Journey to the Yawanawá
Acre, Brazil · December 2026 – January 2027
For the first time in four years we are going back to the Yawanawá territory, and there is room for a small group to come with us.
Two parts, one road
A Feitio in Cruzeiro do Sul in December, where the medicine is cooked. And the New Year's Festival in the village of Mutum, where that same medicine is drunk.
They can be done separately or as one journey. Dennis has been travelling to this territory since 2013 and has cooked twelve times. This will be the thirteenth.
Part One
Feitio — Cruzeiro do Sul
December 10 – 20
Part Two
New Year's Festival — Mutum
December 27 – January 7
The festival itself runs December 31 to January 5. We travel a few days early and leave a little later, because Mutum is a long way in and it is not a journey to rush at either end.
Around ten people · Led by Dennis Notten and Alexandra Ciobanu
The Festival
Mutum is deep in the territory, reached by boat
The New Year's Festival brings the community together for days of ceremony, traditional games, singing and dancing. The music there has grown enormously over the last years and is some of the most beautiful we know.
Between the ceremonies there is the ordinary life of the village, which is much of what makes the time worth it. Days in the rhythm of the place, with the people who live there, the children running around, and the forest all around.
We come as guests of the village, at their invitation and on their calendar.
The Feitio
Where the medicine is made
Days of hard physical work beside the pots — cleaning leaves, pounding vine, tending the fire — alongside people who have been cooking their whole lives.
This part asks for an existing relationship with this medicine and a willingness to work. It is not a retreat. It is one of the best ways we know to spend time in the company of this medicine, and the brew we make in December travels with us to Mutum.
During the Feitio, accommodation is simple and close to the Feitio house. For some that may mean a hammock. This is part of the work.
Where we stay
A house of our own, right in the village
Rooms are shared. We bring our own cook and our own food, and the house is somewhere to rest, to be together, and to come back to between the days of the festival. We make sure it is comfortable.
What is included
Boat transfers from São Vicente to Mutum and back
Accommodation in the house in Mutum, in shared rooms
All meals throughout, prepared by our own cook
Clean drinking water, which we bring in
Hammocks and mosquito nets
All ceremonies, festival activities and activities in the village
Jungle walks, traditional story telling, and the daily life of the village
Dennis and Alexandra with the group throughout, taking care of the logistics and the travel so that the journey runs as easily as it can
Not included
International and domestic flights
Travel from Cruzeiro do Sul to São Vicente — we help you organise this
Visa costs
Travel insurance
Personal expenses
Getting there
Fly to Cruzeiro do Sul (CZS), Acre
For both parts of the journey. Flights usually go via São Paulo. From Cruzeiro do Sul there is a car ride to the harbour at São Vicente, where a boat picks you up for Mutum. We help you organise the car.
We will be there to support you through the whole journey, from leaving home to getting back.
If you are coming for both parts
You travel on with Dennis from Cruzeiro do Sul to Mutum after the Feitio, and stay with us in the house in the village. That stay is included. The car ride from Cruzeiro do Sul to São Vicente is not.
Before you come
Visa
Depending on your passport you may need a tourist visa for Brazil. If you do, apply as early as you can.
Health
The journey involves boat travel, heat, humidity and simple conditions. It asks for reasonable health and a willingness to adapt.
Mosquitoes
Bring good repellent. Taking a vitamin B complex for two to four weeks before and during the trip helps — it changes the way you smell to them.
Clothing
Light coloured clothes with long sleeves and long trousers, natural sunblock, a hat, a water bottle, a day backpack. Travel insurance is required for everyone.
Arriving with something in our hands
The medicine we drink has to be cooked, and the vine we cook has to be put back
More people are drinking this medicine every year, and more groups come into the territory. That has a cost — in vines, in food, in the patience of the people who host it. So alongside the journey itself, we ask each person for a contribution toward the Feitio and toward the planting of new vine and leaf in the territory.
This work is held by the Ayahuasca Restoration Foundation, the nonprofit work of our church, Céu do Novo Mundo.
2,000
vines planted
1,000
chakruna plants
$20,000
this season's goal
To do this season's Feitio and this season's planting properly we need to raise $20,000. We would like to find a way to that together. Some will be able to give a great deal and some a few hundred, and both are welcome. What matters is that we arrive with something in our hands, and we will tell you exactly where it goes.
The donation for the journey
$4,000 USD
New Year's Festival, Mutum
This is the recommended donation for the festival journey. If it is not possible for you as it stands, write to us anyway and we will talk.
The donation for the Feitio depends on how long you stay and what is possible for you. Write to us and we will go through it.
An initial donation of $1,000 holds your place. The rest is asked four weeks before departure.
The first $1,000 is not returned if you cancel. We plan the journey with the village well in advance, and a place is committed on our side once it is taken.
To join
Places are limited and each person is confirmed personally
So write to us and we will talk.
Please write before the end of September, so we can plan properly with the village.
Apply nowOr write to mail@sacredjourney.earth