Choosing Your Ayahuasca Adventure: Rythmia & Soltara Side-By-Side Comparison #263.5

I got your DMs. I saw your comments. You want to know which Costa Rican Ayahuasca retreats are most worth your time and money.

I had way too many messages to respond to each of you with a thorough enough explanation, so I decided to create this detailed analysis of Rythmia and Soltara, offering a side-by-side comparison of my experiences.

But let me just get this out of the way first: there is no clear winner here. This is like vanilla vs chocolate, lemons vs limes — they’re just different flavors! The major defining difference is that Rythmia is a resort and Soltara is a retreat center, and I’ll get into how that translates into your experience in the episode.

My honest advice would be to flip a coin, then go to both of them if you can!

And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, go back and check out the two episodes I released about Soltara on Tuesday and the two episodes I released about Rythmia back in April 2019:

• Episode 202: Welcome To The Jungle: My Ayahuasca Journey At Rythmia Part One
• Episode 203: Welcome To The Jungle: My Ayahuasca Journey At Rythmia Part Two
• Episode 262: Jungle Journeys: My Ayahuasca Awakening At Soltara (Part One)
• Episode 263: Jungle Journeys: My Ayahuasca Awakening At Soltara (Part Two)

 

10:15 — Let’s start with the cost:

• This is based on staying there for 7 nights
• Rythmia: $3,500 - $5,700
• Soltara: $1,750 - $3,750

 

11:05 — Location, Property, & Travel:

• The Liberia airport for Rythmia is more chill, closer to the center. It’s about a three-hour shuttle from the airport to Rythmia, so you can fly in the same day and go straight to Rythmia, whereas you need to stay in San Jose when you land and then travel to Soltara the following day.
• San Jose is a much more hectic city, with a long journey from city to Soltara, including a ferry ride. But that may be a plus if you want to see more of Costa Rica!
• I rented a car at Soltara, which was great.
• Soltara is only two hours from Santa Teresa, an amazing surf town.
• I would rent a car if I went to Rythmia again, to allow for travel.
• Rythmia allows you to leave the property during your stay, but Soltara does not. Soltara is a much more remote location, so nowhere to go anyway.
• Soltara right on the beach, with walking access to two beaches.
• Rythmia is a 10-minute drive to two larger beaches, more space to walk, swim.
• You can listen to the waves during the ceremony at Soltara.
• Most epic sunrises ever at Soltara.
• Steep hill to rooms at Soltara, which is hard to climb on medicine
• Beautiful grounds with a swimming pool. Soltara does not allow pool use after the ceremony, but Rythmia does.
• Both spots have super clean, air-conditioned rooms. Soltara rooms are newer and slightly more modern.
• Both spots have shared room options that are cheaper than solo rooms.
• Soltara is a smaller more intimate property with fewer buildings, whereas Rythmia is more of a tropical resort vibe with bungalow-style housing, a full medical clinic, a hot tub, a cool plunge (wish it was cold), and a great non-toxic steam room
• Both places have a gym. The Soltara gym is more modern, with CrossFit, functional movement tools, and free weights. The Rythmia gym is more like a hotel gym with machines. I also had a hard time using the Rythmia gym due to fake news CNN blasting on not one but three TVs in front of the treadmills.
• Another nice feature at Rythmia is the availability of bodywork and colonic treatments, available for an additional fee.
• All in all, both properties are beautiful and allow for plenty of space to spend time alone to reflect and relax.
• I have to say the maloca, which is a gigantic dome structure used at Soltara, added a lot to the experience for me. It’s a magical building and it is just spectacular to experience during ayahuasca. The soundscape of the surrounding wildlife, and even dogs and farm animals, was epic.
• That said, the ceremony room at Rythmia is also beautiful, just a bit more of a traditional building.
• One nice touch at Rythmia was the availability of a golf cart ride back to your room if you were unable to walk. I think I had one such night.
• Another plus at Rythmia was the giant fire pit that was lit each night during the ceremony. When I needed to shift my energy, I would walk outside and sit by the fire and pray.
• I liked being able to leave the ceremony room to go outside and regroup at Rythmia, while it is required that you stay in the maloca for the entire ceremony at Soltara. But I totally understand, since the property at Soltara sits atop huge ravine, whereas Rythmia is flat, making it harder to screw up.
• At Soltara, once the official ceremony is over, however, you are free to roam about the main areas of the property, including the insanely beautify sky deck with overlooks the sea and those gorgeous sunrises.

 

26:40 — Food & Drink:

• Due to the fact that Soltara follows the Shipibo diet tradition very closely, the food followed those guidelines and, as a result, the food is purposefully bland, without salt, fats or sugar. While the food at mealtimes was very healthy, organic, fresh, and abundant, it was hard to feel ‘full.’ But that's what the diet is all about. 
• While both Rythmia and Soltara recommend a similar diet for some time before arriving for ceremony and during (no coffee, no sex, no drugs, no red meat, no pork, etc), I was relieved that Rythmia was much looser on the food restrictions once I arrived. They even had coffee available, although I used it very sparingly. 
• It’s worth noting that there seemed to be a lot more purging going on at Rythmia, which might have something to do with the more lax food rules.
• There were also more hearty snacks available at Rythmia, which I enjoyed.
• I personally preferred the looser approach to food at Rythmia. I also very much respect that Soltara follows ancient traditions closely.
• I also learned my lesson RE: eating food AFTER ceremony at both places, as I did get strong flashbacks when I ignored that advice.

 

29:10 — Itinerary & Activities:

• Rythmia offers a very full agenda of activities, talks, and a robust educational curriculum that was spot on in its approach to integrating a new mindset and metaphysical approach via Michael Beckwith’s companion teachings, etc.
• Some of the talks were mandatory, while others were not. Despite the fact that all of the speakers and activities at Rythmia were top-notch, I did feel I was always on the go, having to be somewhere (keep in mind I was also recording a lot of interviews and such while I was there too).
• Between the voluntary colonics, spa treatments, and classes, I longed for more time to just chill out and rest at Rythmia.
• Alternatively, Soltara allows you a grip of free time every day to nap, go to the beach, read, journal, whatever. There were only a couple of mandatory talks, which were very helpful and supportive, as well as offering a way to get to know your fellow ceremony friends.
• All in all, the general flow is way more laid back and mellow at Soltara, both in ceremony and out.
• I think the classes and other supportive offerings at each place would be very useful to people, depending on how much personal growth work they had done prior. Rythmia offers such a fully immersive learning experience, and it would be great for someone who’s just getting into spirituality and personal development work. 
• Soltara gives you a lot of space to do your own work in your own time, which might better support someone who’s had more experience with plant medicine and meditation beforehand.
• In terms of my fellow attendees’ prior experience with ayahuasca, the majority of people at Soltara were doing it for the first time, with only a couple of us having done it before, while many more people seemed to have had prior experience at Rythmia.
• That might have been due to the fact that my Rythmia group was 40 people, vs 20 at Soltara.
• The smaller group at Soltara would be much easier for some people to manage, but I didn’t really have a preference in terms of numbers. Once I'm in a ceremony on the medicine, I couldn’t care less if there were 10 people in the room or 100. I'm doing my own thing. 

 

36:10 — Ceremony & Traditions

• Each place has a very different approach to ceremony, although they both typically offer four ceremonies in the seven-day packages
• Soltara follows the Peruvian Shipibo tradition to a T, even down to the two maestros (or healers) that lead the ceremonies. All four nights at Soltara are exactly the same, with the same shaman leading, drinking the same exact batch of medicine brewed by Shipibo people in Peru that was shipped up to the center. 
• At Soltara, there are two healers supported by the same two facilitators each night.
• At Rythmia, there are a number of different shamans serving the medicine and facilitating the ceremony each night. There might be 4-6 main healers, with up to a dozen support staff on hand to tend to you. 
• At both places, I was made to feel completely safe and watched over by the staff, but there were just more of them at Rythmia, likely due to the fact that there was double the number of attendees.
• One thing I really liked at Soltara was that we had a really nice yin yoga session in the maloca each night leading into the ceremony. This was a great way to slow down and become very present in my body, and become completely relaxed with slow breathing and light stretching.
• At Rythmia, each night provides a completely different and novel experience. 
• The brew at Rythmia is from a different country each night, and one night the medicine had been cooked on site.
• At Soltara, the soundscape is VERY different. The only sound is the sweet Ikaros being sung by our Shapiro healers. There are no instruments played, no pre-recorded music, nothing. This provided its own powerful experience, but generally was MUCH more chill than Rythmia, and the whole scene is more introspective. Stillness pervades the maloca.
• It is also pitch black with ZERO light at Soltara throughout the entire ceremony. In contrast, on any given moment at Rythmia, someone could be up front dancing or performing songs together.
• At Rythmia, the music is always changing and goes all night. Countless people perform all varieties of live, traditional music, as well as the presence of almost non-stop recorded music during other times. There are moments of stillness and quiet, but overall there is a very beautiful circus of sounds present from the moment the ceremony begins until the early AM when people tend to wander back to their rooms.
• I loved the stillness and silence at Soltara, but it could be unnerving to someone who has not spent a lot of time with themselves, so to speak. But the near-constant motion and bells and whistles of the Rythmia experience could also be a bit overstimulating to someone not used to such a multi-sensory experience.
• I personally liked both styles of ceremony for different reasons.
• The moments at Soltara when the healers come sit directly in front of you and sing their Ikaro to you is something I will cherish forever, as it is just one of the holiest things you could ever hope to experience.
• Once the Soltara ceremony officially ends and the healers exit the maloca, there are no more sounds or sights to be had. You are on your own to sit and pray with the medicine. At times, I found this rather alarming, as it’s common for the medicine to hit me during or even after the official ceremony has ended.
• During the ceremony at Rythmia, it pretty much goes on all night until everyone is done. There is never a dull moment in the Rythmia ceremony. That, of course, depends on who is leading at Rythmia, and what tradition they are following that particular night. Each night is VERY different, whereas at Soltara is always the same. 
• The sameness at Soltara has its own sweetness, as each progressive night you sort of sink into the ceremony with increasing comfort and familiarity.
• Another aspect worth noting is the smells! At Soltara, all you smell is the very pleasant odor of mapacho, the sacred tobacco smoked throughout by both the healers and participants alike, along with the faint smell of the Shipibo perfume made of a traditional brew of certain plants, flowers, and essential oils.
• At Rythmia on the other hand, each night you are overwhelmed with every sacred ceremonial smell imaginable — paulo santo, mapacho, copious amounts of copal incense, and a number of different brews of the perfume mixture. For some reason, I found the perfume smell at Rythmia nauseating, and each night I would pray they didn’t spray it near me. It reminds me of cheap, toxic perfume, like one you might buy at a dollar store. I was assured that it was non-toxic, but whatever it was, I disliked it to the point that I promised myself I would bring a dust mask next time I attended to block the smell from invading my nostrils.
• Other than that perfume, I loved the variety of smells at Rythmia, as powerful as they were at times.
• Another minor difference was the abundant use of Rapé or “hape” at Rythmia. it's a mixture of special tobacco and herbs, ground into a fine powder and administered as snuff by a shaman blowing it in your nose. It’s quite jarring to me personally, as I've never been one to snort tobacco. While I see its value and place in ceremony, I personally prefer taking in my tobacco via smoking mapacho at Soltara.

 

47:38 — Integration

• While both places offered a lot of advice on how to integrate the experience afterward, Soltara placed a bit more focus on this element by holding talks about it and providing a useful workbook to help you document and integrate the experience both before and after your time there.
• I think different people will find various ways to integrate based on their lifestyle and support system back home. 
• If someone has experience with plant medicines and has people in their lives back home who have shared similar experiences, integration could be a bit smoother than for someone new to all of this, with less support back home.
• This is why I elected to take some time to myself in Santa Teresa after my Soltara visit. I can't imagine getting on an airplane the day after a retreat ended at this point. Taking time in nature to reflect on the experience was critical for me. 
• That said, most people do in fact hop on a plane and head right home after both places so I'm sure it's quite possible to achieve successful integration that way as well. That's what I did after Rythmia earlier this year, and I lived to tell the tale.

 

49:50 — Summary

• In the end, I think each person has to follow their own heart when choosing a center, and between these two you are in such good hands either way. 
• I would not personally recommend just randomly doing plant medicines with people you don't know in a random ‘hope it all works out’ sort of way.
• These medicines are incredibly powerful and require the utmost respect from both the practitioners and the participants.
• Whether you choose either one of these centers, a different one, or something closer to home, please do yourself a favor and do your research to make sure that you’re in good hands and that you are able to feel safe and well looked after, especially if you are new to the world of plant medicines.

 

More about this episode.

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