Embark on this well-being Peru retreat with other like-minded women to find inner peace and balance. All while exploring an incredibly beautiful part of Northern Peru and its communities.
During this 7-day trip, you will get to explore some of the less-visited hidden gems of Northern Peru. Learn about traditional agriculture, local weaving techniques, medicinal plants and the history of the Chachapoya culture. Moreover, you will get to visit different waterfalls and enjoy the beautiful landscapes of the region.
At the same time, you will be practicing mindfulness, gratitude and other important aspects throughout this tour. Every morning, and some evenings, we will guide you through a relaxing meditation to open up your mind and find tranquility. Let us guide you through this experience and help you disconnect, so that you can go back to your everyday life with precious newly gained values and strength.
Do you want to discover Northern Peru, but are not too much into mindfulness and meditations? In that case, you might want to have a look at the tour Searching for the lost kingdom of the Chachapoyas.
After arriving at the airport of Jaén, we will pick you up (at around 09:45) to start your well-being retreat in Peru. (Please, make sure to book your flight accordingly to arrive on time. We recommend you take the first flight of the day).
We will first head to the rural accommodation “Maray” in Churuja. This place is located just next to the Utcubamba river and opposite the impressive mountains of the Amazonian Andes. The perfect place to prepare our body and spirit for opening up and connecting to the present. We will leave every distraction aside to make sure we are ready for our well-being retreat in Peru.
After that, your hosts Teresa and her friends will happily share their local culinary art and culture with you. You will get the opportunity to experiment the use of some main artifacts of the pre hispanic cuisine, such as the “maray” or the Andean “batán” (a stone tool to grind ingredients). Moreover, you will get to know the most important aromatic plants of the local gastronomy.
Finally, after preparing your lunch, you can sit down and savor this local dish.
In the afternoon, get ready for an incredible walk towards the Aspachaca waterfall, located in the Churuja community and surrounded by the montane forest.
To finalize this first day, we will have an active meditation using pre-inca mandalas. You will stay in a rural accommodation tonight.
To start the day right, we will have a short morning meditation, helping you to visualize your intentions for your well-being experience with us.
After breakfast, we will head to the Cuemal community. This is a hidden treasure, where men and women work their terrains. At the main square of the town, you will be received by Hilaria and Edita. They will welcome you to start your experience in Cuemal, helping your to get rid of any bad energies and focus on the good.
Happily, they will pass on much of their knowledge to you: Their traditional ways of working the terrain with traditional tools, their nutrition habits, the importance of medicinal plants, how to connect with nature through songs and flowers, how the soil regenerates after the harvest, how their ancestors used to work the grounds, the importance of managing water supplies… and much more! On top of that, you will enjoy a delicious lunch in the countryside with Hilaria and Edita.
After this agricultural experience, you will make your way to Fundo Achamaqui, your hotel for tonight. Get some rest and enjoy the beautiful location, close to the riverbank of the Utcubamba river.
Today’s morning meditation aims to help us practice empathy and compassion towards other people, but also towards ourselves.
After breakfast, you are headed towards Yalape. These archaeological remains are located at 2.700 m above sea level (8.850 feet) and are about 700 to 900 years old. They are remnants left by the pre-Inca culture “Chachapoyas”, which had their settlement in this place in the period from 1100 to 1300 a.d.
The archaeological complex of Yalape is one of the most important places this culture left (next to the famous ruins of Kuelap), as of its extension and impressive agriculture. It is located strategically on the top of the Puma Urko mountain (mountain of the Puma). Take your time to admire this impressive ancient site.
When ready to leave Yalape, you will make your way to the private conservation area Milpuj – la Heredad, located in the Utcubamba valley. From here, you will walk to a huge ficus tree (higuerón), which is considered a sort of guardian. Legend has it that around such a ficus tree is also the territory of elves. These elves are loyal guardians of nature and sow medicinal plants to provide health.
When visiting the ‘higuerón’ guardian, we suggest you take a small plant as a gift with you. Use your energies to fill this plant with faith, approach the ficus tree with respect and leave your plant on its roots. While doing that, free yourself from your negative experiences, so that the ficus tree can bury them in its soil and give you back positive energies to help you achieve your dreams. The rest will be done by the elves!
After this spiritual ceremony, you will have an overnight stay at the house of Doña Lola in Milpuj La Heredad.
Let’s start the day with a meditation about the importance of going back to our origins and understand this capacity that we seem to have lost over time.
After breakfast, we invite you to discover the funeral customs of our ancestors, the Chachapoyas, by visiting the mausoleums of Revash. To get to the tombs, we will head towards the community of San Bartolo, the starting point for the hike towards the mausoleums.
Once arrived, you will get to see these burial places lying on steep slopes which seem inaccessible. People believe that these tombs have transformed into places of worship for our ancestors and the ‘Apus’ (mountain gods). The place is also surrounded by spectacular views.
Having admired the mausoleums for a while, you will continue your journey towards Leymebamba. Here, we will have an interesting fusion lunch. Try to pay attention to each smell and taste that you get to experience.
Later on, we will visit the Leymebamba museum. Here, different archaeological materials are exhibited that have been found at the mausoleums you visited before. More mummies are displayed, as well.
You can also learn about the war spirit of the Chachapoyas and how the Incas defeated them regardless. Different techniques used by the Chachapoya to prepare their deceased for eternal resting are shown, such as sarcophagus, niches and mausoleums. Finally, you can learn what a ‘Quipu’ is and admire a whole collection of them.
We will finish the day with a meditation and stay at the Casona de Leymebamba tonight.
Today, we will focus on creating relations, encounters and connections with the communities that surround us during the morning meditation.
After that, we will go to the town Dos de Mayo (2nd of May) to visit Isabel in her shop and workshop called “la Huayaquita”. You will get to know the history and origins of the local weaving techniques. You will participate in the whole process, starting from the extraction of the thread, to the coloring with native plants and finally the weaving process with different Chachapoya designs.
Next, you will have lunch and then we want to invite you to a little bit of a different activity: discover the art and creativity of coloring pre-Inca mandalas with us. Following the principles of mindfulness, we want to take you on a journey to your soul and creativity and give you the chance to express it on paper.
Lastly, we will finish the day with a meditation; this time our goal is to find our life purpose as benefactors. Tonight, you will stay at the Mamaq Tambo Lodge in Cocachimba.
Start the day with a morning meditation to cultivate gratitude before heading to the incredible Gocta waterfall.
You will start your 3 hour hike after a delicious breakfast, making sure not to miss the most beautiful viewpoints to see the spectacular waterfall.
On your way, you will get many opportunities to practice gratitude when having encounters with nature: from insects to butterflies, orchids and other flowers. If you are lucky enough, you might catch a glimpse of two beautiful birds: the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock and the Marvelous Spatuletail.
In the evening, you get to participate in a medicinal plants workshop and finalize with receiving a therapeutic massage. After that, you will surely get another restful night at the Mamaq Tambo Lodge.
Your last meditation will help you reflect on and accept everything you have lived so far in your life. We hope it will give you strength and gratitude that you can take as a last gift from this well-being retreat in Peru.
Savor a last delicious breakfast before we will take you back to the airport of Jaén, so that you can continue your trip through the rest of this beautiful country. End of the well-being Peru retreat.
We try to limit the use of single-use plastic to a minimum on this tour.
All our providers are locals and committed to the protection of the environment and our ancestral knowledge. By participating in workshops of agriculture, textiles and medicinal plants, you will also be part of that protection of ancestral knowledge.
The price you pay for this tour includes a donation to buy organic fertiliser, which will be used for reforestation projects. Thus, you also support the women who work as farmers and produce this fertilizer in the town of Cuemal (that you will visit on day 2).
Finally, we hope that we can contribute to a more healthy lifestyle and promote well-being among our visitors and make them feel better in the long run.
No, you don’t need any experience in these fields. You just need an open mind and spirit to experiment a fun way of connecting the here and now, and liberate yourself from any stress.
No, the treks you will do in one day are no longer than 6 hours and they have an intermediate level.
You can fly to Jaén from Lima. We recommend you take the first flight of the day for your arrival. To go back on day 7, choose a flight starting from 3 pm or later.
While traveling through different places on this tour, you should be prepared for any weather: strong sun, wind, rain, and cold during the nights. You might experience it all!
For questions about booking a tour, prices, preparation for your trip, health and safety or other themes, please check our Frequently Asked Questions page. If you can’t find your question & answer, email us and we’ll add it!
Marilyn was born in Leymebamba and studied tourism. She is our greatest partner in the Amazonas region, knowing every corner of its geography and its people, and understanding our way of doing things with responsibility, because she believes that the benefits of tourism should be distributed in a fair way, recuperating the forests and ancestral wisdom.
Our relationship has many years in the count since she was selling trips around Chachapoyas from the headquarters she founded herself, Café Fusiones, the best coffee place in the city and the best example of a fairtrade shop. Now she lives in Spain, but often visits her birthplace in Peru to always innovate and create tourism products that are transformative, regenerative, and sustainable.
