Level of Difficulty:  Moderate to Challenging

Age Requirement: 18 +

 

Destination: Amazon Rainforest.

Country and Region: Peru, Loreto.

Arrival/Departure City: Iquitos

Accommodations: Jungle Huts  - Tents - Mosquito Nets.

Main Objective: An Escape to Sacred Amazonian Lands in Search of Peace, Harmony, Self-Healing, and Reconnection with Ancestral Ways of Life in the Corners Least Intervened by Modern Civilizations within Our Mother Earth.

Retreat Phases: Indigenous Customs and Traditions, Traditional

Amazonian Master Plants, and Sesshin-Zen Style Meditation.

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Other Events: Wildlife Sighting, and Humanitarian Assistance to Villages.

 

Minimum Participants Per Group: (2).

Maximum Participants Per Group: (10).

Advance Booking Conditions: 2 Months Minimum.

Booking Payment Conditions: 50% Required.

Booking Payment Due: As Soon as 2 Participants are Signed Up.

Payment Methods: Credit/Debit Cards.

Remaining Payment Deadline: Arrival Day in Iquitos.

Payment Adjustments Based on Growing Group: Handle on Arrival.

Travel Dates Needed From Start To Finish:

Tuesday, July 2nd (Boat Departs 16:00)

Wednesday, July 3rd (Day 1)

Tuesday, July 23rd (Day 21)

Wednesday, July 24th (Boat Returns 13:00 - 14:00)

SHARED EXPEDITION BOOKING AGREEMENT:

Every single participant must clearly read, follow, and respect all established activities offered within their rough expedition outline. Doing this will help avoid conflicts with any other participating traveler within your group. Remember, This Is Not Your Private Expedition!.

Signing up for an expedition does not guarantee your seat unless your 50% reservation payment is received.

Amazon Expeditioners will only allow a maximum limit of 6 participants and a minimum of 2 participants per group, all this with the purpose of maintaining the best quality experience during our jungle explorations. We truly believe 10 travelers or less fits this criteria.

Once the 50% deposit payment of your reservation is formally made on your shared expedition, there is no going back since the decision to abandon your group, will not only affect us as organizers but will also affect other travelers who have already promised and paid their reservations to travel with you, if this turns to be the case. "You Will Basically Lose Your 50% Reservation Deposit Payment".

All activities are subject to change due to weather conditions at any time of the year. The main rivers and the levels of the tributaries can vary and, therefore, it is possible that the navigation times and the excursions are modified at the discretion of the guide, this will not alter our motivation to make this trip the best.

AMAZON RETREAT TO MOTHER EARTH (3 WEEKS); is a retreat for travelers seeking to live a profound educational, cultural, traditional, spiritual, meditative, mentally and physically challenging experience in the depths of the Amazon jungle. The main objective of this retreat is to offer "An Escape to Sacred Amazonian Lands in Search of Peace, Harmony, Self-Healing and Reconnection with Ancestral Ways of Life in the Corners Least Intervened by Modern Civilizations within Our Mother Earth".

This very well-organized trip will be divided into three essential phases in total, each lasting 1 week. (Week 1) "Indigenous Customs and Traditions", (Week 2) "Traditional Amazonian Master Plants", and (Week 3) "Sesshin-Zen Style Meditation".

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In case this sounds like a very interesting fit for you, then we think it is definitely the expedition/retreat you are looking for!

This fascinating and relaxing route will begin its journey in the city of Iquitos, with an initial navigation along the Amazon River, and finally towards other tributary rivers to reach the deepest part of its lands. While this navigation lasts we will appreciate the current local lifestyle of several riverine indigenous peoples, and as we advance in our immersion in more disconnected jungle areas, we will also witness how gradually the ways of life begin to resemble Amazonian lifestyles. more ancestral.

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Once we settle down in a very isolated piece of land we all call "EL CENTRO", in English translation meaning "THE CENTER", this will become "OUR CENTER", our base camp and home where most of our initial activities will be learned and performed, and where our most direct, and genuine connection with mother earth will take place to assist us to return to the basics, and to the origins on who we are and where we truly belong, all done with complete tranquility, harmony, and peace.

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During our experience of disconnection in the Amazon, there will be short and long segments of diets and meditation after conducting our ceremonies with certain Amazon Master Plants. This will mean and includes several days of resting without conducting any physical strenuous activities, fasting, not too much exposure to the sun, special and strict diets, etc.

When the last phase of this expedition/retreat arrives, as a final test of rewiring and reconnecting with our origins, our team will immerse each traveler in the depths of the Amazon rainforest, exploring it like nomads. During this short and final "Nomadic Crusade", during daylight hours; We will enthusiastically continue our hiking exploration in search of multiple places of great indigenous importance, to return to one of our main objectives of this last week of "Sesshin-Zen Style Meditation", in order to achieve other ways of embracing and letting ourselves be embraced by the purest of nature that surrounds us. At night time; Here will be the time of this entire expedition/retreat, in which we will carry out a more extensive and intensive nocturnal wildlife exploration in search of endemic species of the Amazon that are not found during the day. The place of the return point of this nomadic hiking and meditation exploration will remain reserved as a gem of surprise.

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In conclusion; The multiple approaches of this expedition/retreat, from the first week, will allow participants to obtain a direct intervention of learning and practicing many of the ancient customs and traditions still preserved by a small group among the Amazonian ethnic groups of the area. Very primitive and original activities that are little by little being forgotten by the new generations, and already forgotten by others.

Followed by a second week of spiritual self-encounter, guided by Shaman Master Healers, and Jungle Survival Instructors, an intense concentration that will clearly consist of showing the correct use of some Amazonian Master Plants and other medicinal plants popular in the Peruvian Amazon. used for centuries by its local inhabitants. Powerful and effective ancient native plants that cleanse, treat, heal, and harmonize our body, mind, and soul.

Finally, we will close our expedition/retreat with a flourish and with the very special participation of (2) guests, friends, brothers, Priests, and Instructors in Sesshin-Zen Style Meditation.

AMAZON TERRITORY TO BE VISITED:

The Ampiyacu-Apayacu Regional Conservation Area (ACRAA) is a protected area in Peru and covers an area of 434,129.54 hectares in the provinces of Maynas and Ramón Castilla, in the Loreto region.

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The path towards the designation of the Ampiyacu-Apayacu zone, in the provinces of Maynas and Ramón Castilla, in Loreto, as an area of Regional Conservation (ACR) has been long and intense. It started in 1998, when the population of the area, composed mainly of boras, huitotos, and ocainas, gave the alert about the conservation of their forests before the entrance to the area of a mining company.

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Starting in 1998, work began to preserve this area. According to the National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (Sernanp), which named the area as ACR on December 23, 2010, it is one of the most biodiverse areas in terms of plant species in the world: it is home to 1,500 types of plants. In addition, in this ecosystem, there are 207 species of fish, 64 amphibians, 40 reptiles, 362 birds, and 60 mammals.

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Another important feature of this new ACR is that the upper parts of the Ampiyacu and Apayacu basins are a permanent source of water to maintain the habitat of aquatic fauna, which constitutes the main source of food resources for the 16 native communities settled in its basins.

ETHNIC GROUPS IN THIS TERRITORY: ​

The Bora Ethnic Group; is an indigenous tribe of the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brazilian Amazon, located between the Putumayo and Napo rivers. The Bora speak a Hitotan language and comprise approximately 2,000 people. In the last forty years, they have become largely settled people living mostly in permanent forest settlements. In the animist Bora worldview, there is no distinction between the physical and spiritual worlds and spirits are present throughout the world. Bora families practice exogamy. The Bora has an elaborate knowledge of the plant life of the surrounding rainforest. Like other indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon, such as the Urarina plants, especially trees, hold a complex and important interest for the Bora. The Bora have guarded their lands against both indigenous foes and outsider colonials. Around the time of the 20th century, the rubber boom had a devastating impact on the Boras. A book that recorded the mistreatment of the Boras during that time period is "The Putumayo; The Devil's Paradise" which was published in 1912 and written by W.E. Hardenburg. The tribe's ancestral lands are currently threatened by illegal logging practices. The Bora has no indigenous reserves.

The Huitoto Ethnic Group; was once composed of 100 villages or 31 tribes, but disease and conflict have reduced their numbers. In the early 20th century, the Witoto population was 50,000. The rubber boom in the mid-20th century brought diseases and displacement to the Witotos, causing their numbers to plummet to 7,000–10,000. Since the 1990s, cattle ranchers have invaded Witoto lands, depleted the soil, and polluted the waterways. In response to the incursions, some governments established several reservations for Witotos, one almost remote one is located at the Ampiyacu not too far from the Bora Indigenous tribe. Huitoto people practice swidden or slash-and-burn agriculture. To prevent depleting the land, they relocate their fields every few years. Major crops include cacao, coca, maize, bitter and sweet manioc, bananas, mangoes, palms, peanuts, pineapples, plantains, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, tobacco, and yams. Ethnobotanists have studied Witoto agriculture due to its efficiency and sustainability. Huitoto men hunt with blowguns and shotguns.

The Ocaina Ethnic Group; is an ethnic group of the Amazon that inhabits the banks of the Yaguasyacu, Ampiyacu, jamayacù, Putumayo, and Algodon rivers (in Peru); Although they are known as Ocaina, they call themselves Dyo'xaiya or Ivo'tsa. Ocaine language is found within the Huitoto linguistic family. Bora-witotoque language family includes besides the ocainas, nonuñas, uitotos, muninanes and bora-mirañas, among others. The Ocainas share history and many cultural characteristics with the Huitotos, Resígaros, and Andoques. These groups inhabited the southern tip of Colombia and were brought to Peruvian territory by the bosses during the Amazon rubber boom. The violence infringed by the bosses descended their population and they are currently in the process of assimilation into the Huitotos.

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The Yaguas Ethnic Group; is estimated that there are some 6,000 Yagua living in north-eastern Peru and southern Colombia, in 30 communities along the Amazon, Napo, Putumayo, and Yavari rivers, and their tributaries. This makes it one of the larger indigenous communities in Amazonia, and this is reflected in the name of the recently-created Yaguas National Park in the Department of Loreto. Currently, the Yagua live in some 30 communities scattered throughout a section of the Peruvian and Colombian Amazon basin which can roughly be described as a rectangle 200 miles wide and 350 miles long (70,000 sq. miles) extending southward from the second to the fifth parallel and westward from the 70th to the 75th meridian west.

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WHAT IS INCLUDED:

• Airport Pick Up and Drop Off Transportation.
• Hotel/hostel search assistance upon arrival to Iquitos (if needed).
• Fluvial transportation service to/from remote destinations (speed and slow boats).
• Entry permits to indigenous territories.
• Economic support to villages nearby.
• First Responders Wilderness Kit for Emergencies with Antivenom Serums.
• Satellite/GPS Communication Devices with 24/7 SOS Coverage and Live Locators.
• Daily meals provided during the expedition (based on traditional local food).
• Filtered water during the expedition.
• Lead Guide/Translator (English-Spanish).
• Native Assistant Guides/Translators (Spanish-Any Local Indigenous Language).
• (1-2) Master Shamans.
• (2) Zen Priests.
• Gear (mosquito nets, sleeping mats, and blankets).

WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED:

• Airfare to and from Iquitos.
• Personal Travel Insurance.
• Hotel/hostel in Iquitos.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Booking in Advance is Highly Recommended; for the collection of personal information, authorization of entry to indigenous territories at all levels (national, regional, and communal authorities), logistic preparation, personnel assignment, etc.
• Arrival and Departure Recommendation to and from Iquitos; 1 day before and 1 day after your trip.
• Rucksack Size and Weight Recommendations; 55-65 liters and 10 kilos.
• For full packing list details visit our What to Pack page.
• Be warned; That this unique and very well-combined Amazonian retreat is only open to highly motivated participants, with strong adaptive capacities and who are not looking for anything luxurious. Otherwise, it is for those with a pure and humble goal in mind and heart to find peace, love, harmony and compassion with themselves and others, far above all comfort, as well as giving their all to achieve a deep understanding of humanity and living species in general within our home planet.
• To Be Better Prepared for this Expedition; Travelers are highly advised to visit our next link "Master Plants Diet Info".
• All activities are subject to change due to weather conditions at any time of the year. The main rivers and the levels of the tributaries can vary and, therefore, it is possible that the navigation times and the excursions are modified at the discretion of the guide, this will not alter our motivation to make this trip the best.
• For additional information visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN SIGNING UP: TO RECEIVE THE FULL OUTLINE AND RATES ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR EVENT, PLEASE SIGN UP BY PROVIDING US YOUR VALID  WHATSAPP MOBILE CONTACT NUMBER! .....SINCE OUR TEAM WILL ONLY CONTACT YOU VIA WHATSAPP.

IF YOU DO NOT PROVIDE US WITH YOUR VALID WHATSAPP MOBILE NUMBER AT THE MOMENT OF SIGNING UP, YOU'LL BE NOT CONSIDERED A SERIOUS POTENTIAL PARTICIPANT, AND IN OTHER WORDS, WE WILL NOT WASTE OUR TRYING TO CONTACT YOU USING OTHER METHODS.