A building can house many things, from physical objects like people and artifacts to spiritual ones such as history and secrets.
Many buildings have been standing long enough to the point where their very existence becomes entwined with the decades of stories that unraveled within the walls.
As the house turns inhabited and left unmaintained for an extended period, nature starts to take over. Soon enough, the dark interior is wrapped by branches and leaves, cracked siding, and mold.
The once familiar sight of a dwelling now transforms into an impression of a haunted place – especially if people talk about (or fabricate) past tragedies that happened inside.
As in the case of Hotel del Salto, located just about 18 miles southwest of Bogota, Colombia, the place has now been rehabilitated and repurposed as a museum by the Colombian government, but before that, the building was a long-abandoned hotel filled with stories of apparitions of the spirits of ancient people who died in the same grounds or committed suicide by jumping from the nearby Tequendama Falls.
Even after renovations, those stories linger.
10 /10 Waterfall Legend
According to a Chibcha (South American Indians who at the time of the Spanish Conquest occupied high valleys surrounding the present-day Bogota and Tunja in Colombia) legend, the Tequendama Falls was the creation of Bochica, a bearded man from the east who taught the primitive Chibcha moral norms, a model to organize their state, metalworking, and agriculture.
When finally the people lived in excess thanks to his teachings, a massive flood happened.
Bochica struck the ground using his staff to drain the floodwaters from the Savannah of Bogota. That strike created the Tequendama Falls.
9 /10 Native Chibcha Ground
It is said that Hotel del Salto was built on a ground habituated by native Chibcha in the distant past. This group of indigenous Colombians inhabited the land from around 1200 – 1500 CE.
At the time of the Spanish Conquest of the Chibcha, captured natives would jump off the edge of the falls in the hope of reclaiming their freedoms from the colonizers.
The Chibcha believed that making the jump would allow them to transform into eagles and fly free. As part of the effort to fight the colonizers, the Chibcha also cursed the land.