Day one
Arrival, and nothing else
Collected at the airport, medical intake with the physician who stays all week, one meal, and a long first conversation with your integration lead.
The easiest version of this work to reach, held to the hardest version of the standards. Four ceremonies, Shipibo maestros flown in and paid properly, and a physician who reads your file before anyone takes your money.
Guests rarely struggle with the ceremony. They struggle with a thirty hour door to door journey, a connection they missed, altitude they underestimated, and a stomach that turned on day two. Costa Rica removes all four of those, which is the entire reason this house exists.
Three hours from Miami, four from Houston, five and a half from Los Angeles, all direct. We meet you at the airport, and you are on a mat the following night rather than the fourth. No second flight, no pass to cross, no two days spent recovering from the trip itself.
Nothing here works against you before the medicine does. No altitude to acclimatise to, tap water you can drink, no vaccination schedule to start six weeks out, and a dieta kitchen buying produce grown within twenty miles. Guests arrive ready instead of arriving depleted.
Costa Rica has spent thirty years building private hospitals around visiting patients. Twenty five minutes to the clinic at Puerto Jimenez, a licensed air ambulance from the airstrip fifteen minutes away, and about two hours by road to San Jose. Your insurer will already recognise the receiving hospital.
We run houses in both countries, so we have no reason to talk you out of either. Here is the comparison we give people on the phone. If the right answer is Peru, we will book you there instead.
| Costa Rica · Osa | Peru · Andes and Amazon | |
|---|---|---|
| Travel from the US | Three to five hours, direct, no connection | Eight to fourteen hours with a connection through Lima |
| Altitude | Sea level, nothing to acclimatise to | 9,750 to 11,150 feet in the Andes, sea level in the Amazon |
| Health admin | No vaccinations, drinkable tap water | Yellow fever advised for the Amazon, bottled water |
| Nearest hospital | Clinic 25 minutes, air ambulance 15 minutes, San Jose 2 hours | 20 minutes in Cusco, 90 minutes from the Amazon lodge |
| Legal footing | Not a scheduled substance, ceremonial use not prohibited | Explicitly recognised as national cultural heritage since 2008 |
| The maestros | Shipibo, flown from Ucayali, paid a fee plus travel | Shipibo, working on or near their own land |
| The plants | Grown on site and sourced from Peru, shipped legally | Cut within an hour of the maloca in the Amazon |
| Choose it if | You have limited leave, a body that hates altitude, or this is your first time | Lineage in its own territory matters more to you than the journey |
The one column we will not spin: Costa Rica is not the tradition’s homeland. What we can promise is that the people who carry it are here by invitation, named, credited and paid properly.
Never on the same day, never sold as a bundle, and never suggested to a guest who did not ask. Clearance for one is never clearance for another.
A brew of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and chacruna leaf, drunk after dark and worked with for five to six hours while two maestros sing icaros and move between guests. Purging is expected and prepared for at every mat. Nobody is asked how much to drink, and nobody is offered a second cup they did not request.
A full stop: MAOI medication, diagnosed schizophrenia or bipolar I, pregnancy, uncontrolled hypertension, epilepsy, or a cardiac event in the last twelve months.
The secretion of the giant monkey frog, applied to small points on the skin. Twenty to forty minutes of intense physical response, then it passes. A trained practitioner measures your fluid intake throughout, which matters more in this humidity than most centers admit. Always on a rest day, never inside twenty four hours of a ceremony.
A full stop: heart conditions, low blood pressure, Addison’s disease, pregnancy, or recovery from recent surgery.
A single brief session with 5-MeO-DMT, synthetically sourced so no toad is milked or harmed. Fifteen to twenty minutes, one to one, two facilitators present with one seated beside you the whole time. Offered only in the quiet after the final ceremony, and only when the physician and your integration lead agree independently.
A full stop: any reservation from either lead. Both can decline without explaining it to anyone else in the group.
Eight days, airport to airport. Nothing is improvised, and no ceremony is added because the group seemed keen.
Collected at the airport, medical intake with the physician who stays all week, one meal, and a long first conversation with your integration lead.
Mostly spent learning how to be in the room at all. That is normal, and it is why a single ceremony rarely does much for anyone.
Plant bath, bodywork, one meal, no screens. No beach trip and no zip line. The Kambo session sits here for guests cleared for it separately.
Usually the night people describe afterwards. The maestros have watched you for two nights and adjust the icaros per person by now.
Ninety minutes. Attendance is genuinely optional and nobody is asked to share. Several guests sit and say nothing at all.
The quietest of the four, most weeks. By now the room knows itself and the maestros work with less noise.
Closing at first light with the howler monkeys starting up, which is its own kind of ending. Bufo the next morning for guests both leads cleared.
Transfer in the afternoon. Leave the two days after you land in the US completely empty. Do not book a Monday meeting.
Costa Rica attracts people who want this to be simple, and simple is exactly where centers get careless. Our application runs to thirty four questions, a licensed physician reads every one, screening takes about two weeks, and roughly one application in five does not proceed. Nothing is charged before a place is confirmed, and declined applicants get the reason in writing plus a referral list.
We make no medical claims. 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. Nothing on this page is medical advice and these lists are not exhaustive. Send your file and let the physician decide.
There is no spa, no excursion, no beach day and no cocktail hour. The Osa is spectacular and you will barely see it. Come back afterwards as a tourist; that week will be better than this one.
No such tradition exists here, and any center implying otherwise is selling you scenery. Our maestros are Shipibo, from Ucayali in Peru, and they fly in for the weeks they hold.
We make no medical claims and we will say so on the call if you are hoping for one. Guests who arrive expecting a fix tend to leave disappointed, and sometimes worse than they came.
Screening takes about two weeks and the dieta takes three more. If you want to sit next month, we are the wrong center and we will tell you that in the first email.
Flights, budget $350 to $700 from most US hubs, which is the cheapest leg of any house we run. Travel insurance, which we require. Nights either side. Any taper appointments with your own prescriber.
No deposit until a physician confirms a place. Then 30% to hold and the balance 30 days out. Payment plans over three or six months. Full refund to 45 days out, and medical withdrawals refunded in full at any point.
Ayahuasca is not a scheduled substance here and its ceremonial use is not prohibited, which is why established centers operate openly under ordinary hospitality and health permits. Be clear about what that means: it is a permissive position rather than an explicit protection, unlike Peru where ayahuasca has been recognised as national cultural heritage since 2008. We hold hospitality and food handling permits and carry professional liability cover, and we will send you copies before you pay anything. Ask any center for the same and note whether they answer.
Logistics and medical infrastructure. Three to five hours direct from most US hubs with no connection, sea level, no vaccinations, drinkable water, dollars accepted, and private hospitals built around North American patients. The honest trade is that this is not the tradition’s homeland. We run houses in both countries, so if Peru is the better answer for you we will book you there instead.
Ucayali, Peru. Our four maestros are Shipibo, from the Paoyhan and Nueva Betania communities, and they fly to the Osa for the weeks they hold. They are paid a full fee plus travel, named and credited, and photographed only with permission. We do not reproduce Shipibo textile patterns as decoration.
No vaccinations are required for US travellers, and no yellow fever certificate unless you are arriving from certain South American or African countries. Malaria prophylaxis is not routinely recommended for the Osa. If your doctor prescribes anything, tell us first, because some antimalarials interact with ayahuasca.
Twenty five minutes to the public clinic at Puerto Jimenez, fifteen minutes to an airstrip with a licensed air ambulance on call, and about two hours by road to a private hospital in San Jose that your insurer will recognise. A physician stays on site every night.
Warm and humid year round, high eighties by day. The dry season runs roughly December to April and the green season May to November, when afternoon rain is heavy and brief. Ceremonies are unaffected either way, and the rain on the roof is one of the better parts.
Strict, for three weeks before you fly: no alcohol, no fermented foods, minimal salt and sugar, no recreational substances. Tyramine rich food is the specific reason, and we send a grocery list written for US supermarkets with a day by day plan.
Yes, and many guests do. Not before, though. Arrive rested and on the dieta, do the week, then take the Osa properly with a clear head. We will happily recommend places once your week is finished.
At any point, without argument. You keep the room, the food and every integration call. Nobody is talked into a ceremony here.
A physician reads every application. Your integration lead calls you. We either offer a place on a named week on the Osa, suggest one of our Peru houses instead, or explain plainly why we cannot proceed. There is no follow up you did not ask for.