Building The Huachuma Project: How Experience Changed the Way We Work

When I first stood in the valley that is now home to The Huachuma Project, I did not have a detailed plan for what it would become. There were plenty of reasons not to take it on. The land needed a huge amount of work, the buildings had been neglected, and almost everything I looked at seemed to lead to another job.

Up until then, I had been holding retreats at other people's venues, moving between locations and adapting the work to whatever space was available. Continuing that way would have been easier, and I almost talked myself out of the valley more than once. But I kept coming back to the same idea. I did not want another place that could host a retreat. I wanted somewhere permanent, built around the work itself.

Using other venues had shown me how much the environment affected what happened during a retreat. The ceremony space, the surrounding land, where people slept, where they could be alone, how the group moved through the days and how much interruption came from the outside world all shaped the experience. I wanted the freedom to build those things properly and to create a place that reflected how I wanted to work with Huachuma. At the time, I could see the possibility. I had no idea how much work it would take to get there.

Building a Home for the Work

The Huachuma Project developed piece by piece. There were buildings to repair, land to clear, infrastructure to create and a retreat space to build while normal life carried on around it. Some stages moved quickly, while others dragged on far longer than I expected because one job had a habit of uncovering several more.

There were periods when money was tight, and the amount still left to do felt larger than everything already completed. There were also moments when something I had imagined for months finally became real, making the effort feel worth it.

The ceremony yurt was one of those moments. I had pictured a dedicated space for Huachuma for a long time, somewhere built here on the land and connected to the rest of the retreat, rather than being borrowed for a weekend and handed back afterwards.

Building the place also forced me to apply some of the ideas I had spoken about in ceremony to my own life. Patience, honesty, responsibility and commitment sound straightforward when discussed in the context of somebody else's experience. They feel different when you have to keep turning up to a difficult project, make decisions without knowing whether they are the right ones, admit when something has not worked and carry on when progress feels slow. That part of building THP has changed me as much as the retreats themselves.

The project has never been mine alone. Christina has been beside me through the development of the valley and the retreats themselves. She has helped shape the way the place feels, looked after guests, supported the practical side of running retreats, and carried out parts of the project that most visitors will never see.

Maddy arrived later but became part of life here almost immediately, and anyone who has stayed with us will know she now has her own place in the valley.

Friends, guests and people connected to the project have also contributed work, ideas, time and support. What exists here now came together through all of those relationships as much as through anything I imagined at the beginning.

How My Approach Changed

While the physical place was taking shape, my approach to the work was changing too. In the earlier stages of THP, I worked with more than one medicine. Kambo was an important part of what I offered for a long time, and I also have experience working with and serving Ayahuasca. Those parts of my work contributed to the facilitator I became.

What changed was where I wanted to place my attention. The more time I spent working with Huachuma, the more I saw how much variation there was between people, groups and ceremonies. I became less interested in adding new elements and more interested in understanding the same body of work better.

Eventually, I stopped offering Kambo through THP. We also decided not to add Ayahuasca to the retreats, despite receiving regular enquiries asking whether the two could be combined. I had reached a point where I wanted my responsibility as a facilitator to be centred on a single medicine and a single body of work.

That choice affected much more than the ceremonies. It changed how I thought about screening, preparation, group size, the retreat environment and what happens after somebody goes home.

Earlier on, I assumed that development meant adding more. More practices, more options, and more in the programme could make a retreat feel more complete. Experience changed that. I started asking a different question: Does this actually improve the way we work?

Some things stayed. Some disappeared. Others became more central.

How the Retreat Changed With Us

Focusing the project on Huachuma also changed how people joined us and how I thought about the group itself. We stopped offering instant booking and began speaking with everybody before confirming a place. I wanted to know who was coming, why they were considering Huachuma, what was happening in their life and whether there were any health, medication or other concerns that needed to be discussed beforehand.

Over time, I became more comfortable saying no when I had concerns and stopped treating every enquiry as something that needed to become a booking. There are people I have spoken with whom I felt should wait, and others whose circumstances made the retreat unsuitable. I would rather be clear about that before somebody books flights and travels to Portugal than ignore something that does not feel right because there is space available.

I also became more aware of how much the people within a retreat affect one another. Everyone arrives with a different life, personality and reason for being there, but they spend several days sharing the same environment and ceremony space. Keeping the groups small allows me to get to know more about who is joining us and gives me greater capacity to be available when someone needs support.

The same attention now extends across the whole retreat. Reparation begins before arrival, there is space around the ceremony days for people to rest and talk, and support remains available once they return home. Everyone who attends THP has access to lifetime integration support, but that does not mean I tell somebody what their experience meant. I can listen, ask questions and offer perspective from my experience while leaving the interpretation of their ceremony with them.

These changes developed through experience. I saw where parts of the retreat could be improved, where more care was needed and where I needed to be clearer about the responsibility I was taking on as a facilitator.

What The Huachuma Project Is Today

When I look at THP now, I can still see the original idea. I wanted to create a permanent home for Huachuma, and that has not changed. What has changed is my understanding of what should happen around the medicine.

Some things I once considered part of the project are no longer here. Other parts have become much more important. The groups are smaller, screening is more deliberate, and the work is now focused entirely on Huachuma.

The website has changed for the same reason. I wanted it to reflect the project as it exists now and to be clearer about the limits of what we claim. We do not promise that Huachuma will heal somebody, cure a mental health condition or produce a specific transformation. I cannot predict what somebody will experience, and I do not believe a facilitator should decide what an experience means for the person having it.

What I can take responsibility for is who I welcome, how I prepare people, how the retreat is held, the environment we create, how I respond when somebody struggles and whether support remains available after they leave. That feels like a much clearer definition of my role than I had when I started.

When I first came to the valley, I imagined building a place where I could work with Huachuma without continually moving between other people's retreat centres. I achieved that part before I fully understood the kind of project I wanted to build around it.

Today, the direction feels clearer: a permanent place dedicated to Huachuma, small groups, careful screening and preparation, experienced facilitation and ongoing support after the retreat.

The land is still developing, and so is my understanding of the work. I do not expect either of those things to ever feel completely finished, but I no longer feel pressure to keep expanding what THP offers. There is enough depth in the work we already do to keep learning from it for a long time.

When I think back to standing in the valley before any of this existed, the reason I stayed feels easier to understand now. I wanted to build a home for this work, and that is still what I am building.