083 Sam Believ: Founder of LaWayra Ayahuasca Retreat Center

Sam Believ, founder of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat center in Colombia, shares his journey and experiences with ayahuasca. He discusses the challenges and complexities of running a retreat center and emphasizes the importance of patience and healing in the ayahuasca process. Sam also talks about the rebranding of Colombia from cocaine to ayahuasca and the potential for the country to become a destination for psychedelic tourism.

Sam is also the host of Ayahuasca Podcast.

Sam's Info:
Retreat Center Website: https://ayahuascaincolombia.com/
Listen to Ayahuasca Podcast: https://ayahuascapodcast.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawayra_ayahuasca/

This episode is Sponsored by Fun Guy. Discover the incredible power of Kanna - known for its mood-enhancing properties that aid in supporting feelings of euphoria, reducing stress, promoting relaxation, and providing a subtle energy lift - through Fun Guy's delicious kanna-infused chocolates, gummies, and tinctures. Order at this link* and use code TRIPSITTING for 15% off your order: https://funguy.com?sca_ref=6166895.8eWv64zfLX

*This is an affiliate link. Ordering through this link provides us with a small percentage of your sales to help support the podcast

If you are interested in sponsoring an episode of The TripSitting Podcast, send an email to tripsittingblog@gmail.com

Be sure to share with a friend and subscribe so you never miss my latest posts :)

Watch on YouTube
Follow on Instagram
Follow on TikTok

Transcript

Today's episode of the trip sitting podcast is sponsored by fun guy. Fun guy uses Kanna, which is a succulent from South Africa known for its mood enhancing stress relieving and potentially euphoria inducing effects. Sometimes it's referred to as nature's MDMA. They've taken that Kanna and they've blended it in fruit shoes, chocolates, and now tinctures.

for you to use if you want to go out and maybe not drink as much, or if you're just chilling at home and, want to relax a little bit, fun guys got everything that you need. We've actually had the founder Phoebe on the podcast before. So if you're interested, make sure that you use the link in the footnotes of this podcast to go to their website and then use code trip sitting for 15 % off. Again, please use the link in the footnotes of this podcast.

And then use code trip sitting for 15 % off your order of fun guy products. Sam Believ is the founder of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat center in Columbia. and I had the pleasure of meeting him a few weeks ago by, I was actually on his podcast, which is called the Ayahuasca podcast. So be sure to go check that out. and we just hit it off and he's really passionate about,

educating people about ayahuasca, about its benefits, about how to properly, you know, interact with the substance. And, he's doing really, really good work. So, I was really happy to have him on the podcast to share more about his story and, educate me a little bit more on ayahuasca in Columbia.

Make sure that you are following the Tripsitting Podcast, whatever platform that you're streaming this on. And if you feel called to do so, please give us a rating so that way the algorithm gods can get us in front of some more viewers. And then also make sure you're following us on social media at underscore Tripsitting underscore. That's all I got for you. So here is Sam.

My friend of mine, Marcus, he's the guy who helps us with marketing. He's like, that's the most difficult business model there exists. Like he worked in different kinds of businesses and he's like, this is so difficult because you're running a hotel, you're running a restaurant, you're running a spiritual retreat, a transportation company, like psychological support, marketing, social media. Like it's so, so complex and there's so many moving parts. But in my case, I'm also

running a farm and like a physical retreat, which is like 10 acres and there's trees, trees I need to plant. And like we had this big avalanche in the river where like stones just were rolling down the river and like destroying vegetation. It's like, it's a once in every, like once in a lifetime event. Nobody got hurt because we're like far away from the river, but it's like now I need to like figure out how to fix everything.

This is lots and lots on my mind that I'm not sure if that's what you wanted to hear. Not really. That's exactly what I want to hear because that's cause that's fucking real. Yeah. you know, I think that there's maybe this idea that, you know, running a retreat center is like this really glorious job. That's, always, you know, you're, you know, you're around ayahuasca and it's always spiritual and amazing and joyful, but like, you know, there's real things

that you have to deal with while these retreats are going on, like the things that happen in the background of the retreat to make everything run smoothly, people that are experiencing the retreats don't notice. And if it's done well, they don't notice it at all. know, sometimes they might notice it a little bit, but it's tough work. you know, I think people need to understand that it is work trying to put these together and all of the logistics that are involved with it.

How many? Our team is like 20, 23 people, not including like construction people. So right now we have about 30 people I need to kind of manage, make sure everyone is doing the right thing. And yeah, it's a difficult one. But I think that I like to say that for those who aspire to start a retreat, if you want to do it for money purposes, there's many other easier ways to make money.

But if you're doing it for, because you have a calling, then it's a great thing to do. Yeah. When did you, so when did you start, LaWyra? Is it, is it LaWyra or is it, or is it LaWyra? How do you pronounce it? LaWyra. LaWyra. LaWyra. I like to say it's la and then y and then ra. LaWyra. When did, so yes, when did you start the retreat center? We actually

exactly three years ago. we are, it's right now, it's July 2024. We started in July 2021. So we're, I think maybe we're like a week ago from doing complete three years. But so I, but back then I didn't start now Oscar retreat. It might sound a little confusing. What, what happened? We just, it was,

my desire to drink medicine from home. It was this plus a synchronistic opportunity that a person wanted to rent my, it's called Finca in Columbia, but what it is is like little farmhouse with some grass and stuff like that. I was renting rooms in it and a guy showed up and he wanted to rent my space to do an ayahuasca ceremony there. And this was the period where I was pretty depressed and like directionless in life. I was like, wow, this is really synchronistic.

And then we started doing this and then he, he actually did this thing where instead of renting the place to do the retreat, he was like, you organize everything and I'm just going to come and give the medicine, which was his way of trying not to pay me. in the end, he kind of gave me the keys to like, okay, you're, you're, you're in charge. And then from then on, it just started growing and there was, there was a lot of

involved on my side and also on my wife's side because we started with my wife. So there's a lot of work but at the same time it was also lot of synchronicities. So basically every every big direction change it was synchronistic. Something would happen so I pay a lot of attention to anything that's happening that seems synchronistic

all the work was done by me and my wife. So we basically just sit there and observe and we act accordingly. I don't know if it makes any sense but I have a plan, I have a direction I'm going to but I realize that it can change any moment. And I'm actually now once again in that stage of like rethinking and... but like I do it probably once a year. But yeah, long story short, we started three years ago. First year was

one maybe once a month, one week in the month. And then it started to be one week a month. And then now we're doing 18 days every month. Damn, 18 days a month, every single month. That is work, my friend. And mind that the other time in between is not rest. Like for example, now I'm on a podcast with you. I tried to schedule all the stuff. I have my own podcast as well. As you know, I do like at least an episode a week.

all the construction, all the stuff, and we have three kids. Like we have two kids, three years old and a year, three and a half and two. And then we have another girl, she's about to be born in August. So don't know, man. Some days I think that if not for occasionally I was going to drink myself, I'd probably get burned out like by now. So. Yeah, I mean, that's a real thing. What's a how did you end up in Colombia to begin

So I took a year off. was working in offshore oil and gas. I was really successful financially. Back then, was like six years ago, I was making like 500 bucks a day, tax free, living in a country where this is like monthly wage. So I was balling, I was successful, I had this career and everything, relationship, everything you asked for. But I was like, deep inside, I was really unhappy. And I was like, what the hell is wrong? Society tells you,

do the career and you do all this stuff and then you're be happy once you achieve it. And was like, okay, so I my own apartment, I have a nice car, girlfriend, the career is like, why am I so miserable? So I started asking those questions and then I realized that maybe what I wanna do is like travel, do something that will make me happy. And around the same time, synchronistically, so once again, they started like lowering wages at the company I was working at because like...

oil prices were going down or something like that. And I saw it as an opportunity. Also, I was like kind of fighting with my girlfriend. So I just kind of quit my life and I went to, took like a sabbatical, like a one year off to like travel. And I always wanted to go to South America, but like going from Europe to South America is really difficult and expensive because it's kind of far away. So if you go there, you might as well go for a long time. So I went for a year. My plan was to do Columbia, Ecuador, Peru.

Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and then come back. But then I did three months in Colombia, two months in Peru, one month in Ecuador, and then I got called to work again and I was kind of running out of money so I did that. And when the time came for me to come back, I was like, I realized the further I went from Colombia, especially Medellín specifically, the less I enjoyed it. So I just came back straight to Medellín. And for a few years I was spending six months in Europe, six months in Colombia, Medellín specifically.

until I met my wife and I just never left. How long ago was I first came to Columbia eight years ago and I was here on and off, like five years ago, I basically settled here and never left. So yeah, 2016 was when I arrived to Columbia. There was actually an interesting story, which I like to tell. Sometimes we have, so we call people that come to the retreat patients and I can explain you why, but

When they come over, some of them like they experience like friction on their way here. Something is not working and they think like, maybe it's a bad omen and I should give up and not come. And I explained to them that when I was coming to Columbia for the first time, I actually lost my passport on a layover in JFK and I never lose anything. Like I never lose stuff and I just lost my passport, which was terrifying, terrible. I had to fly back to Latvia when I went from originally make a new passport and then still come

still do the trip and come again losing a lot of money changing my plans completely but i was like no you know what i set out to come to columbia i'm gonna come to columbia and now like columbia i have this life here kids family business everything like full picture so it's like sometimes the resistance comes because it tries to tell you you're not in the right path but sometimes the resistance means it's like are you sure you're ready like can you can you take it and then if you if you overcome it a lot of good things

come through. So for me, this whole journey was really difficult and, but I overcame it and I have a good life. So, but, you know, challenges keep, keep coming up. think I forgot the original question. Yeah, man, we're, we're, we're doing good. So when was the first time then that you then drank Ayahuasca? I first drank maybe four and a half years ago, something like that. was, yeah, I was already with my wife currently.

We had, she was, got pregnant and we lost our first baby. So she had the miscarriage at like month three, which, got me really miserable. I think I cried for the first time in like 10 years. was, in, this, mental state. And then I was, I was already curious about it. I was kept back then and I, was kind of like seeking for direction in life and all this together. And then the opportunity presented itself and I went to this, like, one.

one ceremony like stand alone, one ceremony like Colombian style where you get like 80 people and you basically show up, they give you the cup, you drink it, you have your experience and you leave. Like bring your own mattress. And it was actually my first experience was it was really like I connected immediately with the medicine. It was very visual. It was very beautiful. There was a lot of stuff and mine like back then, you know, I would still consider it a drug and I never, never did drugs. So for me it was a big, big leap.

to actually do something like that but there was definitely this calling I was 50 % sure I'm gonna die but I still did it. And I think I remember that I thought like, this is a nice experience but whatever, right? You do it once in lifetime and you just move on. shortly after that, about a few months after that, I started changing my life gradually and I didn't really connect it to the Siawask experience at first.

till about few months ago where I found this video that I made for this YouTube channel that I never started setting goals for next year, next few years where I listed this list of things that I wanted to achieve and it all became reality like stuff that was unachievable for me back then and I think something that happened to me in this medicine experience was when I for some reason stopped doubting myself and just started

believing myself and I just set those goals and just started making them become a reality. Man, that's awesome.

man, that's really interesting that like it wasn't even like planned for you. Did you do any sort of preparation like before that first experience or like, did you literally just show up and they just gave you a cup and you left? So they say like here in those ceremonies, there was really relaxed rules. they didn't give me much instruction, something about the diet. And I was like, yeah, I ate this a few days ago. They're like, yeah, as long as you don't eat it like today, you're fine.

So I was kind of worried about that as well. But it was, I maybe had two days to prepare at most. And then I was straight in it and I was lucky that I connected because now I know that not everyone connects on their first ceremony. And it was one ceremony thing and I only had one cup and I went straight in deep, deep. So I think that what makes me realize maybe I had to connect. It was like urgent.

I needed to step on the path. It almost felt like it was waiting for me. And then after that, maybe six months later, I went in the ceremony again. And then I think it was when COVID started. So we moved to the countryside and I started drinking medicine.

like every weekend I would be trying to find some of those ceremonies, standalone places to go and I was, because I was getting depressed at that moment because everything that I was planning and setting out, wasn't like working. And also, like I didn't have direction in life, so I didn't want to go back to offshore oil and gas. I also didn't know what to do really, but our first kid was on the way.

And I was like kind of feeling as a failure of a man because I was like, I didn't know what I'm going to do. How am going to provide? Even though I had like pretty good setup, I bought this apartment, met a gene from my savings and I was renting it and kind of living through passive income. But it this kind of early retirement where you live very humbly, but you don't really need to do anything for me. Like I know some people really desire it. And sometimes I find myself now when I'm so busy that I really want that feeling

not having much responsibilities for me he was like a death blow it completely made me feel completely useless and really really depressed so this is what got me into ayahuasca again but but this time i was not just like let me just try this thing i was really seeking it for healing my intentions were like help me find direction in life and then started feeling this calling to want to go to the jungle like i just

for some reason I was like I need to go to the jungle drink medicine in the jungle I'm going to the jungle I don't remember where it came from and I was trying to get some connections to find somebody so that when I go I'm not gonna be there you know by myself and actually found this one lady so there's Titus in Colombia there's Titus and there's Maima so Titus are male shamans and Maima's are female shamans so this Maima that said she should probably receive me she was really busy and very mystical it's really hard to plan stuff with

shamans there. not really on time. They don't necessarily follow the same organized rules that the rest of society follows. As I like to say, they live on a different time zone. Time for them is also somewhat psychedelic. But I had this agreement that I'm going to go and drink with her. And then this guy that I was talking to you about who came over to rent my space, he came to see the Finca that I was living in. He's like, yeah, it's good. It's going

It's functions for me. I'm going to rent it and do the ceremony. But first I'm going to, when we come back from the jungle, I'm like, what do mean you're going to the jungle? was like, I'm here trying to go. Do you know anyone? He's like, yeah, we're going. have this whole trip plan. So I just joined him, which was another synchronicity. And then the second ceremony. So first ceremony of me in the jungle, I was actually drinking with the tight, who's my Titan out to retreat. He's been with us for like a year before that we worked with his uncle.

And then this second ceremony I get this big download. I think it was my seventh ever ceremony. It just hit me like everything dissolved. was like universe was showing me how it works and it was showing me how to heal people with my hands. And I was like, you know, I'm an engineer. I'm this non religious, non spiritual person. I'm just here trying to heal my depression.

Like back then I would see medicine as like, yeah, there's this compound that does something to your brain and resets it. You feel good afterwards. Like, yeah, that's it. And then it was like showing me like, do this and energies and vibrations and mother earth and like angels and like it was a crazy experience. then, so I really, it really left me like it gave me direction. So it specifically told me like, if you don't work with medicine,

you will never be happy. was like, it was one of the messages, but there were many. And it left me like with this direction that I was looking for, but it was completely unexpected. So, and then I came back and then we started organizing ceremonies and later they know here we are. But once again, I feel like I'm losing the thread of your original question. Dude, I don't even know what these questions are. Like that's kind of the whole point of this podcast is that it just goes off wherever the hell

decides to go off and the conversation just continues to, continues to go from there. So I do want to go back to one thing that you said earlier, it was the fact that people that come to your retreat center, you refer to them as patients. Yeah. Why is that? The reason we call them patients is because number one, one of the first things I tell them when they arrive, they're, they're not going to be any drugs during this retreat, only medicine. Cause ayahuasca has been a medicine for thousands of years.

It's only been called a drug for like last 50. So medicine, patient. Number two, patient comes from a word, And we really want people to be patient. We like patients, patients, patients, because a lot of people, want to come and they want to have this drug experience. They want their mind to be blown and they want to see visions. But as some type of say, if you want to see pretty pictures, go to the cinema. Like ayahuasca is not about visions. Visions

just a side effect. Like there's much more important things that are happening that are not even visual. And so this is why I would tell people have patience because it's also not for everyone on the first ceremony they're gonna break through and have this amazing life changing experience. A lot of times it's, it takes few ceremonies for the medicine to like scan you, purge you, clean you out till when you're ready to establish that connection.

So all of that nicely ties into the word patient and also like, it's you're here to heal. You're here to heal. You're not here to have a fun experience. And I think that it can be fun though. You're allowed to have fun, right? You're allowed to have fun. And there will be moments where it is a lot of fun. And the way we structure our one week retreat is it's three nights ceremonies, one day break and one day ceremony. And the day ceremonies tend to

celebratory because you see all this beautiful nature around you and flowers and butterflies and you're you've already clicked cleaned out and Reset so much you're in such a mental space where you like you can truly appreciate the beauty of the mother earth So celebration is fine, but it's like you need to understand that at lawyera our motto is actually connect heal grow It's like you could you connect here first to the medicine connect to yourself connect to the

connect to the nature, to God, then you heal physically, mentally, spiritually, release all the stuff and then you grow. But in that growth part you can also add that the part of it is just feeling the joy of life. Like a lot of people that come to the retreat they say like, yeah, the grass is no longer green, like everything is just muffled and I don't know what I'm here for, I

this desire for life, this spice, you know, and this is what medicine helps you to reconnect with and then people can see it. there will be moments, sometimes there's like, for some reason, there's like this wave of laughter that just goes through the ceremony and everyone laughs and then comes to normal. But like, you don't want to skip any steps in that connect, heal, grow, paradigm. Some people just want to skip to the grow part. They just want like, yeah, here, I want to be

I want my answers and I want to feel great and I want to have a lot of fun. But first you need to connect and you need to heal and healing implies purging. It implies difficult emotions. It implies really digging deep. So yeah, for that you need patience. Yeah. I remember the last ceremonies that I participated in the second ceremony. was just like back to back nights when I was in Costa Rica and

The second night was like all very, very just like joyful and powerful. And like, you know, I felt like the whole universe and, you know, I just felt very, you know, connected to, to, everything. And it was just like a very pleasant experience overall, but that's not to say that it wasn't, there weren't times during it where like, there were things that I had to sit with and that I had to purge and that were kind of uncomfortable. But just like this thought came into my mind during that was the fact that like, in order to get

that space of like immense joy and gratitude and love. Like I had to go through quote unquote the shit in order to get there. you have to do that work and like you have to go through those more unpleasant and uncomfortable parts in order to get to those good parts. Like there's no way to just skip to the good part is the thing. And so yeah, I think Ayahuasca, at least for me, just does a very, very good job of showing me that. And also then helping me understand

Life works the exact same way. Like life is one big ayahuasca ceremony in that sense that there's going to be shitty parts and there's going to be great parts. And you can't just skip to the good parts. You have to go through every single thing that's supposed to happen for you because that's just the way it is. You you can't control the experience that you're going to have or else you're just going to make it much harder on yourself.

And the same absolutely goes for an ayahuasca ceremony is that if you try to control it and you try to make it go a particular way, it's not going to go that way. It's probably not going to be that fun. Yeah. What you're saying about, you know, ups and downs in life and in the ceremony, you know, an engineer in me likes to explain it this way. You like when you're, when you're in a car and you're going 300 miles an hour, whatever, you, you, cannot feel the speed. We don't feel the speed, but what you feel

Acceleration and deceleration So like in life as well the only way to feel joy is when you go from Being sad and feeling bad emotions to then feeling good emotions This is what you feel and this is also the other graph is what you feel But it's like if you're already happy or like if you're in like everything is okay You don't feel anything you just get used to it and then you need you need that acceleration or deceleration Emotionally like this roller coaster

to feel stuff so I'm saying it to myself as well we're going through like a rough period now because like you don't expect to have like once in a 30 year kind of climatic event happen exactly on your shift and like you need to deal with stuff and it's like extra expenditures and extra stressors so it doesn't feel nice but I also need to understand that it's probably setting me up

the next loop going upwards where it's going to feel very nice and then there probably going to be another downwards and that's just life. It's like if you don't feel the ups and downs you don't feel anything. I mean it's probably not even worth living because that's where life happens in those emotional

Absent -doubt. Yeah. And like the turbulence of it, the, the, the shakiness of it all. I agree, man. It's, it's, it's, it's really beautiful when you're able to like step back from the void and like not be so enthralled in what's going on that you can realize those things. And you could realize like, I'm just in a bit of a downturn right now. Like I'm just, I'm just getting to getting to the Valley and

man, it's gonna be really cool once this ends, but like, you know, I just gotta like stay grounded and just understand that there's, you know, there's not much you can do sometimes to get out of those, but they do end eventually. Yeah, every time there is like, there's this seasonality to Toyowaska retreats as well. People tend to really wanna start the new year from the good. So like.

Normally it's like December, January, February, March, they're very full. It's also like when the weather is good in US, less people are coming to Columbia because it's okay weather in US. like right now June, July, we're feeling like it's less people than normal. And for me, it's always for some reason there's part of me that's like, that's it, know, people are not gonna come. Like nobody's interested in us anymore. Like I failed, you know, it's

When you're going this way, you kind of feel like, there's no end. It's hard for you to feel that this is coming. Logically, you can understand it, but emotions like, that's it, it's over. I've done something wrong. There's something I did. Maybe that raising the price by $50, there was a fatal mistake. Look at me, I failed. It's like this inner voices. Then you have to be mindful enough to catch yourself thinking that and rethink

But at the same time, don't prevent yourself from feeling those emotions, because then that's what we do as a society now, the instant gratification and just constant bearing down and bearing down and bearing down of negative things. So this is why when people come to Ayahuasca, all of this comes up. And the analogy I also like to use is, like you have in the ceremony, your emotions and your mental state is like this glass of water with sediment on

And sometimes people have like so much sediment, they basically have this little bit of clear water on top just to like, just to survive. it's like, they don't like Alaska moves it up and sediment comes up and you need to clean it out. And this is where, where the works come through. But then some people just choose to like, yeah, this was nice. And then like it settles in again. It's a, it's it's an analogy I'm still working on it. I haven't refined it, but there's, there's something there. Yeah. So I've got, I've got a question about.

medicine in Colombia in general. So, Columbia there's, there's, Yahe, that's where that originates from. Correct? Is there a difference between Yahe and Ayahuasca or is Yahe just what they call Ayahuasca in Colombia? So it's mostly just a name thing. It's kind of like, I like to say it's like you can have Cabernet or you can have Merlot. Both are red wines and both are going to get you

But if you're an expert, you can maybe tell the difference. ayahuasca, first of all, both of them are made of ayahuasca vine plus a DMT shrub. And the vine is same, or at least the type of the plant is same. There are subspecies and sort of smaller differences, but they're not really that big. And then the difference is that

improving ayahuasca they use Chakruna as a DMT shrub and in Colombian ayahuasca they use Chagropanga as a DMT shrub but both are DMT shrubs but they do have some some small differences in like the amount of different other components like alkaloids and stuff. So some people can tell the difference between the two but in reality it's really very similar so I've never

tried Peruvian I was asking myself, but I've had probably 20 people by now that tried both and I always asked them and some people say Peruvian is stronger, some people say Colombian is stronger, some people say one is more purgative, the others say so it's like honestly I think the difference in between both is as much a difference you can get in between one batch and the other batch of the medicine because it is somewhat different every

Yeah, that is something that is kind of amazing about the medicine. I mean, honestly though, but like I could drink the exact same medicine three times and have a completely different experience three times. like, how is anybody ever able to truly tell like what the differences are between the medicine or if it's just what they happen to be going through that one night? You can have two cups one night and feel nothing and next night have half a cup and have a

life -changing experience and they're both coming from the same bottle and it's There's so much stuff that like it's really hard to explain. So this is why this is why we have a shaman, right? He he's He's he's been a shaman all his life. His dad is a shaman. His granddad was a shaman So it's a lineage. They really know what they're doing So they they just look at you and they pour you the cup and if you try to like intervene you say like no Give me more give me less you always end up in trouble. You just have to trust them because some

somehow they know and regarding columbia now ask of the benefit is that some of that sold their mother mother like interest in i was actually started in columbia like haven't showed peace he was actually traveling columbia when he was doing all this work about that was cannot not improve but that will happen i think in eighties and nineties when the my last started to really popularize

Columbia became very unsafe because of all the narco activity. So it was somewhat overlooked when it comes to psychedelic tourism. And it has its negatives because obviously there are positives to psychedelic tourism. the positive side to being overlooked is that they didn't over -harvest their plantations. Because ayahuasca is a harvested plant. You can get it in the wild, but mostly

people just have their their plans so you have some some of the older wines you can say and it's a little less crazy like you cannot come to columbia and go to the market and buy a waska that's still very revered and very respected so and there are certain laws for you to be able to serve medicine like for example i can give you medicine because i'm not a shaman i'm not a part of indigenous community here they you need to get a permit from a shaman

who had this permit from another shaman, right? It's like you have to be part of the indigenous culture. So I like that it's been overlooked, but it's kind of taken more seriously. And also think that Columbia has a chance to do it right, like do it differently as Peru have done it, and maybe go a little slower at how it deals with psychedelic tourism, right? But of course, it's only my hope.

We try to do things right here at La Huara but it's hard for me to know what other people do but yeah I'm very hopeful for this specific type of tourism like I like to say one of my dreams and goals is to rebrand Colombia from cocaine to ayahuasca because like rebranded so those are coca let me show you by the way this is this is called mamba this is a yeah yeah this is

fine ground coca leaves and this is traditionally used like it takes away hunger it's a superfood gives you energy it's like coffee but without jitters it's like this amazing coffee that has no negative side effects it's actually so both coca with ambil no I don't like ambil personally but I do like I do like different forms of tobacco

Coca and ayahuasca, grow literally in the same jungle. Like you can have their little pieces of coca plantations and ayahuasca plantations and they like the same climate. Both are this amazing master plants like ayahuasca, coca and tobacco are this magical trio that they're allies and they can heal you. But what we did as people, what we did to this medicine is like we just

we took this amazing coca leaf and we synthesize it and run it through gasoline or whatever it is they do and made this this terrible thing that like kills people and also kills people that produce it like destroys the jungle and stuff like that but in reality coca leaf is this amazing medicine and it's like we did the same thing with cacao which is also medicine we did the same thing with tobacco and there's more there's more things that we found and we ruined

because of whatever different approach. just hope we don't do it with the ayahuasca. I've seen this. We're doing the same thing with mushrooms right now too. Yeah. So I don't know, man. I don't know how to prevent people to destroy those plant medicines. But I think that the main key would be to look at it as a tradition and realize a tradition is the root that keeps the tree healthy. And if we try to get rid of the roots, like instead of drinking ayahuasca with an indigenous shaman in the jungle,

we're going to make an ayahuasca gummies and I don't know do something weird. That's funny. I just saw article about people that are trying to make ayahuasca gummies in the United States. Like this week. This is I mean I don't want to be one of those like ayahuasca zealots but it is it is a sacrilege. Like I'm sure this is this is exactly what it's going to

to ayahuasca, same thing as to coca. Like there is this guy called Wade Davis who wrote a book about Colombia and he's like amazing guy. I'm really trying to interview him now. So guys helped me manifest that, but he says cocaine to coca is what vodka is to potatoes. it's, there is no connection, but basically how can we go back to

Using coca and like growing it legally and using it traditionally as this amazing medicinal plant And how can we instead of like having people come to Colombia for cocaine and hookers how how we can get them? To come here for ayahuasca and like ecotourism being in nature and heal for example veterans There's a lot of veterans that come to Colombia running away from their pain from PTSD with cocaine and and prostitution That's that's just reality. I know it's not a nice topic to talk

But how many of them actually need nature and ayahuasca to actually heal and not be seeking those things to run away from pain? I don't know where I'm going with this, but I think that Colombia for me personally, it has this amazing potential to go from a place that was kind of making the world sicker by exporting all this cocaine.

to now make a world healthier to just bring all those drug addicts here and just heal them with ayahuasca and make them healthy and happy. It's such a beautiful place and obviously I'm not going to be able to do it myself but there's other retreats here and hopefully as we go along, as it goes in popularity we can do it in a more authentic, traditional and also affordable way. think that retreats here in Colombia generally tend to be a little less crazy priced.

I got one word for you on how you're gonna do that. It's patience. On that note, Van, I think we're gonna cut it right here, but before we do, where can people find

go to home i was going to lump it dot com or lower dot com this is our website is just easier for some people to find i was going to lump it but columbia with columbia not columbia like a state in u s and to check out check out my podcast that's really easy to find i was about to ask dot com also have a personal with camera and then as well you can find it yes sir that's a well thank you so much for for coming on my podcast to and

sharing a little bit more about Columbia and ayahuasca in Columbia too and your personal story. I really appreciate being able to connect with you, brother. So, much love. Thank you for hosting me.

That is all I got for you this week. So thank you all for tuning in and listening. Thank you again to Sam for coming on the podcast. I really do appreciate it. And I'm just feeling really good and really grateful right now to be able to bring these conversations to anybody who might be listening. So once again, I am blessed. Thank you and I love you so much and we'll see you next episode.