Founded 28 July 2026 · Cusco, Peru · Twelve guests
We are new, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Cusco Ayahuasca Retreats opened in July 2026, fifteen minutes from the Plaza de Armas. What is not new is the Shipibo lineage in the ceremony room or the medical standard we built the week around — and in a Peru ayahuasca retreat those are the only two things you are really buying.
From the founder
I started this centre because I could not find a Peru ayahuasca retreat I would send someone I loved to. Plenty were beautiful. Almost none would tell me who was in the room at four in the morning, what happened if a guest’s heart rate climbed at altitude, or how much the maestros were actually paid.
So I built the answer to those three questions first and designed the week around them second. A licensed physician reads every application before anyone takes a payment. A doctor stays on site through all seven nights and is awake through every ceremony. The maestros are named on this website, credited, and paid a full professional fee plus travel from Ucayali whether four guests come or twelve.
Cusco was a deliberate choice rather than a scenic one. It is two flights from most of North America, a clinic is twelve minutes away and a hospital twenty, and there is a ceremonial tradition here older than any of us. The cost of that convenience is 11,150 feet, which is why nobody drinks on their first or second night in the city and why blood pressure and oxygen saturation are measured twice before ceremony one.
The house opened on 28 July 2026. I will not dress that up. We do not have ten years of reviews and I am not going to buy any. What I can do is publish the protocol, publish the price, publish the names, and decline the applications we should decline. Roughly one in five does not proceed, and that number is the one I care most about protecting as we grow.
If you are weighing us against a centre with a longer history, ask both of us the same four questions: who reads my medical file, how far is the nearest hospital, how are the healers paid, and how often do you say no. Ask for it in writing. Then choose whichever answer you trust more. If that is not us, I would genuinely rather you went there.
How we work
Written down so you can check them, and so we cannot quietly drop one as we grow.
01
Every application is read by a licensed doctor before a place is offered or a payment is taken. Medications are assessed individually, and any taper is planned around your own prescriber’s timeline — never around a week we want to fill.
02
Declined applicants are never charged, always get the reason in writing, and receive a referral list of practitioners who work with the conditions we cannot hold safely. Growing will not change this ratio.
03
A full professional fee per week plus travel and time away from their communities, paid whether four guests come or twelve. They are photographed only with permission, and we never reproduce Shipibo textile patterns as decoration.
04
One maestro for every three guests. We run twenty-two weeks a year rather than fifty so the team, the house and the maestros all recover. A bigger group is a cheaper group, and a worse one.
05
Two acclimatisation days before the first ceremony. Blood pressure and oxygen saturation measured on arrival and again before you drink, supplemental oxygen on site, and a rehearsed transfer to a clinic twelve minutes away.
06
Ayahuasca is not a treatment for any condition. Participants report lasting change, and we cite the peer-reviewed research along with its limitations rather than around them. Anyone promising you an outcome is selling, not screening.
Who is here
Four maestros from the Paoyhan and Nueva Betania communities in Ucayali, who travel to Cusco for the weeks they hold; one physician; one integration lead. Everyone who touches your week is on this page.
Photography to supplyMaestro portrait, seated, eye contact. Named and credited.
Paoyhan community, Ucayali · thirty-one years in lineage
Our senior maestro. Leads the first and fourth ceremonies of every week.
Photography to supplyMaestra portrait, same framing and treatment.
Nueva Betania, Ucayali · twenty-six years in lineage
Works with plant baths and the dieta alongside ceremony.
Photography to supplyMaestro portrait, daylight, garden setting.
Paoyhan community, Ucayali · nineteen years in lineage
Second maestro in most ceremonies, and the one guests tend to talk to at dawn.
Photography to supplyPhysician portrait — clinic setting, daylight, no white-coat theatre.
Attending physician, Cusco · internal medicine
Reads every application, runs intake, and stays on site awake through all four ceremonies.
Your integration lead
Introduced by name on your screening call, before you commit to anything — because they are the person you will still be speaking to a year later. Four calls in the first three months, then quarterly, on your time zone, at no extra charge.
The house
A walled property above San Blas with its own garden and no through traffic, on ground the Shipibo maestros who work here chose themselves. You will hear bells at dawn and very little else.
One maloca, twelve rooms nobody shares, a dieta kitchen with a nutritionist, and a plant garden the maestros walked before we signed anything. This is a Quechua city; the medicine and the icaros are Shipibo, and we say so plainly rather than implying a local lineage we do not have.
If Cusco’s altitude is wrong for your body, the honest answer is a different house. Our Sacred Valley property sits low enough to sleep and is ninety minutes away — and we will move you there rather than sell you this week.
Why Cusco, in numbers
| Altitude | 11,150 ft — two acclimatisation days before ceremony one |
|---|---|
| Airport to the house | 15 minutes from Velasco Astete |
| Nearest clinic | 12 minutes · hospital at 20, standing arrangement |
| Lima connection | 80 minutes, direct from five US hubs to Lima |
| Rooms | 12, single occupancy, never shared |
Being new
Every centre our age has these gaps. Most hide them behind stock photography and borrowed testimonials.
We opened in July 2026, so there is no decade of guest history to read, and we will not buy or borrow any. What we publish instead is the protocol, the price and the names — all checkable before you pay.
Twelve guests and twenty-two weeks a year is the whole business, by choice. If you need a specific week at short notice we will often be full, and we will say so rather than squeezing you in.
We make no medical claims and will say so on your screening call if you are hoping for one. Guests who arrive expecting a fix tend to leave disappointed, and occasionally worse.
Cardiac history and uncontrolled hypertension matter more at 11,150 feet than at sea level, and we are stricter than a jungle centre would be. Where Cusco is wrong for you, we say so and offer a lower house.
Compare us
Our answers, in writing, so you can hold them beside anyone else’s. This is the fastest way to judge any Peru ayahuasca retreat, including ours.
| The question | Our answer | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Who reads my medical file? | Dr. Elena Márquez and your integration lead. Nobody else, and never the maestros. | A salesperson reading files is how people get hurt. |
| How far is a hospital? | Clinic 12 minutes, hospital 20, with a standing arrangement and a protocol rehearsed monthly. | In the jungle that distance is measured in hours. |
| How are the healers paid? | A full professional fee per week plus travel, whether four guests come or twelve. | Per-head pay quietly pressures a centre to fill rooms. |
| How often do you say no? | About one application in five. Never charged, reason in writing, referral list included. | A centre that never declines is not screening. |
So far
We will keep adding to this rather than quietly rewriting the beginning.
Fourteen centres. Four would put their medical protocol in writing.
The garden and the wall decided it as much as the fifteen-minute airport run did.
Thirty-four questions, a medication list, an altitude protocol, and the conditions we cannot hold.
Applications open for the October and November weeks.
Same protocol, same pay standard, same twelve-guest limit at each.
Questions
Cusco Ayahuasca Retreats was founded on 28 July 2026, so the centre is new. The people in it are not. Our four maestros have more than seventy years of practice between them, and Dr. Márquez has worked in internal medicine in Cusco for over a decade.
You should ask harder questions, and we would rather you did. Ask who reads your medical file, how far the nearest hospital is, how the maestros are paid, and how often the centre says no. Ask for the answers in writing. A centre’s age matters far less than whether it will answer those four.
Cusco is the most practical base in Peru for a traveller from North America: direct connections through Lima, eighty minutes on to Velasco Astete, and a clinic twelve minutes from the house. The trade-off is 11,150 feet, which is why nobody drinks on their first or second night in the city.
Ayahuasca raises heart rate and blood pressure, and the altitude has already done some of that work. Our physician measures blood pressure and oxygen saturation on arrival and again before the first ceremony, supplemental oxygen is on site, and we hold two acclimatisation days before anyone drinks.
Michael Vale founded and owns it. He is not a shaman, a healer or a facilitator, he does not serve medicine, and he does not sit in ceremony with guests. His job is that the medical protocol, the maestros’ pay and the integration promise are real.
A full professional fee per week plus travel from Ucayali and time away from their communities, paid whether four guests come or twelve. They are named on this site and photographed only with permission. We do not reproduce Shipibo textile patterns as decoration.
Because two maestros can genuinely attend to twelve people and not to thirty. It is one maestro for every three guests, with a physician awake in the room. A larger group is cheaper to run and worse to sit in.
Yes. The Sacred Valley, Pisac, Iquitos and Costa Rica houses are ours, run on the same protocol, the same pay standard and the same twelve-guest limit. If another location suits your body or your calendar better, we will tell you and book you there instead.
None. Ayahuasca is not a treatment for any condition. Participants report lasting change, and we cite the peer-reviewed research with its limitations rather than around them.
No charge to apply · reviewed within 48 hours
Who reads my medical file, how far is the nearest hospital, how are the healers paid, and how often do you say no. Ask us in writing, then ask everyone else you are considering. We are comfortable being compared on those answers.
Nothing is charged to apply. A physician reads your file, your integration lead calls you, and we either offer a place on a named week in Cusco or explain plainly why we cannot.