8-Day Ayahuasca Retreat in the Colombian Amazon — Where You Make the Medicine You Drink.

Most ayahuasca retreats hand you a cup. This one hands you the plants.
For two days before the first ceremony, you stand alongside Taita Miguel Mavisoy and help prepare, by hand, the Crudo Yagé that will be poured into your cup that night.

This is the Medicine Maker Retreat at MahaDevi: a 7-night, 8-day immersion in the highlands of the Colombian Amazon, in the 12-generation Camsá tradition of ayahuasca. It is the most complete offering we run, and the only retreat in our calendar where participants are invited into the full preparation of the medicine itself.

On Day 1, over four to five hours, you clean and cut the Chagra leaves, smash them by hand with a wooden mallet, prepare the ayahuasca vine the same way, mix the plants, and set them to rest overnight.

On Day 2, you return to extract the medicine and complete the final preparation of the Crudo Yagé that will be served in ceremony.

This is the most authentic, hands-on ayahuasca preparation experience available anywhere. No machines touch the process at any stage. Everything is broken down by hand to the fine level the Camsá tradition has held for twelve generations, specifically to maximize the absorption of the plants. You are working alongside the same Taita who will pour your cup. The medicine you help prepare is the medicine you will drink.

This is not an apprenticeship. It is not training to become a healer. It is something quieter and, for many people, more profound: a chance to sit with the plants before they sit with you.

The Medicine Maker experience is optional. Whether or not you join the preparation, every participant on these dates receives the full MahaDevi retreat: three ceremonies with Taita Miguel, with your choice of both traditional cooked Yagé and Crudo, a rare cold-brew form of ayahuasca that exists nowhere outside Colombia. Crudo ferments within days of being made. It cannot be stored, cannot be shipped, and cannot leave this region. To drink it, you have to come here.

The retreat is held on a private property in the highlands of Putumayo, just outside Mocoa. The Mocoa River runs along the edge of the land. A waterfall sits inside the property itself. Most mornings of your stay, you can wake to the sound of moving water: river, falls, jungle. Alongside the ceremonies and the medicine preparation, the week includes breathwork sessions, a hike to the Fin del Mundo waterfall, hapeh (rapé), sananga, mambé and ambil circles, a cacao ceremony, daily sharing circles, and one-on-one time with the facilitators.

And the retreat itself is only the middle of the arc. Every participant receives 45 days of structured preparation before arrival: full medical and psychiatric screening, one-on-one preparation calls, group cohort calls, group breathwork, and full access to our educational preparation portal with modules covering diet, body, intention, and what to expect from the medicine.

After your week in Putumayo, you receive 90 days of integration support: monthly one-on-one calls with your facilitator, group integration calls, integration modules in the portal, and lifelong access to MahaDevi community calls.

What Makes This Retreat Different

A 12-generation Camsá lineage. Taita Miguel received the medicine for the first time at six months old, guided by his parents, both respected healers in the Camsá tradition. He began serving ayahuasca at fourteen. He grows the plants on his own land in Putumayo, prepares every batch fresh in the days before each retreat, and leads every ceremony personally. There is no separation here between the person who holds the lineage, the person who makes the medicine, and the person who pours your cup.

Fresh medicine, not paste. Most retreats outside the Amazon work with reconstituted paste: ayahuasca cooked down, dried, shipped internationally, then rebuilt with water. At MahaDevi, both Crudo (cold-brew) and traditional cooked Yagé are prepared fresh from plants grown on Taita Miguel’s land. Crudo ferments quickly. It cannot be stored or transported. It does not exist outside Colombia.

A full 140 days of care. Your work with us does not begin or end at the gate. The retreat sits inside a larger arc: 45 days of structured preparation before you arrive (medical screening, preparation modules, one-on-one calls, group breathwork, cohort calls), 7 nights of ceremony and rest in the highlands of Putumayo, and 90 days of integration after you return home (monthly one-on-one calls, group integration calls, integration modules, lifelong community access).

Held in a small group. Maximum 10–12 participants per retreat. 1:2 facilitator-to-guest ratio in ceremony. You will be known by name.
Comfort that lets you surrender. Private and shared cabins with modern design, hot showers, and electricity.

A pool, a cold plunge by the Mocoa River, and a private waterfall on the land. Wi-Fi, 24/7 on-site security, and Hospital José María Hernández thirty minutes away. We are in a cooler, low-mosquito zone of the Amazon, not a remote jungle camp.