Don Ladimiro Murayari is a master curandero (traditional healer) born in the community of Santa Ana, Tamshiyacu, in the Peruvian Amazon near Iquitos. With over 55 years of practice, he is the spiritual guide and ceremonial anchor of Awkipuma Healing Center, a man whose knowledge of Amazonian plant medicine, icaros, and ancestral healing traditions has been shaped entirely by the jungle itself.
A Life Rooted in the Amazon
Don Ladimiro did not learn plant medicine from a book or a weekend course. He was born into a community where healing traditions passed from generation to generation through direct apprenticeship, ceremony, and years of solitary practice in the forest.
His training began in childhood, guided by elder curanderos who recognized in him a rare sensitivity to the plants. Over decades, he deepened his knowledge through dietas, extended periods of fasting, isolation, and direct communion with specific medicinal plants of the Amazon, each one teaching him its songs, its healing properties, and its spirit.
Today, after more than half a century of practice, Don Ladimiro holds mastery over more than 200 icaros, sacred healing songs in Amazonian Quechua and ancestral dialects of the region. These icaros are not performances. They are precise, learned transmissions that guide each ceremony, protect participants, and call upon the healing intelligence of the plants.
What Is a Curandero, and Why Does It Matter?
A curandero is not simply a shaman or a ceremony facilitator. The word, rooted in the Spanish verb curar (to heal), describes a practitioner of traditional medicine who works across physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of health.
In the Amazonian tradition Don Ladimiro comes from, a curandero earns their knowledge through years of Meet Don Ladimiro Murayari, master curandero with 55+ years of experience guiding ayahuasca ceremonies deep in the Peruvian Amazon at Awkipuma Healing Center.: ayahuasca, chacruna, ajo sacha, chiric sanango, and others. Each plant carries wisdom that reveals itself only through sustained, respectful relationship. There are no shortcuts.
This distinction matters when choosing an ayahuasca retreat. The global growth of interest in plant medicine has produced a wide spectrum of ceremony facilitators, ranging from deeply trained lineage holders to weekend-course graduates. Don Ladimiro represents the former: a practitioner whose authority comes from lived, multi-generational tradition.
The Role of Don Ladimiro in Each Ceremony
At Awkipuma, Don Ladimiro leads every ayahuasca ceremony personally. His presence is not ceremonial in the decorative sense. It is active and essential.
Before each session, he prepares the ayahuasca brew with intention and prayer, calling upon the plant spirits with specific icaros. During the ceremony, held in the traditional maloca built from natural Amazonian materials, he reads the energy of each participant and responds in real time, singing directly to individuals when the medicine calls him to do so, offering mapacho (sacred Amazonian tobacco) to cleanse energetic spaces, and holding the ceremonial container from beginning to end.
Participants who have sat with Don Ladimiro frequently describe moments of profound emotional release, visual clarity, and what many call a deep sense of being held, a quality that comes not from comfort, but from genuine, experienced guidance.
55 Years of Practice: What That Really Means
Fifty-five years of consistent ceremonial practice means something specific. It means Don Ladimiro has sat with hundreds, likely thousands, of participants across decades, through difficult journeys and transformative ones, with people carrying trauma, illness, spiritual crisis, and personal questions of every kind.
It means he has worked through periods when ayahuasca was practiced only within indigenous communities, long before the medicine became known internationally. His knowledge was not shaped by external demand or market interest. It was shaped by the Amazon, by the plants, and by the community he has served his entire life.
In Amazonian tradition, a healer of this experience level is sometimes referred to as a banco, a term indicating that the plants have fully accepted the practitioner as a vessel of their intelligence. This is not a title Don Ladimiro claims for himself. It is a quality recognized by those who have sat in ceremony with him.
Icaros: The Songs That Guide the Healing
One of the most distinctive elements of ceremony with Don Ladimiro is the icaros, and understanding them helps explain why his work goes beyond what most Western participants expect.
Icaros are not ambient music or therapeutic background sound. They are precise healing tools, each carrying a specific function: opening the ceremony, calling protective spirits, guiding a participant through difficult terrain, closing a healing process, or giving thanks. They are sung in Amazonian Quechua, the sacred language of the tradition, and sometimes in untranslated ancestral dialects that carry vibrational meaning independent of words.
Don Ladimiro’s mastery of over 200 icaros means he holds a living library of healing capacity that he draws from in real time, based on what each participant needs in each moment of the ceremony. This responsiveness, this ability to read and respond to the energy of each person, is the mark of a mature curandero, and it cannot be acquired quickly.
The Community of Tamshiyacu
Don Ladimiro’s healing work does not exist in isolation. He is rooted in the community of Santa Ana, in the centro poblado of Tamshiyacu, a small, traditional riverside community located approximately one hour from Iquitos by river.
This setting is itself part of the healing at Awkipuma. The Amazon rainforest is not a backdrop. In the tradition Don Ladimiro practices, the jungle is an active participant in every ceremony. The sounds of the river, the presence of the trees, the insects and birds that call through the night are all understood as part of the medicine holding each participant’s experience.
Participants who arrive at Awkipuma often note that the journey itself, the river crossing, the absence of urban infrastructure, the humidity and density of the forest, begins preparing them for ceremony before Don Ladimiro has spoken a single word.
Why Experience With a Lineage Holder Matters
Choosing to sit in an ayahuasca ceremony is a significant personal decision. The quality of that experience, particularly its safety, depth, and integration potential, depends enormously on the knowledge and integrity of the person holding the ceremony.
Don Ladimiro Murayari offers something that cannot be replicated by recently trained facilitators or tourist-oriented retreat centers: a living connection to an unbroken lineage of Amazonian plant medicine, transmitted across generations through direct practice and relationship with the plants themselves.
At Awkipuma, this means that every participant, regardless of their reason for coming, is guided by someone for whom this work is not a profession or a lifestyle. It is a calling, a service to the community, and a form of knowledge that the Amazon itself has entrusted to him over more than five decades.
Frequently Asked Questions About Don Ladimiro Murayari
Who is Don Ladimiro Murayari? Don Ladimiro Murayari is a master curandero born in Tamshiyacu, near Iquitos, Peru. He has more than 55 years of experience in traditional Amazonian plant medicine and leads all ayahuasca ceremonies at Awkipuma Healing Center.
How many years of experience does Don Ladimiro have? Don Ladimiro Murayari has over 55 years of experience practicing traditional Amazonian healing, including ayahuasca ceremonies, dietas with master plants, and the use of icaros as healing tools.
What are icaros and how does Don Ladimiro use them? Icaros are sacred healing songs in Amazonian Quechua and ancestral dialects. Don Ladimiro has mastered over 200 icaros, which he uses during ceremonies to guide each participant’s healing process, protect the ceremonial space, and communicate with plant spirits.
Is Don Ladimiro present in every ceremony at Awkipuma? Yes. Don Ladimiro personally leads every ayahuasca ceremony at Awkipuma. His direct presence throughout each session, from preparation to closing, is a defining characteristic of the center.
Where is Awkipuma located and how do I get there? Awkipuma Healing Center is located in the community of Santa Ana, Tamshiyacu, approximately one hour from Iquitos by river. Iquitos is accessible by plane from Lima. The center will coordinate your transport from Iquitos upon booking.
What retreat options are available with Don Ladimiro at Awkipuma? Awkipuma offers retreat programs of 2 days (1 ceremony), 3 days (2 ceremonies), and 4 days (3 ceremonies), all led by Don Ladimiro Murayari in the traditional maloca on the bank of the Amazon river.
