Samay · Sacred Valley, Peru

The estate

A walled garden beneath 5,000-meter peaks

An hour below Cusco, the road descends five hundred meters to the valley floor, and the air softens. Samay sits inside nine thousand square meters of walled gardens between Urubamba and Ollantaytambo, ringed by terraces the Inca cut a millennium ago.

The estate is deliberately over-spaced for sixteen guests. At full house, every guest can be alone whenever they want to be.

iTwo yoga shalas, the main hall opening to the mountains through a single wall of glass
iiA hydrotherapy circuit: heated pool, vitality pool, cold plunge, sauna, steam
iiiThree consultation studios with fireplaces, built for the one-on-one work
ivMeditation hermitages on the upper terraces, and a stone fire circle set with the guidance of local paqos
vA greenhouse, a kitchen garden, and a dining room built around one long table

Terraces at Moray · a half hour's ride

The work

Seven nights, sequenced for altitude and for the psyche

Physical intensity ramps as acclimatization completes. Emotional depth ramps only after trust is established. Twice-daily practice is the constant; three private sessions are the spine; a ninety-day integration protocol is the promise that the week survives re-entry.

Descent · Day 1

Arrival

Met in Lima at the aircraft door, then the drive descends to the valley floor. Coca tea, an oxygen-enriched suite, a candlelit restorative session. The week begins by asking nothing.

Descent · Day 2

Landing

Sunrise practice on the shala deck. A private intake: what did you come here carrying. The first circle is short and low-stakes; the first tasting dinner is not.

Deepening · Day 3

Opening the work

Full practice begins. The first breathwork ceremony, altitude-adapted and medically screened. The first private session, and the week's central question, handed to each guest.

Deepening · Day 4

The mountain day

A guided walk on thousand-year-old terraces. At sunset, a despacho offering of gratitude led by paqos from a neighboring community, in their own tradition. Silence begins after dinner.

Deepening · Day 5

Silence and solitude

A wordless sunrise. A solo morning in a hermitage on the upper terraces. Silence breaks at a long shared lunch, reliably the most honest conversation of the week.

Integration · Day 6

From insight to design

What specifically changes after this week, written down in behavioral terms, with dates, and pressure-tested in the third private session. The evening is the chef's counter.

Re-entry · Day 7

Closing

A slower practice. Each guest names one commitment aloud. The final dinner is quieter than night six by design: a despedida, not a crescendo.

Re-entry · Day 8

Ninety days

Staggered private transfers, the Lima connection hosted again. Guests leave with a written integration plan and three faculty sessions already on the calendar.

The table

The world's table, grown in one valley

The menu is curated by co-founder Vafa Mansouri, and it travels: Persian saffron and herb stews, Lebanese mezze, Greek island cooking, Indian spice work, Jewish family recipes, French technique. Lima is the world's proof that cuisines meeting seriously become a cuisine of their own; Samay's table extends that tradition toward the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

All of it is cooked from a pantry that begins fifty kilometers from the kitchen door: heirloom corn, river trout, three thousand varieties of native potato, and high-altitude botanicals most guests will taste in original form for the first time. Menus move with the week: hydrating and gentle while you acclimatize, expressive as the work deepens, engineered for sleep in the back half.

There is no alcohol; there is a zero-proof pairing program composed to the standard of a fine wine list. Guests who have eaten at three-star tables report the pairings, not the absence, as the surprise of the week.

Saffron-braised valley trout with a golden tahdig of native potato, plated on dark ceramic at the candlelit chef's counter

Saffron trout · tahdig of native potato

The sixteen-seat chef's counter at night, set with ceramics and candles before the wood-fire hearth

“Attention, applied completely, to what is directly in front of you. That is the kitchen's thesis, and the week's.”

The suites

Rooms built for altitude, and for sleep

Every suite is oxygen-enriched as standard, a quiet piece of engineering that makes 2,900 meters feel like sea level while you rest. Fireplaces, deep soaking tubs, and no televisions anywhere on the estate.

Valley Suites

Eight · sixty-five square meters

A king bed facing the peaks, a fireplace, a deep soaking tub, and a private terrace over the gardens. The room asks nothing of you either.

From $8,500 per person · seven nights, all-inclusive

Apu Suites

Four · ninety-five square meters

A separate sitting room, an outdoor fireplace, a private plunge pool, and a meditation nook of your own. Named for the mountain spirits each one faces.

From $14,000 per person · seven nights, all-inclusive

Or take all of it. Full-estate buyouts from $185,000 per week, for families, founder groups and the gatherings that need every name on the guest list to be yours.

The quiet parts

Privacy is protocol here, not atmosphere

One cohort, ever

The estate hosts a single group at a time. No walk-ins, no day guests, no mixed weeks. Between cohorts, Samay goes dark for turnover.

No cameras in shared spaces

A no-photo policy holds everywhere guests gather. Staff never photograph guests. Guest lists are never published or referenced.

Discretion in writing

Every member of staff signs confidentiality as a condition of employment. Guest-facing NDAs are available for any cohort or buyout that wants them.

Twenty-six for sixteen

More staff than guests, always. Suites are serviced only while you are at practice or at the table. No front desk, no checkout, no clipboard.

Medicine, quietly

Physician screening before arrival, oxygen-enriched suites, daily pulse checks framed as care, and a doctor on call in Urubamba with a thirty-minute protocol.

Hosted, not appropriated

Andean ceremony happens only through paid, credited practitioners from neighboring communities, in their own tradition. We host in this valley; we do not sell its spirituality.

The way in

Getting here is part of the design

You are met in Lima at the aircraft door and hosted through the connection. From Cusco, the road does something unusual for the Andes: it goes down. Five hundred meters of descent to the valley floor, the single kindest thing a first day at altitude can do.

Private throughout

Every transfer is private, with oxygen onboard for the drive and a host who already knows your name and your dinner.

Gentle by design

The first forty-eight hours ask almost nothing: restorative practice, hydrating menus, sleep. Acclimatization is programmed, not endured.

Season

Cohorts run April through December, the Andean dry season, under some of the clearest night skies on Earth.

The founders

Three founders, one table

Laurie

The program

Designs and leads the seven-night method, and curates the visiting faculty of senior practitioners who teach beside her.

Vafa Mansouri

The table

Curates a menu that travels from Persia to the Mediterranean to India, cooked from the valley's pantry, and hires every person who will care for you.

Rob

The house

Runs the business of Samay: the partnerships, the calendar, and the promise that the place will be here, better, next year.

The invitation

First light, April 2028

Samay opens with the Andean dry season. The founding list is limited to one hundred names: first choice of the opening year's cohorts, founding rates, and a place in the story of how this house came to be. Invitations follow by introduction.

Cohorts of sixteen · seven nights, all-inclusive · full-estate buyouts available