Paojilhuasca's Roots
The curandero Don Gardel and the entrepreneur and biomedical researcher Fabrizio Beverina founded the Paojilhuasca Amazonian Medicine Centre in 2018 in order to make the curative power of Amazonian medicines (kambo and ayahuasca) available to everyone.
The living facilities have been designed to be simple, with an architecture creating a balance between solitude and community living, completely immersed in the incredibly beautiful surrounding nature. Prices are kept very affordable so everyone can have access to these powerful medicines.
Research is at the heart of Paojilhuasca’s way of approaching ancestral medicines, using learning and teaching through doing as a means for everyone to acquire independence on their healing journey. This takes the form of preparing the medicines together as a group.
Amazonian Plants and Healing
According to the book "One River" by Wade Davis, 70% of the chemical medicine used in western cultures come from Amazonian plants. Ethnobotanists from Europe and America have been coming here for years to learn from medicine men (curanderos) how to treat people with plants. The plants are then sent to sophisticated laboratories abroad to extract the active compounds and subsequently produce synthetic drugs.
When doing this, many aspects go overlooked. These plants are complex entities with far more to offer than one or two molecules. When consuming them whole the effects are more balanced. Different parts from the plant can have different overall effects, and with some plants the time of day they are picked can influence the overall effect. It is also important to have a comfortable, safe, and natural setting to work within, and plenty of time for the changes to happen. Western allopathic medicine considers none of this, caring only for the active compounds.
When you take Kambo, Ayahuasca and/or Sananga in our centre, you take them in the context where they were born. Our center uses a traditional approach which has been passed down for generation to generation by curanderos supplemented by modern knowledge. During our healing retreats, we don’t just give you a pill and hope for the best. We provide healing ceremonies, research based protocols for the body and mind to process the experiences, high quality food to nourish the changes, and a supportive community to share wisdom and help contextualise the work.
At the Paojilhuasca Amazonian Medicine Center, both your body and your soul are taken into account, for deeper and long lasting results.
Paraíso & The Local Community
In just six years, Paojilhuasca has not only transformed the lives of hundreds of participants from around the world—it has also become a force for positive change in the local community. Every week, we buy fruit, hunted meat, and fresh fish from more than fifteen local families, supporting the village economy in a direct and sustainable way. We provide free internet access for local children, helping them learn English and expand their educational opportunities. We offer dignified work to both women and men, employing at least eight people daily and more during building projects.
Beyond employment, we engage with the village school to teach about environmental care and pollution, helping to preserve the jungle that gives us so much. And perhaps most importantly, the light that our guests awaken within themselves doesn’t stop at the gates of the center—it travels with them, touching others, inspiring good moods, and creating ripples of healing that extend to the people around them, including the local community. Paojilhuasca is more than a retreat—it is a living relationship between cultures, people, and nature.
Volunteers
We welcome all volunteers. We always have ongoing projects to work on and welcome those with initiatives of their own to bring their ideas and skills into the project.
