san antonio DEL tequendama

HOTEL del SALTO

(Tequendama Falls Museum)(The Mansion of Tequendama Falls)

El Colegio-El Charquito

Status: Former Hotel; Formerly Abandoned; Museum

Directions

By <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Petruss" title="User:Petruss">Petruss</a> - <span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

History

This former hotel was originally constructed as a luxurious home for the architect Carlos Arturo Tapias in 1923.

Throughout the 1920’s it was the scene of lavish parties of Columbia’s elite. In 1928 it became a hotel and more so the playground of the rich and famous. At the time it was only accessible from Bogota by train.

With the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930’s very few could afford to stay at the hotel; its glory days were already behind it just as they were beginning.

In 1950 there were plans to turn it into an 18-story luxury hotel; but they never came to fruition. It was quickly discovered the building’s foundation had been severely degraded – generally due to the fact that the Bogota River had become nightmarishly contaminated – and could not support any more weight.

The smell of the heavily polluted river below also contributed to the demise of the hotel. Apparently at its worse the smell was positively nauseating and the river was completely unable to support life. All in a place that once been known for its wide diversity of both plant and animal life.

In the 1990’s the hotel finally shut down completely due to decades of falling guest numbers and finances. Between the 90’s and 2011 the abandoned building was only visited infrequently by urban explorers and paranormal investigators.

From 2011 to 2013 the building underwent a complete renovation turning it into a museum of Columbian culture and environment.

Paranormal Activity

According to legend the Muisca People – the original civilization native to the area – would throw themselves off of the falls across the gorge from the hotel to escape the invading Spanish Conquistadors. Before striking the rocks and river below they would turn into eagles and fly away from their captors. Perhaps their souls escaped the ultimate destiny of their earthly bodies.

The area is said to be cursed by the Aboriginal population if not for the rapes, murders and slavery of the Spanish than for the complete environmental destruction of their homeland’s ecosystems.

From the time the hotel was opened through to today people see the apparitions of the Muisca people both on the building’s grounds and inside it. Disembodied voices in the original language of the same people are also heard both in the area and in the building.

This legend has been romanticized so much the gorge was seen as the ideal place to end your life. Whether from the legend or just desperation and hard times there is reported large number of suicides during the time the hotel was open.

For many of the people who fell to their deaths from their balconies or the edge of the cliff it is unclear whether it was a suicide or an accident

The road past the former hotel has also been the scene of numerous mudslides and fatal accidents further contributing to stories of paranormal activity.

The building – to this day – is said to be wrapped in a strong aura of dark or negative energy that gives people ideas such as murder and suicide they would not otherwise have given thought.

A young woman is said to have been brutally murdered in one of the rooms and her apparition is still seen watching out of the window of the room she was murdered in.

While the building was abandoned there were numerous reports of loud screams and yells coming from inside.

Other Activity: shadow figures; phantom footsteps; disembodied voices; touches, tugs and pulls by unseen presences; cold spots; light anomalies; empathic feelings of sadness, fear and anger and feelings of being watched, not being alone and not being wanted.