Tick, tock, tick, tock… The countdown begins to Halloween, the Night of the Dead, or, in the Canary Islands, the Day of the Deceased. Are you ready to be frightened?

The wonderful island of Tenerife, beyond its idyllic beaches, cliffs that are sure to provoke vertigo and imposing nature, is a place full of dark stories. Discover five places on the island of Tenerife that you must visit to experience a truly terrifying adventure. Do you dare to read these scary stories and visit the areas where they took place?

A meeting with the “pear tree girl” in the Barranco de Badajoz ravine

The Badajoz ravine, located in Güímar in the south-east of Tenerife, has always been an active point of research due to numerous sightings and rumours concerning the appearance of mysterious beings. They are known as “white beings”.

Back in 1910, a girl who lived in the Güímar valley went to pick pears on the slopes of the ravine, planning to serve them as dessert. While she was harvesting the pears, she noticed a person dressed in white who asked her to join them.

The innocent little girl followed her footsteps which led her to an old Guanche cave. To her surprise, the cave was full of fruit trees.

The girl picked the fruit she needed for dessert, and set out for home. A sensation of hot flashes flooded her. She finally left the hillside. But, to her surprise, everything had changed. Instead of the valley she had known, she saw a modern town with futuristic cars and roads with unbelievable forms. The place where she had grown up had been transformed. Not only that, but her family had aged, while she herself was unchanged.

The girl had only been away for an hour, but her family had been trying to find her for years. How was this possible?

Legend has it that the white beings took her to the future through the cave of Badajoz. Many people claim to have seen or felt these strange presences in the area. Would you let them take you on a voyage through time?

The Bailadero de las brujas in Anaga

Legend has it that the Anaga Bailadero, located between Taganana and San Andrés, was the meeting place for the local coven of witches.

They gathered within the mountain around a bonfire, reciting their pagan songs, while dancing in the firelight. The last step of this mysterious ritual was to remove their black clothing and descend, naked, to the shore. It was their way to finish the ceremony.

As a result, the chronicler Domingo García Barbusano, in his book La Brujeria en Canarias (Witchcraft in the Canary Islands), wrote the following: “These meetings would end at midnight, and a large crowd of people would descend from the Bailadero: the witches, dressed in black clothing and wrapped up warm, their friends, and any others who were interested in practising witchcraft; together they formed a tight-knit crowd that descended slowly from the summit, looking for any straggler to bewitch”.

There are also stories that indicate that these witches were also vampires. The most creative stories say that they sucked the blood of newborns while they were sleeping in their cots.

We think that a stroll through the Anaga Massif on Halloween night is a great way to connect with nature, and maybe even discover its more sinister side.

The Hospital del Tórax and the mystery of Room 29

The Hospital del Tórax on Tenerife, located in the Ofra neighbourhood of Santa Cruz, was opened in 1944 to combat tuberculosis. The presence of the hospital made the local people nervous: Many feared getting too close to the buildings and becoming infected with the disease.

There are stories of patients witnessing the figure of a person wearing a hat in room 29, part of the hospital’s Palliative Care Area. It is said that the figure would appear at night, and testimonies linked its appearance to one of the mercenary nuns who worked in the health centre, known as the Ofra Tuberculosis Sanatorium.

There were so many testimonies that the Canarian journalists, Alfonso Ferrer and Alfredo Moreno, dedicated three years of research to the hospital in their book Los Fantasmas de La Candelaria. They report testimonies of strange appearances and situations which are impossible to explain.

La Casa Lercaro, in La Laguna

This story dates back to the 16th century. The building that today houses the headquarters of the Museum of History and Anthropology (MHA) of Tenerife, used to be the home of the Lercaro family.

It was customary at the time for women to marry at an early age and to a man with financial resources and an impeccable reputation. The noble Antonio Lercaro, Catalina’s father, forced the girl to marry an older man. The young woman, unable to change her destiny, committed suicide by throwing herself into a well at the back of the house on the day of her wedding.

Legend has it that Catalina is buried in one of the property’s courtyards and that she wanders the corridors of the old mansion at night.

Interestingly, after the event, the family decided to move away, to the La Orotava valley. Some say that they did this to escape the shame, others say they wanted to escape the pain. But… what if it was Catalina’s quest for revenge that made them move away?

The Hole in La Matanza

In the municipality of San Juan de la Rambla, and more specifically in the Tahona recreational park, there was an area known to locals as the “heavy place”.

The story goes that people who walked alone around this area of the island began to experience a sense of disorientation and a feeling that they were trapped between two worlds. This area remains a mystery. Was it a witch’s curse that caused this sensation? Reports from this natural ecosystem include visions of persecutions of men on horseback or spectral soldiers.

This northern mountain witnessed many atrocities between the indigenous Guanche people and the Castilian troops, in a war that would go on to take many lives. The same souls who wish to attract the attention of visitors to the area, perhaps?

What is clear is that Tenerife is an island full of mystery and a long history of paranormal phenomena. Researchers have tried to explain some of these cases. It seems to us that Halloween is the perfect moment to experience these adventures first-hand, and discover if they are mere legends, or closer to the truth…

Categories: Canaries, Lifestyle, Tenerife