Eight Week Shipibo Ayahuasca Initiation Course in Peru – October 4 - November 28, 2026
Description
These eight-week Ayahuasca Initiation Courses offer an authentic introduction to the Shipibo healing tradition of curanderismo, with a strong emphasis on plant dietas, ayahuasca ceremonies, and natural remedies. Designed as a condensed version of an ancestral initiation, the course introduces the essential principles of Shipibo plant medicine in Peru and offers a meaningful first step into the sacred path of ayahuasca healing.
The program is held at the Kesten Rono school for plant medicine, a space created specifically for plant dietas and training courses. Whether you feel called to begin learning these ancient healing traditions or are already walking the path toward becoming a healer, this immersion offers a rare opportunity to enter deeply into Shipibo culture and the world of plant spirit healing in the Amazon rainforest.
Profound Plant Dietas
Plant dietas are at the heart of the course and remain the foundation of traditional curandero training. Through dietas, students learn how relationships with plant spirits are formed, strengthened, and carried forward. The course also teaches how to work with dietas more effectively, deepen communication with the plant spirits, and continue the process after the course ends.
During the initiation, students spend the first half of the course in dieta with Noya Rao and the second half with one of the following teacher plants: Bobinsana, Chiric Sanango, Marusa, Chullachaqui, or Padma Rao. All of these dieta plants, except Padma Rao, grow around the school. The chance to see, touch, and commune with the Noya Rao tree is exceptionally rare and a true honor.
Lectures, Workshops, and Hands-On Training
The course follows a structured path that helps students understand the foundations of the Shipibo ayahuasca healing tradition step by step. Through lectures and workshops led by a Shipibo maestro and the facilitators, students explore dieta preparation, ceremony guidance, and plant remedy administration.
Learning is reinforced through direct practice. Students sing icaros in ceremony, apply treatment techniques, receive healing remedies, and gain personal insight through the dietas. Some teachings are studied in class, but the most important lessons come through direct experience with ayahuasca ceremonies and the plant spirits themselves.
What Students Learn
- Curanderismo and the basic principles of Shipibo healing
- Plant dietas and how to work with them responsibly
- Shipibo icaros, with an mp3 player containing over twenty songs and a booklet of lyrics and translations
- Basic Shipibo language and vocabulary connected to ceremony work
- How to prepare and make ayahuasca over the course of one week
- Working with mapacho and pipes, including smoke techniques and pipe dietas
- Using agua florida and perfumes in preparation for ceremony and treatment
- Ayahuasca ceremony preparation, opening, closing, and mareacion management
- Plant medicine treatments such as vapor baths, plant baths, purgatives, poultices, and remedies
- Facilitation best practices, preparation and integration, trauma-informed care, safety, contraindications, and ethics
Immersion in the Amazon
The Kesten Rono school is located in the jungle outside Iquitos, Peru, in the heart of the Amazon. Surrounded by the energies of the rainforest and the rare Noya Rao trees growing on the property, students stay in rustic accommodations that reflect indigenous village life while deepening their connection to the natural and spiritual world around them.
Course Dates and Price
Cost of the Initiation Course: $6,850
The course runs on the following dates:
- July 5 - August 29, 2026
- October 4 - November 28, 2026
The price includes 21 traditional ayahuasca ceremonies, two plant dietas, more than fifty lectures and workshops, Shipibo healing tools, translations and recordings, treatments, accommodation, meals, transportation, preparation support, and post-course integration counseling. Complementary practices such as yoga, meditation, trauma release exercises, counseling, sound healing, and other modalities may also be included, depending on the course dynamics and guidance from the plant spirits.
Your Safety, Our Commitment
All applicants are asked to review the medical guidelines before applying, as certain conditions may make ayahuasca participation unsuitable. Honest disclosure of medical history and medications is essential so the team can assess suitability and support each participant’s well-being. All information is kept confidential.
Accommodation Options
Student Tambo (Jungle Hut)
The Kesten Rono Plant Medicine School features a mini village in a remote part of the rainforest, consisting of small collections of huts spread over a cleared expanse of jungle terrain. Every student is assigned a tambo, or jungle hut, on the property. These huts and the other buildings like the dining room, vapor bath hut, and ceremony maloca, come together to form a peaceful little village for the students, surrounded by the energies of the plants. The student huts provide the basics in accommodations, a bed, a hammock, a desk, and a closet. Each hut also has a bathroom with running water. The simplicity of the rooms resembles an authentic indigenous hut, with some added improvements in comfort. The plant medicine school features is a mini village in a remote part of the rainforest, consisting of small collections of huts spread over a cleared expanse of jungle terrain. Each student hut, or tambo, has a private bathroom with running water. Rooms are furnished with a bed with bedding and mosquito net, a desk and chair, a closet, and a hammock. There are outlets and lights but there is only electricity for a few hours each day. On-site, all ayahuasca preparation, plant baths, vapor baths, and other remedies are crafted with care, strengthening the connection to the healing plants. While accommodations are simple, the profound beauty, power, and peace of the rainforest are ever-present in this extraordinary and sacred place. Kesten Rono School offers an authentic jungle living experience, far away from the hustle and noise of modern life. It was designed specifically for the Shipibo Curandero Initiation Course. This location has tremendous energy due to the quality and integrity of plant dietas being done here by students of the Noya Rao tradition. It is more rustic than the our other center, but you will feel an amazing connection with the plants instantly upon arrival. Kesten Rono is a place for deep immersion into the world of spirit plant healing. Students quickly recognize that the school and the entire experience during courses is authentic to the indigenous tradition being taught. This is as real a place as it gets.
Teachers
Ayahuasca Foundation
Place
Place map
Categories
Contact Information
Sun, Oct 4