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Atmosphere and feature ratings above are based on Best Retreats research (October 2026). They will be updated if Awakenings Ayahuasca Retreat submits its own information.

Awakenings Ayahuasca Retreat: An In-Depth Review for Ayahuasca Retreats near Santo Domingo, Ecuador

Awakenings Ayahuasca Retreat (Despertares Ayahuasca) is a small Indigenous retreat run by a Tsáchila family in the commune of Chigüilpe, about 7 km outside the city of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas in western Ecuador. It was founded around 2021 by Juan Calazacón with his partner Stephanie Hidalgo and relatives, beside the Museo Etnográfico Tsáchila that his father Augusto founded in 1995, and its ceremonies are led by Juan, his uncle Manuel and other family members. Stays are flexible, from a few nights to the popular eight-day package at about $1,600, with groups usually of three to six. Reviews are excellent, 4.8 from 19 on Tripadvisor and 5.0 from 140 on AyaAdvisors, and we found no incidents. The concerns: alongside ayahuasca and San Pedro it sells bufo (5-MeO-DMT), changa, kambo, mushrooms and cannabis as add-ons with no published screening or contraindications, its only medical figure is an unnamed “holistic doctor,” its site claims its medicine can address cancer and diabetes, its “Ministry of Health” registration claim is unsupported, and its refund terms are strict. The same venue is resold at about twice the price under the brand ANEWLux. Our earlier profile needs correcting on prices, ratings and dates.

🎯 At a Glance

• Locations: Km 7 on the road from Santo Domingo to Quevedo, Comuna Chigüilpe, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas province, according to a regional tourism directory, next to the family’s ethnographic museum and Fitseyah cabins. Santo Domingo sits at about 625 m in the hot, humid western foothills of the Andes, roughly 133 km and three to four hours by road from Quito.
• Approach: Tsáchila ayahuasca ceremonies (the Tsáchila call the brew nepi) with icaros, plus San Pedro, kambo, sananga, rapé, cacao, temazcal, waterfall and river cleansings, massage, reiki and sound healing. Bufo, mushrooms, changa and cannabis are available on request. Guests often help prepare the medicine.
• Suitable For: Travelers who want a very small, family-run ceremony with Indigenous healers and cultural immersion, at a modest price. Not suited to anyone who needs licensed medical cover, published screening or flexible refunds, and not a place to combine several powerful medicines without careful advice.
• Costs: From $350, with the most popular eight-day, seven-night package at $1,600, covering three ayahuasca ceremonies, one San Pedro ceremony, kambo, sananga, a private cabin, meals and activities, according to the center’s AyaAdvisors listing. Transport from Quito and laundry are extra. The same eight-day stay costs $3,199 through ANEWLux.
• Overall Assessment: A warm, authentic, well-reviewed family retreat with tiny groups and a documented Tsáchila lineage, offset by bufo, changa, kambo and cannabis sold without published screening, no licensed medical staff or emergency protocol, unsupported medical and government-registration claims, strict cancellation terms and review-platform irregularities. Directory evaluation: C+.

💬 What Guests Are Saying

Here is how Awakenings rates across review platforms in October 2026:

The positive picture. Guests describe feeling safe and welcomed by a warm Tsáchila family, authentic ceremonies in which they help brew the medicine, groups of three to six or even solo ceremonies, good food, waterfalls, sauna, reiki and massage, and one-to-one integration with an interpreter. Several say it suits solo women and that little Spanish is needed; one reports relief from depression.

The negative feedback. A one-star Tripadvisor review from a February 2025 stay says the owner repeatedly pushed extra paid services and spoke negatively about former guests and other retreats, and that the shamans ignored the reviewer’s requests for help during a difficult experience; the reviewer concluded the retreat is not equipped for emergencies. No owner response is visible. A five-star reviewer noted that the river near the property is polluted, and one AyaAdvisors guest found sananga “a little intense.” Our earlier profile also cited a 2023 Reddit post about severe nausea from strict diets; that account remains unverified.

Who is writing the reviews. AyaAdvisors shows no rating below five across 140 reviews and labels the listing “Featured”; the center’s own team has cited its AyaAdvisors ranking as a marketing point. The Tripadvisor listing appears to have been converted from the family museum’s old listing, shows a bogus Quito street address and lists the retreat under Quito. Our earlier profile’s “4.9 stars from 50+ Retreat.guru reviews” has no source: the venue’s only Retreat Guru listing, under ANEWLux, has none. If you have attended, we encourage you to share your experience through our submission form.

🚩 Incident Report

We searched review platforms and English and Spanish-language news, including Ecuadorian press, for reports involving Awakenings, Despertares Ayahuasca and Juan, Augusto, Manuel, Tiwinza and Fernanda Calazacón and Stephanie Hidalgo.

• Deaths and serious injuries: None found involving the retreat.
• Sexual misconduct: No allegations found against the retreat or its people. A report that appears to date from 2017 described an alleged assault by an unnamed Tsáchila shaman after an ayahuasca ritual, according to InfoCatólica, citing El Comercio; it predates this retreat and no source links it to the family.
• Theft and crime: No reports found.
• Legal action: No police or regulatory action found.

If you have experienced or witnessed an incident at Awakenings, please report it confidentially.

🔍 Critical Notes

Many medicines, little screening. The center’s website lists ayahuasca, San Pedro, magic mushrooms, cacao, bufo, changa (“DMT-containing”), rapé, sananga and kambo, and its AyaAdvisors listing adds cannabis on request, yet it publishes no contraindication list and describes only “pre-screening for all participants.” Bufo and kambo carry serious cardiac and psychiatric risks, and changa and cannabis add further unknowns when combined with ayahuasca. Ask exactly what will be offered, on which days and how it is screened.

Unsupported claims. The site says it is the “Only Retreat in Ecuador registered by the Ministry of Health” and “certified as one of the safest retreats in South America,” without naming any certificate or body; Ecuador’s Ministry of Health describes identifying ancestral practitioners and self-regulation, not registering retreats. The site also says its medicine can address “cancer, diabetes, viral illnesses, skin illnesses, neurological illnesses”; none of these medicines is an established treatment for those conditions. Juan is described on the site as one of “five” officially recognized young shamans in Ecuador and on Retreat Guru as one of “three,” with no certifying body named.

Strict refunds, and a reseller with looser ones. The center’s own terms require a 50% deposit at booking and the balance eight days before arrival; cancelling 60 or more days out still costs a 30% fee, 31 to 60 days costs 50%, and nothing is refunded inside 30 days. The same venue sold through ANEWLux on Retreat Guru carries a deposit “fully refundable until 1 day prior,” at about twice the price. No public source explains the relationship between the two brands.

The legal picture. Ecuador’s constitution protects Indigenous ancestral medicine, and community ayahuasca ceremonies for tourists are openly offered in Santo Domingo, but the 2015 drug law controls the substances in its annex with no ancestral-use exception (Registro Oficial 615). Bufo, mushrooms and cannabis are not traditional Tsáchila medicines, so the tolerance shown to ancestral ayahuasca use would not obviously extend to them.

Corrections to our earlier profile. The eight-day package costs about $1,600, and we found no source for the $950 price on our listing. Stays are flexible, from two nights, with eight days most popular; we found no ten-day program. The retreat opened around 2021 and has no Retreat Guru reviews under its own name. Its setting is subtropical foothills at about 625 m, not a mountain retreat, and we found no source for “protected jungle” or for the pet-friendly claim. Bookings run through WhatsApp, Calendly and email rather than a booking platform. The center publishes no medication guidance, contrary to our earlier note, and a one-star review posted in April 2025 contradicts our earlier “no new concerns” update. Our earlier profile’s claims that some reviewers wanted more post-retreat tools and that a guest healed from addiction remain unverified.

🆘 Screening & Mental Health Risks

The center describes “pre-screening for all participants” without any published form or criteria, and in a 2024 academic article Juan said the family first “diagnoses” each person and turns away those with the wrong mindset. No contraindication list for SSRIs, MAOIs, heart conditions, psychiatric history or pregnancy is published. The only medical figure is “a holistic doctor” who the site says guides each ceremony, unnamed and with no stated licence; the article mentions nursing and medical exams, which remain unverified. No emergency protocol is published, and the site recommends travel insurance. The nearest public hospital with 24-hour emergency care, Hospital General Dr. Gustavo Domínguez in Santo Domingo, is roughly 20 minutes away by road. The site says a woman is always present, and integration is one-to-one with an interpreter. ICEERS notes that ayahuasca’s MAOI component makes combinations with SSRIs and other serotonergic medications contraindicated, and that ayahuasca is contraindicated for people prone to psychosis. Never stop a psychiatric medication to qualify for a retreat without your prescriber’s guidance.

🧪 Brew Substance

The family prepares its own ayahuasca, which it describes as free of additives, and reviewers say guests help with the brewing. Traditional ayahuasca combines the Banisteriopsis caapi vine with a DMT-containing leaf, as Erowid explains; the center does not publish its recipe. The eight-day package includes three ayahuasca ceremonies, one San Pedro ceremony, one kambo session and sananga, with bufo (5-MeO-DMT), mushrooms, changa and cannabis available on request.

📍 Location, Setting & Style

• Setting: Hot, humid subtropical forest in the Tsáchila commune of Chigüilpe, close to the city of Santo Domingo, with waterfalls and rivers nearby.
• Rooms: Private cabins, glamping and camping at the family’s Fitseyah cabins, described by guests as simple and clean; the center’s AyaAdvisors listing also mentions shared rooms.
• Style: An Indigenous family venue next to its ethnographic museum, with traditional Tsáchila healing, icaros and limpias alongside reiki and sound healing. Groups are usually three to six, and solo ceremonies are possible.

Practical guidance: Fly into Quito; the drive takes three to four hours, and the center can arrange a driver at extra cost. Local buses run from Santo Domingo to Km 7.

Should You Book?

Awakenings may suit you if you want a small, personal ceremony with an Indigenous family and are content with simple cabins. The trade-offs: several powerful medicines offered without published screening, no licensed medical staff or emergency protocol, unsupported medical and registration claims, and strict cancellation terms. If you go, book directly rather than through a reseller, get the medicine schedule, medication exclusions, emergency plan and refund terms in writing, and read our guide to verifying retreat facilitators.

The Team & Story

Juan Calazacón founded the retreat with his partner, Stephanie Hidalgo, and relatives after his mother’s death, according to a 2024 article he co-wrote with Rickard Lalander of Södertörn University in Revista Dialógica Intercultural; the family retains ownership. His father, Augusto Calazacón, profiled by El Comercio, has practiced since age 11, was certified as a “verdadero chamán” by the Tsáchila governing council, has documented hundreds of medicinal plants and co-wrote the first Tsáfiki dictionary. Augusto’s brother Manuel, the retreat’s director, leads an association of Tsáchila healers. Juan’s brother Tiwinza leads temazcal and plant work, and Fernanda Calazacón leads cacao ceremonies. The family descends from Abraham Calazacón, the celebrated Tsáchila governor. We did not independently verify anyone’s credentials.

Prep & Integration Tips

Before you go: Disclose every medication and condition, and talk with your own doctor before agreeing to any medicine, especially bufo or kambo. Ask the family about dietary preparation. After you return: One-to-one integration is offered during the stay. Arrange support from a qualified therapist at home as well. Our guide on how to research ayahuasca incidents can help you check any center.

Pros & Cons

Book Your Ceremony

Bookings are made directly through awakeningsayahuasca.com, by WhatsApp, email or a booking call with Stephanie, and the center works year-round with flexible dates. Before paying, confirm in writing the price and what it includes, which medicines will be offered, the medication exclusions, the emergency arrangements and the cancellation terms. Best Retreats does not take bookings; learn more about our mission.

Last reviewed October 2026.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Consult a qualified medical professional.