3.0
Verified
3 day retreat
Highly recommended, but also some things what were not ok and A LOT OF FUSTRATION:
Zoom-meeting beforehand was almost completely missed, because of unclear things. This is Sacha Wasi is Ecuadorian, but somehow organized from the United States. US is not mentioned anywhere, but they used US time zones for meeting, despite this supposed to be located in Ecuador. I was frustrated, because i was in Ecuador. Not anyhow though that i should adjust my brain to think as an American ( I am from Europe).
I was already quite close to the jungle and asked if i could catch along the way that same taxi, as rest of my group was using for transportation from the airport. Driver was Sacha Wasi's own Andrea. He said that it was ok, but in the last moment he asked me 20$ extra. I refused, because driver was already paid to do that trip. I wanted to share the costs with other participant which was in the taxi, but driver refused. Then he said that if i take my own taxi from Puyo, it costs 25$. He was scamming.
Michelle, the volunteer said that they have fixed price 13$ from Puyo and driver knows that. I told that to the driver and then he told that 13$ is ok for him. It was nonsense, because he was already paid! I felt totally scammed and took my own taxi with 10$ from Puyo bus station. When taxi go me there, suddenly he asked me to pay 15$ and was very angry. I felt insecure so i paid that after a while i tried to negotiate. Anyway, Sacha Wasi drivers are not official taxis. Some of them, including Andrea seems to be about 18 year old boys, not very experienced drivers by age.
Not by any means good start for the retreat.
Then, if you wanted to purchase something extra from the community, everything was extremely overpriced compared to what is normal in Ecuador. I guess that they can charge whatever they want, because they interact only with "rich gringos". And yes, surprisingly they did not accept card payments on site, even though we were informed beforehand, that card is possible.
Then the seremonies:
First Ayahuasca session was super amazing experience. They used many instruments to play gentle music through the night and there were a lot of staff.
On the second session, i was expecting the same but almost all the staff left immediately after the start and we were left in the silence. I did not liked it at all, because music was so important to make the trip deeper. We were told afterwards, that it was planned to make experience different. For me it felt like their laziness especially, because i was so suprised in the beginning of the trip when i noticed this arrangement.
Somebody also had changed the wifi passwords and i was unable to connect wifi. Daily schedules were sent by whatsapp during the weekend so i was unable to receive these. Somehow, we ended to wait multiple times 15-40 min part of the group because not everybody was aware that they should be somewhere.
Afterall, staff was super nice, and you can read other reviews to look why this place is highly recommended and perfect for the first timer.
Zoom-meeting beforehand was almost completely missed, because of unclear things. This is Sacha Wasi is Ecuadorian, but somehow organized from the United States. US is not mentioned anywhere, but they used US time zones for meeting, despite this supposed to be located in Ecuador. I was frustrated, because i was in Ecuador. Not anyhow though that i should adjust my brain to think as an American ( I am from Europe).
I was already quite close to the jungle and asked if i could catch along the way that same taxi, as rest of my group was using for transportation from the airport. Driver was Sacha Wasi's own Andrea. He said that it was ok, but in the last moment he asked me 20$ extra. I refused, because driver was already paid to do that trip. I wanted to share the costs with other participant which was in the taxi, but driver refused. Then he said that if i take my own taxi from Puyo, it costs 25$. He was scamming.
Michelle, the volunteer said that they have fixed price 13$ from Puyo and driver knows that. I told that to the driver and then he told that 13$ is ok for him. It was nonsense, because he was already paid! I felt totally scammed and took my own taxi with 10$ from Puyo bus station. When taxi go me there, suddenly he asked me to pay 15$ and was very angry. I felt insecure so i paid that after a while i tried to negotiate. Anyway, Sacha Wasi drivers are not official taxis. Some of them, including Andrea seems to be about 18 year old boys, not very experienced drivers by age.
Not by any means good start for the retreat.
Then, if you wanted to purchase something extra from the community, everything was extremely overpriced compared to what is normal in Ecuador. I guess that they can charge whatever they want, because they interact only with "rich gringos". And yes, surprisingly they did not accept card payments on site, even though we were informed beforehand, that card is possible.
Then the seremonies:
First Ayahuasca session was super amazing experience. They used many instruments to play gentle music through the night and there were a lot of staff.
On the second session, i was expecting the same but almost all the staff left immediately after the start and we were left in the silence. I did not liked it at all, because music was so important to make the trip deeper. We were told afterwards, that it was planned to make experience different. For me it felt like their laziness especially, because i was so suprised in the beginning of the trip when i noticed this arrangement.
Somebody also had changed the wifi passwords and i was unable to connect wifi. Daily schedules were sent by whatsapp during the weekend so i was unable to receive these. Somehow, we ended to wait multiple times 15-40 min part of the group because not everybody was aware that they should be somewhere.
Afterall, staff was super nice, and you can read other reviews to look why this place is highly recommended and perfect for the first timer.
