Maestro Ricardo Amaringo, 58, is the big-hearted Shipibo owner and head shaman of Nihue Rao. He started drinking Ayahuasca at the age of 14 and in his 20s, he completed his first long diet of 2 and a half years with only one thought in mind: to help the world.

If you walk around the center where he lives, eats and works, it’s easy to see that his curandero work is at the center of his life. A declared purist, he is loyal to the shamanic discipline established by his Shipibo ancestors the merayas, curanderos of the highest level, and is determined to practice nothing short of it.

Unlike most shamans, he is generous in his knowledge and patient with those who wish to understand the medicine more. “My job is to educate the world, the plants told me,” he often says, and he is not shy to put it to practice in the integration conversations he holds.

On top of the special relationship he has developed over the years with the plants in his more than 50 diets, Maestro Ricardo has dieted God’s Medicine for one year, which allows him to do in his work what not many shamans can.

To those that want to study shamanism under him, he warmly says: “If you want to learn the medicine, I will teach you like a brother or sister,” and he makes good on his promise. Sharp and kind, he is a gift to anyone wanting to enter this ancestral tradition.