3 Day Ayahuasca - Changa Retreat in Cartago, Costa Rica

Nestled in the lush cloud forests of Costa Rica’s Central Valley, our private sanctuary offers an exclusive space for deep healing, inner exploration, and reconnection with nature. Located just two and a half hours from the airport, it remains both accessible and completely immersed in tranquility.

This experience is intentionally designed for those who feel a true call—those seeking something more intimate, personal, and profound. We host only very small groups of up to four participants, ensuring a highly personalized and carefully held container for each individual journey.

Over the course of 3 days and 2 nights, you will be guided through sacred ceremonies with Ayahuasca and Changa, held in a safe, intentional, and professionally supervised environment by Master Ayahuasquero Harold. Each element of the retreat is curated to support deep emotional release, clarity, and expanded awareness.

Surrounded by the silence and power of the cloud forest, this sanctuary allows you to fully disconnect from the outside world and reconnect with your inner self. We believe that nature is an essential ally in this work—amplifying the process and supporting your return to balance.

Integration support is included to help ground and align your experience.

This is not a massive retreat. It is a private, high-quality, and deeply intentional offering for those who are ready.

Availability is limited and dates are flexible. Contact us directly to reserve your place in this exclusive experience.

What is Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca is an Amazonian plant brew that has been used for millennia by the indigenous people of the Americas for healing purposes and for spiritual exploration.

​The Ayahuasca effects and benefits vary greatly from one Ayahuasca experience to another. This is one thing you need to know: No two ceremonies are ever the same, and no two people ever have the same experience.

The Ayahuasca brew contains: Ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and Chacruna (Psychotria viridis) or Chaliponga (Diplopterys cabrerana) leaves. The vine contains harmine and harmaline, which are MAO-A inhibitors, and tetrahydroharmine, which is a weak serotonin uptake inhibitor. The leaves contain dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the strongest entheogen known to man. Ingested, the combination of these plants leads to the uptake of DMT by your brain, where it will open your perceptions with an awakened state of consciousness.



Effects, Experience, and Benefits

Ayahuasca’s effect is a state of altered, amplified consciousness that is experienced after drinking the Ayahuasca brew. The process with Ayahuasca principally is that of a physical cleansing or detox and of a psycho-emotional release. The physical cleansing is accompanied by nausea and eventually other emetic effects or purging: throwing-up, diarrhea, sweating, shaking, etc.

​On a psychological level, the sacred medicine of Ayahuasca amplifies all feelings and perceptions, making the experience of thinking, self-reflection, reaction, and belief more vivid and intense. Not only does the inner experience of one’s mind get more amplified, but the part of us that is conscious and aware also becomes able to draw clearer connections between the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

​This results in an experience of seeing the full picture of parts of our life, our relationships, our difficulties, or so-called “problems,” leading to insights about oneself and a deeper comprehension of one’s reality. Essentially, in the Ayahuasca experience, not only is our inner world lit up and illuminated, but the capacity of consciousness is also amplified and expanded.


The Visions

Ayahuasca is part of the family of sacred medicines that give us the chance to reach higher states of consciousness. The visions associated with the Ayahuasca experience, whether chaotic, confused, or vivid and intense, serve to show us the totality of our life: the in-s and out-s of the conscious and subconscious mind, our emotional reactions and behaviors, and how they affect our relationships. On the other hand, the visions often are just another factor of cleansing, allowing us to process visual imprints, the impact from the mass media, TV, Internet, and other psychosomatic and emotional blockages.

​With respect to a person’s spiritual aspirations, the Ayahuasca experience occupies the role of a spontaneous teaching. Without claims of a particular phenomenological status of what is the source of these teachings, an Ayahuasca practitioner can have very profound insights, revelations, and even a sense of being guided. Based on this, the Ayahuasca experience deserves to be approached with the utmost respect, so that one’s attitude or intention is that of going to meet a spiritual master or teacher.

The ayahuasca plant medicine is a beautiful and, at the same time, strong and intense experience. The plant calls people in different ways, and when we are ready, our inner shaman decides to start the pilgrimage, to look for the grandmother ayahuasca, and to start the inner work with the sacred experience.

This path has been part of my life for many years. It helped to heal the wounds of my soul and to understand from another point of view the world around me, and also to listen to my inner guide that we all carry inside and that needs to wake up now more than ever.


What is Changa?

Changa is a ceremonial herbal blend that contains DMT combined with natural plant materials and mild MAO-inhibiting herbs, traditionally inspired by Amazonian plant medicine practices. Unlike Ayahuasca, which is consumed as a brew and unfolds over several hours, Changa is typically smoked, creating a much shorter experience—usually lasting 10 to 20 minutes.
What makes Changa unique is its smoother and more gradual onset compared to pure DMT. The added herbs help “ground” the experience, making it feel more accessible, heart-centered, and easier to navigate. Many people describe the journey as immersive and visionary, often involving vivid imagery, emotional release, and a deep sense of connection—to oneself, nature, or a greater consciousness.
In a ceremonial setting, Changa is used with clear intention and guidance. It can serve as a powerful tool for introspection, helping individuals access subconscious patterns, release emotional blockages, and gain new perspectives. Because of its shorter duration, it is sometimes integrated alongside longer plant medicine ceremonies or used as a more approachable entry point into this type of work.


What is Kambo?

The name given to a frog that lives in the trees of the Amazon rainforest, specifically in Brazil. Scientific name Phyllomedusa Bicolor; from this animal, its body secretion is used as a remedy and medicine by the natives since ancient times, specifically by the Noke Kui (katukina) people of the state of Acre in Brazil.


What do the natives use it for in the jungle?

They use it as a vaccine, as a way to prevent typical diseases of that geography such as malaria, yellow fever, snake bites and other epidemic diseases of the jungle; also to get rid of "panema" (tiredness, listlessness), as well as to have the will to go out hunting and bring food to their family.


For which diseases can we use it?

We use it for the treatment of multiple pathologies, such as Infectious diseases, due to its direct action in boosting the immune system, therefore also for the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, allergies, psoriasis; for its anti-inflammatory action, tendinitis, and carpal tunnel.

Depression, addictions to synthetic drugs (base paste, cocaine), alcohol, and medicines, hepatitis, infertility in men and women, and blood circulation problems.

It has excellent results in the treatment of acute pathologies such as cancer. contraindication even if the person is in palliative medical treatments of cancer (radio and chemotherapy). (radio and chemotherapy). On the contrary, by boosting its immunology, it recovers T and B lymphocytes that chemotherapy eliminates without discrimination.

In children, it can be used as a vaccine.

Many more pathologies are treated with Kambo.


How is the remedy collected?

In the rainy months in the jungle, Kambo begins to sing, as if calling the native to deliver his remedy. so he goes into the jungle, most of the time at night, and looks for her by imitating her singing; she is always in the trees, hence her nickname of "monkey frog", He finds it, takes it, and the frog calmly, begins to secrete the remedy, the native, often a Pajé (shaman, healer) with a wand, begins to take the medicine out of the body of the Kambo and stick it on a small wooden palette that will dry and the secretion can be preserved in crystallized form. The frog, Kambo, is returned to the place where it was without causing it any harm.


How is it applied?

On the small palette, make small dots with the crystallized remedy to apply it on the skin.

A thin stick (cipo, liana), is lit with fire to form a small ember, then the first layer of the skin is burned, then remove the piece of skin to apply the remedy sub-cutaneously.

It seems somewhat aggressive; rather, there is no pain or blood in the application process.

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What are the effects on the application process?

After applying the remedy on the skin, the effect is immediate, as it runs in the body through the lymphatic system, a lot of heat occurs, the heart and the head begin to beat faster; prior to the application you should drink a minimum of 2 liters of pure water, and then expel it as a vomit, which we will call "relief", because it is the way to purify the body. This whole process of application-ritual lasts more or less 7 to 10 minutes, to then feel a relaxation of the nervous system and a balance of a lot of energy.


Are there any contraindications?

For post-operative states of less than 3 months, pregnant women, and elderly people (we do not work with minors).