This project is dedicated to preserving the land, plants, spirits, teachings, and legacy of Javier Reguiero and Don Francisco Montes Shuña. Ayaruna Gardens is a botanical preserve in the Peruvian Amazon, with over 50 years of history as a sanctuary for sacred medicines and medicine traditions of the Amazon jungle. It is dedicated to the memory of my late teacher, Javier Reguiero, who passed away in 2021 while we were completing a joint purchase of this property to continue his work and legacy. We bought it from his (and now my) teacher, Don Francisco Montes Shuña, who cared for and taught plant medicine on the land for over 30 years, and we have been building up and improving the core infrastructure to modern standards for the last 5 years. To date, we have a sustainable fish farm, a variety of local fruits and vegetable growing in our jungle garden, full solar array and refrigeration, fresh crystal clear stream water and fully bugnet enclosed communal houses on our base site, which can now be driven into…in addition of course to the original native medicine plants growing around the property! Our next phase will be building very rustic guest cabanas which will be used for our week long isolation plant dietas on the other part of the property, which is a 20 minute walk into the jungle from our base, set around a mangrove pond full of aguage fruits, ancient medicine trees, surrounded by hundreds of ayahuasca vines, and haumbisa / chacruna planted by our maestro many years ago. This configuration gives our guests the ability to spend 5 or more days at a time fully immersed in jungle isolation, doing old school shamanic healing and learning plant dietas, which can be stacked over weeks or even months, and broken up by a quick walk (but no so quick as to be overly tempting ;) to the big communal house to do laundry, send and receive digital communications, eat a good meal, and connect with other humans. Our setup also has the added bonus of being very close walking distance to my friend and teacher, Don Francisco, only 15 minutes away. This allows for those seeking long term dietas and apprenticeship with Don Francisco to take advantage of our modern and comfortable facilities to pursue deeper education on a variety of jungle plants that is currently outside the scope of our retreat offerings. We are seeking and open to investors, partners, retreat leaders and volunteers of all kinds!
