The Buena Vida

This was the perfect first retreat for my wife and I. Well organized from airport pickup to drop off. The preparatory meetings were thorough and helpful. The venue was serene and peaceful with excellent food. The facilitators were all genuine and enthusiastic and made it a very comfortable and safe experience. The follow up integration was well lined out and very helpful in getting the full benefit of the retreat. I would recommend this retreat without reservation.
RD Marks

To say that my time with The Buena Vida was a life changing experience would be an understatement. Amanda and her team of compassionate facilitators made cared for during my entire stay. I felt loved, valued and seen exactly as I was and met incredible people who quickly became lifelong friends.

They took the time to answer all of my questions, provided delicious & nutritious meals, and took me deeper into self-care than I could have ever dreamed possible. I feel like I am finally beginning to heal and for that I cannot thank them enough.

You will be treated with the utmost love and care at The Buena Vida. I highly recommend their retreats and cannot wait to attend another one for myself.

To Amanda and the rest of The Buena Vida Team: I love you, I love you, I love you!

Amanda and her team of gentle healers are masters in their craft. The care and attention to detail to provide a beautiful, safe space puts to rest any fears of the unknown. Every question was answered, every need met, every uncertainty soothed. I felt so completely safe and free to let my guard down, to do important self-work, knowing that she had my back. What an amazing experience to witness such powerful holders of space who provide a loving and compassionate environment to allow one to explore this mysterious world of the inner self.

Amanda Schendel of The Buena Vida has always provided the sparkle, next level excitement and Fiesta Spirit to the spaces she moves through around the world. I've had the privilege of being a very close friend, confidant and sister with her for exactly 16 years.

5 years ago to this day we held a "Happiness Retreat" in the Catskills, impossibly only 2 hours from our Alphabet City NYC apartment. Neither of us had ever meditated but we had a deep deep intuition that planning and pulling off a weekend Meditation Retreat was already written in our stars. It was the perfect tiny, cozy and incredibly POTENT weekend.

It launched us toward Ecuador (this would be a return trip for Amanda) for an education in Indigenous ways of connection and healing through ceremony and before walking further into our own individual paths in the spiritual work space.

The Buena Vida has always had its roots planted in the spirits of warm community & playful curiosity and over the last years Amanda built and cultivated a process and a space to heal like none other. Her deep respect for the Psilocybin & Mushroom spirit, for ceremony and for Spirit Plant Medicine is so very evident in her retreats.

The food is always healing in itself, nourishing, locally sourced and colorful. The locations and accommodations are the perfect mix of stunning, comfortable and rejuvenating. She works with experienced facilitators from around the globe who provide integration workshops and bring their personal magic to each ceremony during retreat.

She makes sure to honor the people, culture and countryland of Mexico where she holds most of her gatherings and lives through a myriad of ways which truly resonates with me personally. Her warm spirit and enthusiasm make it so no one feels left out, ignored or out of place. It feels like a party but right alongside that you're doing the deepest work of your LIFE, it's really the perfect balance.

Amanda is not just a master of ceremony in regular life, she's a Medicine Woman with a deep grasp of ceremony in her spiritual life.
Her powerfully sweet voice and connection with her trusty booming drum really do call in healing vibrations! It's so full of spirit in these ceremonies you can almost touch it. And she has worked to step into this powerful gift!

She spent many years managing some of the top plant medicine retreats around the world and has held space in and for numerous ceremonies. She worked as an event planner for the 16 years I've known her and She also does her OWN INNER work. Shes has mucked through the trenches of her Spirit and flown to see her greatest potentials.
Ceremony, intention, feminine energy, experience: all of these absolutely make a difference when working with plant medicine. The Buena Vida is Amanda's spiritual extension of her healing spirit and it is very potent, luxuriously lovely and very respectful and True.

If you're working in the Spirit Medicine space you've GOT to have a few friends/colleagues like this one and if you're looking to heal in the Spirit Medicine space you've GOT to do it in a setting that vibrates like this one.

My experience was overall wonderful. I did my research and felt that trying psilocybin was something that I really wanted to do for personal growth and self-understanding. Amanda and her team did a fantastic job of integrating the entire experience in very meaningful and comfortable ways. I was one of 14 participants that began the retreat as strangers to one another. When we left we had become a close knit family which included the leader, Amanda, and her guides. Once I was there, I had no anxiety about what I was about to do. The ceremonies using the mushrooms were artistic as well as transcendent. Each participant had meaningful experiences that appeared to ameliorate internal conflicts they had been facing. My experiences from the three ceremonies gave me internal insight and a new outlook regarding personal struggles I have been dealing with for years. I felt immediate relief from nagging anxiety and minor depression. I expect that the plant medicine will continue to provide me with a fresh and more optimistic outlook on my future. As Amanda noticed, when I left I exhibited a glow that has been absent for a long time. - Steve Siry