Chacachacare Island
Simply by chance, I stumbled upon a post about a tiny event in my Facebook feed. It was a small trip to the island Chacachacare, which I remember visiting once when I was younger and told that the island was haunted. Naturally I was very interested in visiting for the sole purpose of exploring the abandoned facilities and maybe stumbling into a spooky situation.
Now, Chacachacare is the largest island between Trinidad and Venezuela and has been used for many things in the past such as a safe-haven for anti-Royalist revolutionaries during Venezuela's fight for independence from Spain. Later on it was also used to house persons suffering from the Hansen's disease, establishing a leper colony away from the main populace were they recieved treatment. This island was also occupied by 1,000 US Marines during World War II and remnants of their stay still exists to today.
From what I remembered, during my first visit as a child, was an empty island with tall trees all around but still wasn't very grassy. More forest like then anything. I remembered walking between the trees, deeper inland, away from the beach and it wasn't difficult to navigate. It was so easy to maneuver that a few of my family members walked so far in that they stumbled unto the burial grounds. This site in particular I wanted to visit as someone had mentioned that they had seen a lady amoung the graves who looked quite out of place. So it should be no surprise that I was really looking forward to exploring.
When we got to the island it was very different from my memory. We docked where I had never seen before and the area around was littered with signs of human life, which was the complete opposite of what I had remembered. Now I shrugged aside this observation as my original purpose for the visit was to take a look at the abandoned buildings left there by the past. I didn't expect it to be difficult to find because of what I had in memory but the island had changed too much and my memory served no purpose.
The grass had grown so tall and thick it was impossible to navigate on my own and thus I was unable to explore the remains of the Leper colony and the baracks.
Myself, with a few friends, decided to take the hour long trek up to the lighthouse which seemed like a good idea while we were on the flat by the beaches. Needless to say there were a lot of panting, wheezing, sweating and thoughts of giving up but we still stuck it out.
The walk up was long and lonely as no one other than our small group decided to attempt it. The tiny paved road that led up to the lighthouse was lined with tall grass and trees, which wasn't really a bother to us, but the noises that keep permeating scared a few of us into grabbing weapons.
At one point the sole guy in our group could swear that he heard a dog barking or howling, which the rest of us did not.
Although the rustling in the bushes were quite unnerving, nothing was creepier than the vast amount of Corbeau or Turkey Vultures that looked down on us as we passed by. Like they were waiting for one of us to drop dead so they could feed. Up at the lighthouse there were plenty of them and the two houses or sleeping quarters were abandoned and dilapidated. As we had reached the top, rain began to fall so we ended up staying in the more stable house until it stopped.
Nothing strange had happened during our stay in the house, except for the bats that kept flying by when we walked around, and the lighthouse was locked which would have been picked if there weren't cameras around...
Despite my disappointment in what we had found up at the lighthouse, the view still was amazing as we all climbed and sat on the...water tank...to be honest I have no idea what it was, just that it was made of concrete...anywho the view was spectacular and we stayed there for a while looking out at the horizon.
As much as the walk up was painfully long and the lighthouse wasn't all we were expecting, for some reason it was blocked out by that one perfect moment where a group of friends just stared out at the possiblities across the ocean. Wind blowing strong and the most graceful vulture I have every seen.
I wouldn't change any of it......
Maybe just our ability to check out the burial grounds and abandoned facilities but yeah.
Wouldn't change it at all.
