About Us
Ikaro Ayahuasca Retreat 100% Indigenous Owned
Since the sacred plant of Ayahuasca and its healing power have become more popular day after day, many investors from distant parts of the world and large global corporations have set their sights on Peru, the Amazon jungle, Cusco and Machu Picchu to invest. Currently many Ayahuasca retreats do not have Peruvian or indigenous owners, something that is not bad, since we live in a globalized world. However, being a 100% local and indigenous Ayahuasca retreat, makes us extremely proud.
Our team
Our team is made up of a series of hardworking people with a lot of passion for providing authentic healing with mother Ayahuasca. We will let you know more about our team, starting to talk first, about the founder and leader of Ikaro Ayahuasca Retreat, a person who with a lot of effort, disciplined work and spirituality has been creating deep experiences of healing and inner peace, for all Ayahuasca lovers.
Eric Churata, the founder and general manager of Ikaro Ayahuasca Retreat, was born in a small village in the Amazon jungle of Cusco. He grew up in the jungle with his grandparents until he was 10 years old. He then moved to the city of Cusco, where he lived with his mother; place where he learned Quechua, the local dialect of the Andes. After completing his elementary and complementary school, he entered the university where he studied tourism and English for 5 years. After having worked for many years in all sectors of the tourism industry. He decided in 2016 to open a healing center with Amazonian alternative medicine which he called: Ikaro Ayahuasca Retreat. The idea of opening a healing center with Ayahuasca was born in one of the many Inca treks that Eric made to Machu Picchu with the company Alpaca Expeditions. Many hikers talked about Ayahuasca ceremonies that they would do in different healing centers, others talked about how expensive these ceremonies cost and others about the authenticity of the shamans and the right place to do it. One day an Inca trail hiker named Braile told Erick, that she wanted to make an Ayahuasca retreat in a safe, authentic and welcoming place. As Eric and Braile became good friends in 4 days of hiking, he decides to take Braile to his birthplace in the jungle of Cusco, a place where he and his family have a farm house and a place where there are also many shamans who work with the sacred plant of Ayahuasca. The experience of Braile was very deep and healing, that gave Eric the impulse to organize all the shamans of his town to offer healing ceremonies with Ayahuasca. He also specialized in yoga and meditation activities, in addition to organizing the itineraries and logistics to provide Ayahuasca retreats in an unforgettable, safe, energetic and authentic place with affordable prices for everyone.
Our Matsigenka Shamans
We have a team of healers or shamans, who have many years of experience performing Ayahuasca healing rituals. All our shamans love to help, heal and harmonize the emotions and spirit of our brothers and sisters who seek spiritual, special, positive and transcendental experiences. Most of our shamans belong to the Matsigenka tribe, located in the Amazon jungle of Cusco. All of them come from families with a shamanic past and have made arduous retreats of physical, mental and spiritual preparation to become spiritual and emotional leaders.
Some of these preparation rituals consist of making pilgrimages of months and years in the jungle, while they survive feeding on everything provided by nature. They learn to meditate and come into direct contact with mother earth, the universe and celestial beings. They also create, practice and sings magical and powerful songs called Ikaros, which are important channelers of the visions that a person has when doing an Ayahuasca ceremony.
Our Coordinators
We have a great team of coordinators, who have been selected based on their professionalism, experience, spirituality, seriousness and passion for what they do. All of them were born in different towns in the Peruvian Andes and Amazon jungle. Many of them are very good friends and relatives of Eric.
All our coordinators have a university degree in tourism and English and a minimum of three years of spiritual and healing expertise under their belt. They are fun, caring and also knowledgeable about Ayahuasca ceremonies, ecology, geography, history, folklore, archeology, just to mention some of the topics in which they are trained year after year. In addition, our coordinators are trained every year in the month of February (rainy season in Cusco) on issues concerning first aid and rescue in all risky situations.
Our Family
A large part of our family was born in the Amazon jungle of Cusco, in the Manu National Park, a place considered one of the most megadiverse in the world. Some members are 100% native and have subsisted for generations consuming what nature provided and healing themselves with sacred plants such as Ayahuasca, Wachuma, Callampa to name a few. Other members, like Eric, are Mestizos, that is, we have a mixture of indigenous and Spanish blood.
Our shamans and many other people who work with us belong to the Matsigenka and Ashaninka tribes, native tribes that still live from fishing and hunting in the cultural zone of the Manu National Park. These two Amazonian tribes have been great friends and allies of the Incas, that is why upon the arrival of the Spanish and the conquest of the Inca empire, these tribes have welcomed many Incas who fled into the jungle.
Office Staff
Our great office team is in charge of planning your experience in Inca lands. We have selected our team based on their punctuality, honesty, professionalism and customer service skills; All of them have a fluent level of English, so they will be able to coordinate your entire trip without any inconvenience of language barrier.
From the first moment you contact us until the moment your experience ends, we will organize everything down to the smallest detail, so that your Ayahuasca retreat runs smoothly and is memorable for you and your loved ones. Ikaro Ayahuasca Retreat keeps its office team always well relaxed and well-motivated to provide quality customer service.
Our Vision
Ikaro Ayahuasca Retreat is based on 3 main ideals.
Our first goal is to organize authentic Ayahuasca ceremonies, in a safe and magical place that will help our patients find their divinity, their spirituality and their own transcendence. All of these with high quality level of organization, logistics, planning and execution, in order to provide a 100% satisfactory service and experience to all our Ayahuasca lovers.
Our second objective is to be a socially responsible company, paying our work team fair wages and providing them with an optimal work environment; In addition to carrying out social projects for the benefit of children, the elderly and communities in poverty or extreme poverty through education, art and sports.
Our third objective is to be an environmentally responsible company, we have large reforestation projects in the Andes and the Peruvian Amazon, we have awareness campaigns for garbage collection and treatment; In addition to supporting a shelter for animals, mainly puppies in the city of Cusco.
Our Goals
- Provide well organized and healing Ayahuasca experiences.
- Provide top quality customer service and safety journeys.
- keep a 100 % local shamans and coordinators.
- Protect and care the planet through the non-use of plastic, recycling, minimal use of paper, free pesticides products and other ways.
- Help kids to achieve their dreams through education, art and sports.
- Create truly fair salary job for all our crew.
Our Values
- Honesty and integrity
- Ayahuasca lovers become our friends
- Commitment to our sacred medicine, our culture and society
- Work as a team by sharing knowledge, experience and dedication
- Creativity and innovation form solidarity
- Replace attacks and criticisms with proposals and actions
- Made by indigenous Peruvians
