Sacred Valley, Peru · One day ceremony · Twelve guests
Ayahuasca In Cusco
Thirteen hours in daylight, on your feet, at the altitude where the cactus itself grows. This page describes the day from the cup at seven in the morning to the fire at dusk, what the first two hours actually feel like, and what would make us tell you no.
Hours from the cup to the fire
From where it is cut to where it is boiled
Where it grows, and where you drink it
Applicants who ask are cleared, in writing
In plain terms
A cactus, boiled for twelve hours, drunk at sunrise
San Pedro is a columnar cactus, Echinopsis pachanoi, called huachuma in Quechua. It grows on dry Andean slopes between roughly two and three thousand metres, and the active compound is mescaline. The flesh is sliced, boiled down over about twelve hours into a thick green liquid, and drunk in the morning. Effects last twelve to thirteen hours.
Ceremonial use here is not a recent import. Stone carvings at Chavín de Huántar, north of Lima, show figures holding the cactus and date to roughly three thousand years ago, which makes huachuma the oldest documented plant medicine tradition in the Andes. The Spanish spent three centuries trying to suppress it. The name San Pedro — Saint Peter, who holds the keys — is what survived that.
In Peru this is legal and traditional huachuma practice is recognised as national cultural heritage. It is not legal to carry the cactus, its extracts or mescaline into the United States. That is why the work happens here and stays here.
- Plant
- Echinopsis pachanoi · huachuma
- Active compound
- Mescaline, from the whole boiled cactus
- Duration
- 12–13 hours, 7:00 am to dusk
- Setting
- Outdoors, terraces above the house
- Who is with you
- One Andean huachumero, two facilitators, twelve guests
- Frequency
- One day in each seven-night week
- Cost
- Included in the week · never sold separately
Provenance
The only medicine here that grows within sight of the house
On our ayahuasca page we say plainly that the caapi vine and chacruna do not grow at 2,800 metres, so the brew is cooked in the lowlands by the maestros’ own families and carried up. San Pedro is the exact opposite of that sentence. It grows on these slopes, in this light, at this altitude.
Our huachumero cuts it himself from stands within about forty minutes of the house. It is sliced and boiled here, in an open pot, for around twelve hours the day before you drink it. Nothing is bought in, nothing is concentrated, and no isolated mescaline is used at any point. If you ask which cut yours came from, you will get an answer with a place and a date in it.
Andean centres serving Amazonian medicine is normal. It is just rarely said out loud.
A ceremony, hour by hour
What actually happens between sunrise and the fire
Written for the person deciding whether they can physically do this. Times shift with the season and the group, but this is the shape of it.
Waking, and nothing to eat
You have eaten nothing since a light supper the night before, and you drink only water in the morning. Coca tea is available and is the one exception. Dress for cold at dawn and strong sun by ten: layers, a hat with a brim, and shoes you can walk three or four kilometres in.
Walking up to the terrace
Fifteen minutes uphill to a flat agricultural terrace above the house, with the valley opening below it. Blankets, mats and shade are already set out. Phones go into a box before you leave, as they do every ceremony. A physician walks up with the group.
The cup, with the sun still on the ridge
You go to the huachumero one at a time. It is thick, green and bitter in a way that surprises everyone, and you drink it in one go with lime to follow. Dose is set by the huachumero from your body weight and what he has seen of you that week, not by what you ask for. A second, smaller cup is sometimes offered around ten and declining it is a complete sentence.
The two hours nobody writes about
This is the honest part. The first ninety minutes to two hours are physically unpleasant: heaviness, nausea, a strong wish to lie down and be left alone. Roughly half of guests purge once. It is not a crisis, it is not a sign of anything, and it ends. Almost every guest who has read that San Pedro is the gentle one is surprised here.
It turns
The heaviness lifts, usually quite suddenly, and is replaced by clarity and physical energy. Colour and depth sharpen. Most people want to stand up and move, and this is the point at which the day stops being endured and starts being the thing people describe afterwards.
The walk
The group walks slowly to a spring above the old terraces, three or four kilometres over the day with long stops. Nobody is timed and nobody walks alone: two facilitators move with the group and one stays at the terrace with anyone who prefers to remain. Water is carried and offered on a schedule, because thin dry air at altitude dehydrates people faster than they notice.
The long open middle
Hours four to seven are the peak, and they are wide rather than sharp. You can talk, and many of the conversations guests have here are the ones they were avoiding at home. You can also say nothing for three hours and that is equally normal. This is where San Pedro differs most from a night ceremony: it happens with your eyes open, in your own words, in daylight.
Coming down while it is still light
The group walks back down. The intensity draws off gradually over two or three hours rather than stopping, which is one of the reasons guests describe this day as easier to carry home than a ceremony that ends at dawn.
Fire, soup, and the first food in a day
A fire is lit in the courtyard and the kitchen brings simple dieta food. Most guests are extremely hungry and very talkative. Your integration lead is at the fire and this is often the most useful unscheduled conversation of the week.
A real night’s sleep
Sleep comes easily after San Pedro in a way it does not after ayahuasca, and the following morning is deliberately empty. Nothing is scheduled until the afternoon.
If you need help
Say so, or raise a hand. A facilitator is with you inside a few seconds, at every point of the day including on the walk. You can go back down to the house accompanied at any time and keep the rest of the week.
If you would rather not walk
Then you stay on the terrace with a facilitator, in shade, for as long as you like. Several guests every month choose this and it is not a lesser version of the day.
The day after
Sunburn is the most common complaint, which tells you something about the day. Legs are tired, the mind is unusually quiet, and the next ayahuasca ceremony is at least twenty four hours away.
Choosing
San Pedro, ayahuasca and Bufo, side by side
The short version: ayahuasca is five to six hours in the dark with your eyes closed, San Pedro is twelve to thirteen hours in daylight on your feet, and Bufo is fifteen minutes that removes the question of choice entirely. They are cleared separately and most guests are cleared for some and not others.
| San Pedro | Ayahuasca | Bufo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | 12–13 hours | 5–6 hours | 15–20 minutes |
| Time of day | Sunrise to dusk | 9 pm to first light | Morning, once |
| Where | Outdoors, terraces and trail | Dark maloca, on a mat | One to one, indoors |
| Your body | Walking, eyes open | Lying still, eyes closed | Held, lying down |
| Hardest part | First two hours, then the sun | Hours two to four | The first ninety seconds |
| Can you talk? | Yes, and most people do | No | No |
| In the week | One day, mid week | Four nights | Once, if cleared twice |
| Usually suits | People who find the dark harder than the medicine | Everyone here; it is the spine of the week | Returning guests, rarely first timers |
Not an either/or
San Pedro is not an alternative to ayahuasca and we do not sell a San Pedro-only week. It sits inside the same seven nights, on the long rest day, and guests who are cleared for both consistently say the two do different work. If you want a standalone huachuma week, we are the wrong centre and will tell you so rather than sell you one. See all services.
Straight answers
What you have read online, and what is actually true
San Pedro is ayahuasca’s gentle little brother.
It is gentler in character and considerably harder in demand. Thirteen hours awake at 2,800 metres, in high-altitude sun, walking, having eaten nothing since the previous evening, is the most physically taxing day of the week for most guests. People are surprised by this every single week.
It is basically a nice walk in nature.
Sometimes for an hour it is. It is also two hours of nausea to begin with, and an open middle in which people frequently cry on a trail in front of other people. It is a ceremony that happens to take place outdoors, not a hike with a garnish.
There is no dieta for San Pedro.
Mescaline is not MAO-inhibited, so the tyramine rules that dominate the ayahuasca dieta are less critical for San Pedro on its own. You are not doing it on its own. You are doing it inside a week that contains four ayahuasca ceremonies, so the week’s dieta applies in full.
It is the same as peyote.
Both contain mescaline and there the resemblance ends. Peyote is a slow-growing Mexican cactus under genuine conservation and cultural pressure, and we do not work with it. San Pedro is Andean, fast-growing and not threatened. We also serve the whole boiled cactus rather than isolated mescaline, which is a different experience and a different legal object.
If I am on antidepressants it is safer than ayahuasca.
No. Mescaline is serotonergic and combining it with SSRIs, SNRIs, lithium, tramadol or triptans carries a real serotonin syndrome risk. This is reviewed as carefully as ayahuasca is, and being cleared for one does not clear you for the other.
I can take a cutting home and grow it.
Not into the United States. The cactus, its extracts and mescaline are all controlled there. Do not put anything in a bag, and do not ask a facilitator to help you, because the answer is no and it is not a close call.
Preparation
Six things that decide whether the day goes well
The week’s dieta covers the pharmacology and we send it three weeks out with a grocery list written for US supermarkets. Everything below is specific to spending thirteen hours outdoors at altitude, and it is the part guests underestimate.
Screening
Who we say no to, published before you ask
A licensed physician reads every application before a place is offered or a payment taken, and clears each medicine separately. Roughly four applicants in five who ask for San Pedro are cleared for it. Declined applicants are never charged and always receive the reason in writing.
Absolute stops
- MAOI medication of any kind
- Diagnosed schizophrenia or bipolar I
- Uncontrolled hypertension
- A cardiac event within twelve months
- Epilepsy or severe liver disease
- Pregnancy or breastfeeding
- Being unable to walk unassisted for an hour
Reviewed individually
- SSRIs and SNRIs, usually a supervised taper
- Lithium, tramadol, triptans, stimulants
- Beta blockers and blood pressure medication
- Poor altitude tolerance in your first two days here
- Photosensitising medication and severe sun sensitivity
- A history of fainting or heat exhaustion
- Knee, hip or back problems that make walking hard
What we ask you to send
- Every medication with dose and duration
- Diagnoses, current and past
- Cardiac and neurological history
- How you have handled altitude before, if at all
- Roughly how far you can comfortably walk
- Supplements, which people forget to list
- Who at home knows you are going
On the mountain
A physician is with the group all day, not on call from the house. Oxygen, blood pressure monitoring and a defibrillator are at the terrace, the route never leaves radio contact, and a vehicle can reach the trailhead in under ten minutes. It is an hour on sealed road to a Cusco hospital we hold a standing arrangement with.
Not medical advice
These lists are not exhaustive and nothing on this page is medical advice or a claim of therapeutic benefit. Send your file and let the physician decide. If your history is borderline they will say so plainly rather than guess, and a mixed answer across the three medicines is the normal outcome.
Afterwards
The day people describe to their family
Ayahuasca is difficult to explain to someone who was not in the room. San Pedro tends to survive the retelling, because it happened in daylight, in ordinary language, with your eyes open. Guests report it is the day they can actually describe at home — and for a lot of people that makes it the most useful part of the week, not the lightest.
Integration is the same for every medicine here: four calls in the first three months, then quarterly for a year, with the same lead who read your file before you travelled and who was at the fire that evening. Scheduled on your time zone, included in the price, and not upsold at any point.
One practical note. Guests consistently underestimate the first month home. Keep the two days after you land completely empty, hold the dieta one more week, and expect the San Pedro day to keep returning in fragments for a while.
One price, seven nights
San Pedro is included, and never sold to you
There is no separate San Pedro price, and there will not be one. It is part of the $5,800 week for guests who are cleared and who ask for it. We never suggest a second medicine to a guest who did not raise it themselves, because pricing medicines separately gives a centre a financial reason to recommend them.
Two Shipibo maestros in each, twelve guests
If cleared, and if you ask for it
Cleared separately, on a rest day
Nobody is asked to share
All meals, all seven nights
Plus transfers from Cusco
Seven nights, all inclusive
Payment plans over three or six months. Nothing is charged until a physician confirms your place, and flights and travel insurance are not included.
No charge to apply · reviewed within 48 hours
Questions
About San Pedro in Peru
What is San Pedro?
How long does a San Pedro ceremony last?
Is San Pedro legal in Peru?
What is the difference between San Pedro and ayahuasca?
Does San Pedro make you vomit?
Can I do San Pedro and ayahuasca in the same week?
Do I need to be fit?
Can I take my antidepressants?
How much does a San Pedro ceremony cost?
Is San Pedro the same as mescaline or peyote?
Where does your San Pedro come from?
No charge to apply · reviewed within 48 hours
Now you know what the day is. Ask whether you are cleared for it.
One application covers all four medicines. A physician reads it, decides San Pedro on its own contraindications, and tells you plainly what is open to you and what is not. Nothing is charged either way, and a mixed answer is the normal one.