Photo · Alessandro Bergamini
Q’eros Nation, Peru · October 4–9, 2027
Six days inside the everyday life of a Q’ero family, held within months of preparation before and integration after. Initiation through everyday life.
The invitation
You won’t see Q’eros from the distance of a visitor. You’ll walk its paths, eat at its tables, sleep on its floors, and listen.
Planting potatoes, herding alpacas, sitting by the fire with grandparents. Rather than separating the sacred from ordinary life, the journey asks you to notice what ordinary life already holds. It doesn’t promise healing or awakening. It creates the conditions for an encounter.
Ayni · reciprocity
Travel easily becomes a transaction: pay, arrive, take an experience, take photographs, go home. This journey begins from relationship instead. Reciprocity isn’t a theme we discuss. It’s something we practise each day.
Their path
Your hosts
They hold their culture, land and practices. They lead every ceremony, and their guide decides timing, routes and safety on the ground. Each journey is carried by a network of grandparents, host families, cooks, horsemen, guides and artisans, paid fairly for their time and knowledge.
The elders · years on this path
It is a responsibility. It is a service. It is a commitment to our ancestors and to the generations to come.
They share what they choose to share, and guide the practices that belong to them. Fair pay for the families and support for social projects in the Q’eros Nation are part of every journey.
Your facilitator
Preparation · Accompaniment · Integration
Teacher and practitioner of shamanic traditions, shaped by his Yaqui family lineage and years of learning with elders across Mexico and Peru, including his Q’ero teachers. He prepares you before, walks with the group, translates Spanish–English, and guides integration afterward. He stays available for your questions before, during and after.
He doesn’t teach you to be Q’ero, and he doesn’t speak for Q’ero spirituality. He builds the bridge between their world and your life back home.
One path, three stages
Q’eros is the heart of the journey, not the whole of it. Your path begins the day your place is confirmed, so each person arrives at their own pace.
Tap each stage to see what it asks of you
From the day your place is confirmed, you can talk with Cha’ba one-on-one. Three online sessions build context, inner readiness and practical preparation.
The territory, the families, the meals, the walks and the weather become the teaching. The hosts lead what belongs to them; Cha’ba accompanies, translates and holds a short reflection circle each day.
Leaving Q’eros doesn’t complete the journey. Three sessions, spaced so the experience can settle, help you digest it and choose one principle to live by.
The route · six days
This is the intended rhythm: weather, roads and life in the community can change timing and order.
Tap a day or swipe the cards
Cusco → Ocongate / Hueccouno
Cross the Andes to the home of the Champi Phacsi family. A first meal together, the ceremony Rastro del Puma, a conversation on the Andean worldview, and the community’s textiles.
Ocongate → Quico Chico
Deeper into the mountains. Meet the families who will receive you, learn the names of the sacred mountains, and settle into your host family’s wasi. The night closes by the fire.
Quico Chico
Plant native potatoes with traditional tools, join an offering to Pachamama, learn the textile process and walk the alpacas to pasture. Weather permitting, a huatia cooked in the earth.
Quico Chico → Awki Pukara → Tambo
The main walk. Ancestral paths to Awki Pukara, down to the humid edge of the jungle, a purification at the sacred waterfalls, a thermal bath at Tambo, and the Grandfather Fire.
Tambo → Quico Chico
Walk back up at dawn. A pachamanca, a coca leaf circle, the grandmothers’ songs, and a last fire of songs and dances. Time simply to be together.
Quico Chico → Ocongate → Cusco
Farewell to Quico Chico, a last lunch in Ocongate, and the drive back to Cusco. The immersion has ended. Integration has not.
One participant each day may receive a coca leaf reading from an elder, as an additional exchange of ayni.
The conditions
This is not a retreat centre placed in the mountains. Reading this now is how you arrive prepared instead of surprised.
A straw-covered floor and sheepskins in family homes, 2–3 participants per home. One night in tents. Bring or rent a −5°C / 23°F sleeping bag, a pad and a small tarp.
No electricity, Wi-Fi or satellite link. Little or no phone coverage. Charged power banks, and people at home who know you’re out of reach.
No bathrooms either. Designated spots in nature, biodegradable wipes, and the river when conditions allow.
Families cook over fire with what grows at 4,000 m: native potatoes, chuño, quinoa, pachamanca. Vegetarian is possible with notice. Water from springs and rivers, always filtered.
Most nights at about 4,000 m. Arrive in Cusco 3 days early. Hosts follow an altitude protocol and a horse is always ready to reach the nearest health post.
Day 4 is about 4 hours on wet, steep ground; Day 5 climbs back up for 3–4. Horses carry your daypack, and your main luggage waits in Ocongate.
Hosts speak Quechua and Spanish. Cha’ba translates to English throughout, and you’ll learn a few Quechua words before you go.
Miguel Inti and the elders decide timing, routes and safety on the ground, for weather and for community life.
And what it makes room for
Few people are ever received this close to a Q’ero family. The discomfort is real. So is what it opens.
You come home with less certainty about what you need, and a clearer sense of what you’re part of.
The threshold
Eight questions, one at a time. Nothing is saved or sent. Deciding this isn’t your journey is a good answer too: the group works best when everyone has chosen it knowingly.
Your investment
With 10 participants, every person is known by name. The price pays the Q’ero families, elders, cooks, guides and horsemen fairly, covers safe logistics into one of the most remote regions of the Andes, and funds a process that runs from months before Peru to months after.
If your plans changeThe $600 deposit is non-refundable. Your place can be transferred to someone else, with approval. Full terms are shared in the Participant Agreement before you sign.
If the journey doesn’t runIt needs a minimum of 8 participants and is confirmed by June 1, 2027. If it doesn’t run, everything is refunded, deposit included.
Bring cash in Peruvian soles. There are no ATMs in the communities.
Where the two paths meet
Applications open · 10 places
Applying doesn’t reserve a place or commit you to pay. Early registration ($1,800) runs until February 28, 2027, or the first 5 places.
Begin your Journey Application ↗The application form isn’t connected yet. Write to Cha’ba below and he’ll send it to you.
Opens on Tally in a new tab. Your answers go only to Cha’ba; health details are shared with the Q’ero guide only for your safety.
thewayofreciprocity@gmail.comQuestions
Adults 21 and over, in good physical, mental and emotional health, who can abstain from sacred plant medicines for at least 30 days before the journey.
No. Preparation gives you the context. What matters is your willingness to listen, participate and enter respectfully.
The Q’ero elders of the Champi Phacsi family lead every practice and ceremony. Cha’ba prepares, accompanies and guides integration.
By Friday, October 1, 2027 at the latest. Thursday, September 30 is recommended, before orientation on October 3.
We slow down. Hosts follow an altitude protocol: rest, hydration, and descent if symptoms persist. A horse is always available to reach the nearest health post.
It’s optional and recommended: trip cancellation, medical coverage abroad and evacuation. Without it, those costs are yours.
Any time after you register. Protect them with insurance or a changeable fare; the journey is confirmed on June 1, 2027.
Yes. Out of respect for the families and the tradition, intimate relations aren’t appropriate during the journey.
It’s natural. The group, the elders and Cha’ba accompany you, and a short reflection circle closes each day.
No. Main luggage stays in Ocongate. On walking days the horses carry your daypack; you carry water and essentials.
There are many more questions and answers in the Journey Guide: preparation, altitude, what to bring, daily life in Q’eros and more. Write to Cha’ba if you’d like to read it before you apply.