First timers · Mayan Riviera near Cancun
You have heard of iboga, maybe felt a pull toward it, and now you want to know how it can benefit you, how to do it in a safe environment, what it costs and when it is available. This page walks you through the retreat, the medicine, the ceremony and the tradition behind it, in plain words, with the dates and the investment, before you talk to our team.
The experience
A safe place to be and become who you truly are, to say out loud what you are facing and what you want for your life, and to celebrate your growth. Guests leave stronger and clearer, connected with themselves and living from the heart.
You arrive on the Mayan Riviera near Cancun, Mexico and settle into one of seven private rooms. Two traditional Bwiti ceremonies are spaced across the week, each followed by a processing day and time to rest by the pool, at the fire circle or under the dining palapa. The fourteen-day program holds four ceremonies.
Before you travel, our physicians review your bloodwork (110+ biomarkers), a 12-lead ECG and every medication you take. On site, a physician is present around the clock, with cardiac telemetry during ceremony and magnesium and electrolytes when needed. With screening and supervision the risk is minimized, and it is never ignored.
One preparation call before you come, four integration calls after (one right after the retreat, then one at the start of each month for three months), and three months of post-program clinical care and integration coaching. The people who sat with you in ceremony stay reachable when the real work starts at home.
What people come back with
Almost nobody leaves the palapa transformed on the first morning. What alumni describe since 2012 comes in waves: the body lets go first, the head clears next, and the things people actually came for tend to show up over the following months. Move through the three phases below.
Reported by alumni
On site
The night is long and lucid, and the day after it most guests sleep in a way they have not slept in years. People describe a body that stops bracing, and a life review that arrives without being asked for.
Back home
Noribogaine, the long-lived metabolite, stays in the body for days and its effects on mood and craving are described for weeks. This is the window alumni most often call a clear head, and the reason the first integration calls land here rather than later.
With continuing care
The things people actually came for tend to show up last, and only where something changed at home. Alumni since 2012 report sharper memory and focus, more creativity, better sleep and more peace of mind. Three months of scheduled calls exist because this is the stretch where it either holds or it does not.
This is what guests report back to us, not a clinical result and not a promise. Iboga is not a cure, outcomes differ from person to person, and roughly one applicant in five is declined or postponed on medical grounds. Read the safety protocol and what a retreat costs.
The medicine
Three things a first timer should understand before the fire is lit: what the root does, how the night is held, and where all of this comes from.
Plant power
It is like pressing the reset button: a fresh start to make change, gain clarity and move in a different direction. In our experience guests use it to loosen the grip of trauma, of long mental struggles and of addictive habits, and to start living the life they actually want for themselves. Change your mind, change your life.
Read the ultimate guide
Bwiti ceremony
Ceremonies are held at night around the fire, led by traditional practitioners graduated from the Bwiti House Iboga Provider Training Program in Gabon. To the rhythm of the Bwiti music you settle in, receive the medicine in small measured doses and are guided through the night, with the physician a few steps away.
How the ceremony unfolds
The tradition
For generations the Bwiti kept iboga close. Today the Bwiti people of Gabon share their medicine, their teachings and their hearts, and our practitioners carry that lineage, learned from Moughenda Mikala at Bwiti House, to the jungle of Quintana Roo. The tradition is inclusive, it thrives on connection, and joining it puts you at the leading edge of medicine: ancient roots, modern care.
The Bwiti traditionTrust the root
In Gabon iboga is simply called the sacred wood. It is a root bark and it works like one: it is grounding, it goes down before it goes up, and it takes you to the origin of what is ailing you rather than around it. First timers often expect fireworks. What most describe instead is a long, lucid night of seeing their own life clearly, and a quiet that stays for weeks.
You do not need to steer it. Trust the root, follow the wood, and let the practitioners and the medical team hold the rest.
Why participate?
In our experience there are three main reasons. Most guests recognize themselves in more than one, and the medicine tends to work on whichever one you need first.
For those ready to free themselves from physical, mental, emotional or spiritual ailments and to open up to their real potential. Trauma, dependence, anxiety, grief: the root goes to the root.
The four columns of healingYou may already live well and want to take the best care of yourself, or you have done the work and still are not quite living the life you want. Iboga holds up a mirror to how you think and clears what does not serve you: getting unstuck, finding purpose, resting and recalibrating.
Ways iboga can help you optimize your lifeSome people simply feel a pull toward iboga or Bwiti at a certain moment in their life. Curiosity about plant medicine and psycho-spiritual exploration is healthy. Follow it, and do it right: with screening, pure medicine and people who know the ceremony.
How to prepareIboga for healing
Iboga is not a cure and every ceremony is different. These are the areas our guests most often come for, and where, in our experience, the work tends to reach. Your intake call is where we talk about what it can and cannot do for you.
FAQ
The questions almost everyone asks before a first ceremony. For the rest, see the full FAQ or book a call with the team.
Iboga root bark contains several alkaloids; ibogaine is one of them, often isolated as ibogaine HCl. Ibogaine itself acts on several brain systems and can produce emotional and autobiographical experiences. The additional alkaloids in whole bark have not been shown to guarantee broader clinical benefits.
We choose whole root bark with the Missoko Bwiti process: fire talks, regressive work and guided life review under medical supervision. Read the comparison, including alkaloids and research analogues. Eligibility depends on your health and clinical assessment.
Tabernanthe iboga is a perennial shrub of the Apocynaceae family, native to the rainforests of Gabon, where it is protected as a national treasure. Its root bark is the sacred medicine of the Bwiti people: used in initiations, in spiritual and physical healing, and to connect with the ancestors. The main psychoactive compound is the alkaloid ibogaine, known for its profound effects on mind and body.
In the West, ibogaine has drawn interest for substance use disorders, in particular opioid dependence, because it can reduce withdrawal and cravings. It also carries real risks, above all for the heart, which is why it is not legal in many countries and why we only work with it under full medical screening and supervision. Gabon, on the other hand, fully embraces iboga as part of its cultural and spiritual heritage.
Small. Our center has seven rooms, private or shared, and a ceremony never holds more than eight guests. Each ceremony is led by one lead practitioner, graduated from the Bwiti House Iboga Provider Training Program in Gabon, with assistants, and the medical team is on site throughout the night. In a traditional Bwiti temple in Gabon the groups can be much larger; here the intimate setting means more personal attention, counsel and care, and a safer, more comfortable experience.
For most healthy adults, pure iboga taken under the care of a trained practitioner, with medical screening and supervision, is well tolerated. For some people it is not: cardiovascular or liver disease, certain psychiatric conditions and a number of medications can make it dangerous, and combining it with some drugs or narcotics can be life-threatening. This is why the health assessment matters so much, and why about a third of applicants are declined.
Before any date is confirmed, our physicians review your results and medication list. During the retreat a physician is present around the clock, with cardiac telemetry during ceremony. With screening and supervision the risk is minimized; it is never zero, and we will tell you honestly if it is not safe for you.
If you are using daily and want iboga to detox from drugs or alcohol, please do it with a clinic that can manage the taper safely: never stop or change a medication on your own. Even for a psycho-spiritual ceremony, iboga is something most people take once or a handful of times in a life. If you feel called, do it right.
You may feel a spark of curiosity about iboga, about the ceremonies, or about what it could change in your life. Perhaps you feel an intrinsic pull toward the plant or toward its roots in Gabon and the Bwiti. Very few people have heard of iboga at all: if you are thinking about it, or feel an intuitive draw to it, the plant likely has something important to offer you.
If you are reading this, the next step is to find out whether it is safe and appropriate for you. That is what our screening is for: blood work, a 12-lead ECG, a medication review and a call with the medical team and a practitioner. If iboga is not right for you now, we will tell you. Read the ultimate guide to iboga.
There is no strict diet required, but we recommend eating as clean and simply as possible in the weeks before your retreat. A healthy, untaxed digestive system absorbs the medicine better and tends to reduce purging during the night. It also means the medicine spends less effort cleaning the body and reaches the emotional, psychological and spiritual work sooner.
In the two weeks before you travel: no alcohol, no recreational drugs, no other plant medicines. Some medications and supplements need to be paused or tapered, and only our physician decides which, together with your prescriber. See the full preparation guide.
Some people do and some people do not; everyone is different. In our experience roughly a third of guests feel nauseous at some point during the ceremony. If it happens, there is nothing to worry about: it is a natural part of the cleansing, physical as much as emotional. Our team has walked many guests through it and stays beside you the whole night. The physician keeps you hydrated, and the medical team watches your electrolytes and vitals throughout.
The cleansing can also show up as watering eyes, crying, sweating, shivering, yawning, twitching, tremors, stretching, visions, or a bowel movement (never urgent or uncontrollable). Small groups mean you have space and personal attention for all of it.
Iboga is a very individual experience, different from one person to the next depending on what that person needs. Some feel something like being mildly intoxicated, with a slight change in cognition and clumsy motor control; others feel surprisingly sober. Unlike many other plant medicines, iboga is grounding (it is a root): you stay self-aware and connected to your body, your life and the room around you. It is not an escape; iboga is the opposite of escapism.
The medicine can make one mind very calm and another very active. It has stimulant properties, so most people stay awake for 24 to 48 hours, alert and processing, without feeling exhausted; sleep comes easily when the time is right. Thoughts, feelings and insights come and go during that time, and a lot of neurological recalibration takes place; some people go through low moments, and emotions may surface. The practitioner and the physician stay with you until the medicine wears off and you can sleep, and the effects keep unfolding for months afterwards. How a Bwiti ceremony unfolds.
You've carried this long enough. Start with a conversation with our medical team.
