of healing and personal transformation.

• Guided meditation before each ceremony.
• One Huachuma (San Pedro) ceremony.
• A pre and post retreat integration session with an integration professional.
• Private room with very comfortable bed, toilet, hammock and writing desk.
• Cleansing vapor bath with medicinal plants and guided meditation.
• A series of medicinal plant baths to cleanse and strengthen your energy body
• Individual healings by the shaman during ayahuasca ceremonies.
• Additional individual healing on rest days.
• Art supplies for painting and drawing to bring your visions to life using color and texture.
• Integration meetings where you can share your experiences and receive valuable feedback from the curandero and facilitators.
• Shamanic diet with delicious, wholesome and simple meals suitable for working with medicine plants.
• Guided jungle walk to view the plants in their natural environment and understand their healing purposes
• A mud bath to draw toxins out of your body
• Two talks on the unconscious mind, how our beliefs and conditioning shape our life experience, and how to change them to naturally attract a better life.
• Optional Master Plant Dieta for additional $200

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At The Hummingbird Center, you’ll awaken to the symphony of the Amazon—surrounded by lush rainforest, and the vibrant energy of the jungle. Our retreat harmonizes traditional wisdom with modern comforts, offering a sanctuary where deep healing and transformation can unfold naturally.

Every ceremony is guided by Maestro Manain Amacifen, a revered curandero with over 45 years of devotion to ayahuasca’s sacred path. Through his resonant icaros, prayers, and profound energy work, guests often experience powerful releases — old wounds surfacing and dissolving, leaving behind clarity, lightness, and renewed peace.

For those called to deeper cleansing, Manain may prescribe additional plant medicines, carefully prepared as teas or remedies from the leaves, bark, or sap of sacred Amazonian flora. Some work in a single session; others unfold their wisdom over days, gently supporting your body and spirit as you heal.

At The Hummingbird Center, we also work with huachuma—the visionary and heart-opening cactus of the Andes, known as San Pedro. Many of our guests find that combining both ayahuasca and huachuma creates a deeper, more synergistic healing experience than working with just one medicine alone.

Huachuma has a unique ability to clear emotional and energetic blocks that ayahuasca may not immediately address. We’ve seen guests who had limited breakthroughs in ayahuasca ceremonies experience profound shifts during a San Pedro ceremony—which then allowed them to connect more deeply in later ayahuasca sessions.

The spirits of ayahuasca and San Pedro seem to know when someone is working with both. It’s common for guests to gain sudden clarity during a San Pedro ceremony, finally understanding the lessons from their ayahuasca journeys in a more meaningful way. Some have even been guided by ayahuasca itself, told that certain healing would come through San Pedro—and it did. The reverse happens too, with San Pedro preparing the way for ayahuasca to do its work.

Gentle yet profoundly wise, Grandfather San Pedro brings clear, loving lessons—and most people find the experience deeply enjoyable.

After your first group San Pedro ceremony, if you feel called to work with it instead of ayahuasca, we can easily arrange that on a case-by-case basis. While the experience is different—lighter, more expansive—huachuma is every bit as powerful a healer. For some, it becomes the medicine that truly unlocks their transformation.

Meditation helps calm the mind and energetically prepare you for the ayahuasca ceremony. About 45 minutes before each session, we gather for a guided meditation lasting approximately 25 minutes. These meditations gently invite participants into a state of presence, openness, and positive possibility. The style and focus shift from night to night and may include practices for emotional regulation, resting in stillness, sound healing with specific frequencies, or other supportive techniques designed to help you connect more deeply with yourself and the medicine.

Throughout the retreat, additional cleansing processes are scheduled to help you receive the greatest benefit from your work with the plant medicines. These activities support your healing journey and incorporate a variety of traditional healing practices.

All meals, lodging, and laundry services are included. You'll stay in a private room in our new guesthouse, which overlooks a serene lake—providing a peaceful environment for rest and reflection.

Throughout your retreat, our experienced facilitators are here to help you make sense of your experiences and integrate them into your life. They offer personalized support—not rigid formulas—because true healing honors each person’s unique path.

Our goal isn’t just profound experiences—it’s lasting change. We’ll gently challenge you to move beyond old limitations and cultivate new ways of being that align with your deepest self. This work unfolds with compassionate support as your self-awareness deepens.

Healing requires both expansion and stillness. We provide:

These group discussions often reveal how ayahuasca’s wisdom manifests differently for each person. By witnessing others’ journeys and honoring your own, you’ll discover fresh meaning in your experience—and the courage to embrace your authentic path forward.

For those seeking deeper healing or a more profound connection with the plant spirits, an optional 8-day master plant dieta can be added to your 12 Day Retreat. This traditional Amazonian practice involves working closely with a specific healing plant under the guidance of our curandero, following a set of disciplined restrictions designed to create a calm, energetically clean space for the plant’s subtle work to take effect.

Dieta is a powerful and often challenging process that requires dedication and a willingness to be still with oneself. The changes it brings are typically gentle and gradual, yet deeply transformative. The additional $200 fee reflects your commitment to the process more than its cost—serving as a symbolic gesture of motivation to continue even when the work becomes difficult.

Learn more about Plant Dietas

We’ll meet you at 10 AM outside Las Terrazas restaurant, which is a restaurant on the "Boulevard". There are a number of restaurants on the Boulevard which is a park fronting the river that’s a block away from the Plaza de Armas. From there you’ll be transported to the Hummingbird Center.

You’ll arrive at the ayahuasca center with enough time to get your room assigned, take some time out to relax and then have lunch. An orientation meeting will begin at 2 PM in the moloca, followed by a plant bath to prepare for your first ayahuasca ceremony.

We strongly recommend that you arrive in Iquitos the day before the program begins. This allows you to enter the healing journey well rested and relaxed.

See photographs of the grounds →

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