Maestra Lucia is a healer from the Q’eros community in the region of Paucartambo — about eight hours from Cusco. On a quest that spent most of its time in laboratories, she represents something none of the scientists could: a body of knowledge handed down, in place, for a very long time.
It runs in her family. Her grandparents were altomisayoq — the highest rank of Andean shamanism. She watched them work from the time she was very small and began learning at around ten or twelve. She has been working with the medicine herself for roughly eight years, since she left Q’eros.
Her training included something worth pausing on. To gain experience — to graduate, in effect — she took the medicine every day for thirty days, walking the Camino through the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu. She describes drawing her ability to help people from the mountains themselves.
She also makes what she uses. Cooking the medicine takes about eight hours, and the ingredients are only water, the San Pedro cactus and charcoal. She cannot leave it; she stays beside the pot and chants for the whole eight hours. The chants are not written down anywhere — they come to her as she works.
In the Andes, she explained, the apus are gods: the mountains, the wind, the rain. Her account of what the medicine does is not chemical but relational — it works, she says, to the extent that you bring faith to it.
San PedroAndean healingQ’eros lineageCusco, Peru
Near Cusco · April 2024
Cusco, April 2024
Where we met
Marek travelled to Peru to sit a San Pedro ceremony and spoke with Lucia beforehand, through an interpreter — she speaks Quechua and Spanish. It is one of the few conversations on this quest conducted entirely in translation, and one of the few where the person being interviewed had no interest in the word “longevity” at all. Her frame is healing, faith and the mountains. The overlap turned out to be considerable.
Q’eros, Paucartambo
Eight hours from Cusco
The community she comes from; her grandparents were altomisayoq.
The Sacred Valley
Thirty days
Walking the Camino, taking the medicine daily, to gain her experience.
Near Cusco
April 2024
The conversation, and the ceremony that followed.
“It is like being reborn. A new beginning.”
— Maestra Lucia, Cusco
On the quest
The ceremony
Serving the medicine. Near Cusco, April 2024 — the cup passed to Marek before the ceremony.And drinking it. Eight hours of cooking, and by Marek’s own account it does not taste of very much that is pleasant.The interviewMaestra Lucia with Marek and the translator, near Cusco
In her words
Faith first, then the medicine
“Most of the work has to be done by you.”
Maestra Lucia · Near Cusco, through her interpreter
You have to have a lot of faith in the medicine.
Maestra Lucia
It shows you what you have done wrong — maybe you see it from a different angle, not the same one you are used to.
Maestra Lucia
The chants are not written down. They come as she works.
Maestra Lucia
If you believe in this, it will be one of the best experiences you will ever have.
Maestra Lucia
In her own words
Straight from the interview
From the conversation near Cusco — how she was trained, how she makes the medicine, and what she believes it does.
How she was trained
Not in a school. She learned by watching her grandparents, who held the highest rank of Andean shamanism, and then by walking the Sacred Valley for thirty consecutive days with the medicine. The mountains are described as the source of what she can offer people.
“That is how she gets the energy to be able to help people.”
Cusco · from the interview
“Like being reborn”
Her account of how it works is psychological rather than pharmacological: it shows you what you have done wrong, from an angle you are not used to, and you begin to think differently. That is the mechanism she names — a new beginning, a better person.
“It is like being reborn.”
Cusco · from the interview
On living longer — her view
Lucia told us that people who work with these plants tend to live a great deal longer, some past a hundred. Her reasoning is that the medicine comes from Mother Earth, is entirely natural, and cleanses the body. This is her tradition’s account, set down as she gave it — not a medical claim, and not something we are able to verify.
“It is natural medicine. Nothing synthetic, only water.”
Maestra Lucia works within her community rather than online, and has no public profile. Contact runs through the people who hosted us in Cusco.
From the conversation
Maestra Lucia, in her words
Video interview
The video interview is coming. Recorded interviews go live after the launch of the film & series Live Beyond.
From the conversation near Cusco, April 2024. Lucia speaks Quechua and Spanish; her answers reached us through an interpreter, and what follows is the interpreter’s English rendering of what she said. Lightly edited for readability.
Where she comes from
Interpreter“Her name is Lucia. She is from the community of Q’eros. This community is in the region of Paucartambo — it’s about eight hours from here, from Cusco. She got into the medicine because her grandparents were also shamans, at the highest level. They’re called altomisayoq. That’s the highest level of shamanism you can get to. She would watch them work since she was very little, so she was always into the medicine. She started learning from them since she was around ten or twelve.”
How she was tested
Interpreter“She says that for her to get more experience — as a test, or you could say to graduate — she took the medicine for a whole month, every day, walking around the Camino in the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Huayna Picchu. She always walked, and took it every day for thirty days. That’s how she gets the energy from the sacred valley and the mountains, for her to be able to help people.”
What the medicine does
Marek Piotrowski“Tell me how the medicine works. In your heart.”
Interpreter“She says that first of all, for it to work or to help you, you have to have a lot of faith in the medicine. Once you take it and it starts working on you — with all of your heart — she says it’s like being reborn. Like a new beginning. Because it shows you how to become a better person, what you’ve done wrong. Maybe you see it from a different angle, not the same one you’re used to. You start thinking differently. And that’s what helps you become a new person.”
How she makes it
Interpreter“She cooks her own medicine. It’s a process — around eight hours. The ingredients are only water, the cactus, San Pedro itself, and charcoal. And she has to be next to it, she can’t just leave it alone. That gives her a kind of energy, and it also connects her with the medicine. She starts to chant as she’s making it, almost for the whole eight hours. And these chants, it’s not something that she’s written down. Normally they just come.”
Marek Piotrowski“So it’s a ritual. It’s more spiritual — it’s not just physical, fixing our hearts and our minds.”
On the mountains
Interpreter“Here in Cusco, in the Andes, we believe a lot in the apus. Apus are gods — in this case the mountains, the wind, the rain. She says that if you have a lot of faith and you believe in this, this will be one of the best experiences you will ever have.”
On the rebirth Marek was already carrying
Marek Piotrowski“I really like what you said, Lucia, about being reborn. When I was in New Zealand, in February, I went to a local tattoo artist to get this tattoo. It shows the journey — the journey of me and my son as we do it now for this one year, but also the journey of life. It’s open from all the sides, so it’s never-ending. And this is the fern. The fern is the national symbol of New Zealand, and it means rebirth and growth — resurrection. During your life, from time to time, you need to experience rebirth just to keep on going. For me it’s also about rejuvenation, and hence longevity.”
More passages from the full interview will be published here.
Continue the quest
More minds on the quest
Maestra Lucia sits across Biohacking Upgrades (the emotional and plant-medicine layer) and Longevity Basics (mindset and purpose).
