- Time of past OR future Camino
- Various 2014-19
Via Monastica 2022
Primitivo 2024
Well?have a couple of ghost stories
Remove ads on the forum by becoming a donating member. More here. |
---|
Well?have a couple of ghost stories
McSherry,Odd things do happen. I lived in a âhaunted houseâ by myself. Things happened, and being the only person there I knew no one else was responsible.
Anyhow, my Camino story is not that exciting but a little odd.
We are quite Catholic but really knew little of the Camino, if anything. A few years ago I listened to a podcast by a priest planning snd going on his Camino. I got interested and watched videos etc. I thought that this would be an interesting challenge. But given that my wife, son and I did not hike much, and my wife has an issue with her legs I knew it would never happen. I never spoke of it to my family as they would think I was nuts.
We were speaking of vacation. Our son would be off to college in a few years and we wanted to do something special for vacation. Out of the blue my wife said âThere is something called the Camino. I dont know if anyone else would be interested.â I sat momentarily in amazement, and said I would be up for it and later explained my interest.
Turned out to be a tremendous and memorable experience for all three of us. As it turned out, it was our last big trip with our son before college as covid shut down any plans since. Now with him being in college, such trips are out financially, and time wise.
My wife and talk about going back sometime.
We did not have any mystical experiences per se on the trip, but just a wonderful chance to walk and talk. The photo is of my wife and son somewhere between Sarria and Portomarin.
Wilderness, log cabin ghost and "presence" stories would be a very long thread, an entire forum.Sounds in the night.
Same trans Canadian trip in the early 80's. Somewhere around Writing on Stone National Park there is a Youth Hostel way out in the sticks somewhere. We found it on a map.
We got there very late in the afternoon, probably closer to evening and discovered that it was closed with no one around. It really was a long way away from anywhere else and we were tired and didn't feel like driving for hours at night looking for somewhere else to stay and so I had a look around and discovered a loose window that I managed to squeeze through (I was much slimmer then). Opened the door and we set up in one of the bunk rooms.
There was no gas or electricity and so we opened a couple of cans to eat by torch light and then crawled into our sleeping bags.
We both woke up around 1am because of a weird metallic clanking and scraping noise coming from somewhere very close by.
My wife gave me a hard kick, which meant that she expected me to get up and see what it was.
I wasn't so keen! Once you are in a zipped up sleeping bag you are somewhat vulnerable because it is hard to move fast to get out.
I lay there for a while, imagining ghosts and/or random serial killers roaming the corridors and silently cursing Canadian remoteness when I managed to find my torch that I had used during dinner and which had been buried somewhere under my sleeping bag.
I turned it on to see a gaggle of rats gnawing on the empty cans that had contained our dinner! They stared back at me and I was imagining that maybe they were eyeing me up as desert, so I threw the first thing that came to hand, other than the torch, which was probably my wife's hair brush and they sauntered off.
I was then volunteered for guard duty so that the "other" could get some sleep but I doubt that I would have slept much anyway because those rats were very big and looked very hungry!
We were out of there pronto, just as the sun rose.
A couple of weeks later, probably around Moose Jaw or Lone Loon Lake we decided to park up out in the bush on some gravel cul-de-sac that lead down to the lake shore to sleep in the car for the night.
We obviously hadn't heard about that murderer then.
Wifey was lamenting not seeing much Canadian wildlife although in the last town where we had spent the night we had asked where we had to go to see wolves and were told to go to the town dump at twilight and we would see them. It worked, although I was a little concerned for the young American guy that we had agreed to take along with us when he got out the car and walked over to them to take a photo!
Anyway back to the remote lake shore somewhere miles from anyone else. We had some stale bread in our stash and wifey decided to put it out on the bonnet of the car to see what it attracted.....
We waited some time after dinner and nothing turned up so went off to sleep with the front seats rolled back.
At some stage during the night there was a heavy thump on the bonnet area that woke us both up. I turned on the car's internal light and there sitting on the bonnet, looking in at us with a cheeky smile was a rather large raccoon.
Wifey was delighted, but I was imagining larger prey animals might also be in the vicinity and so I wasn't quite so pleased that her bait had worked.
This is very odd! I couldnât resist tinkering with the photo to see if some of the dark areas held more detailâI hope you donât mind, @Charles Zammit . I used to be a photographer and, although Iâm not up to speed with phone camera trickery, I canât explain this. A double exposure would be the obvious thing, or the camera stitching things together in a panorama, but you obviously didnât do any of this so⊠stumped. I like the thin places idea, of course!Some evidence of sorts , of the most unsettling event I have experienced .
During Melbourne's first lock down I took a series of photographs of the beach and surrounds where I live. Feeling the call of the Camino and the effects of restrictive travel I wanted to send them to my walking companions that had shared parts of the Francigena with me .
The bicycle in the foreground was not there when I took this photograph , a close inspection will reveal it is fractured in a way , as is the area it crosses , a rift ; perhaps one of Tincatinker's '' Thin Places'' .
I can't explain it , there is no rider and the bicycle could not have remained upright by itself . I was unaware of its presence at the time however I did realise later that my faithful companion Whippet had sat and trembled while I took this photos , unlike him to do so and I dismissed it as impatience and annoyance of having had his walk interrupted .
This is an incredible experience, and fascinating! There certainly are things we donât understand. Thank you for sharing itI had a peculiar experience while staying at the Monasterio Santa Clara at Carrion de los Condes. My companions and I shared a 5-bed dorm on the ground floor. I had a very vivid and emotional dream in which I had to hunt and capture or restrain one of our party, and in the dream I was doing so in a frenzy because for some reason that was not clear, it was imperative to the safety of us all that I did so! I tracked and chased him through a heavily wooded area and in the end found and confronted him.
He seemed to be driven by a kind of manic force - possessed even - and he attacked me and clearly would have killed me but I managed to place a thumb over each of his eyes, and had to make a split-second decision whether to literally take his eyes to save myself. Thankfully, I woke up before having to decide!
So, just a nightmare - but that's when it gets a little strange. In the morning, as we were getting dressed, he asked how I'd slept and I mentioned that I'd had a bizarre dream in which I'd been forced to hunt him down. He looked a bit shocked and replied that he knew. "Through the woods" he replied. After just a few more sentences it became clear that we'd had remarkably similar dreams, me hunting him and even the detail of the dream ending with my thumbs in his eyes, he shuddered as he recalled that detail, that had also the point at which he awoke.
We walked fairly quietly together that morning and a couple of sidelong glances might have been exchanged between us but the strange feeling soon wore off and it was just what it was - a weird, shared dream, and we remained good friends all the way to Santiago and beyond. It was so odd and incongruous that it was never brought up or discussed and I never really tried to rationalize it, but it's been in the back of my mind for some years.
I've taken it a bit further and the more you look, the odder it gets. I've lightened it and cropped it to show up some of the detail. On the left of the frame, on the other side of the road, there is some blurred, unidentified object - perhaps a fast moving car if you used a slow aperture speed. On the right, there is another, similarly truncated bike with what looks like a cyclist behind it in mid air with no bike (Lhollo's man in an orange coat). Both bikes appear to have legs pedalling them and are blurred at the top, as if they are reflections on the edge of a curved surface. You would have to look at the original image and see what is going on with the pixels, but I suspect another image has been somehow superimposed on top of this one.This is very odd! I couldnât resist tinkering with the photo to see if some of the dark areas held more detailâI hope you donât mind, @Charles Zammit . I used to be a photographer and, although Iâm not up to speed with phone camera trickery, I canât explain this. A double exposure would be the obvious thing, or the camera stitching things together in a panorama, but you obviously didnât do any of this so⊠stumped. I like the thin places idea, of course!
It looks to me as though there are legs on the bike, albeit no body. Did you know there was the second bike further down the road, and the heavy set man in the orange coat?
I can understand it being unsettling. A vaguely similar thing happened to me once with my own dog. I used to do metal detecting and had spent some time in a flat pasture field, working my way toward some woodland where there was a ruined manor, 15th century. We were happily walking along, level with the manor, when my dog stopped, began to tremble, and refused to move forward. After much insistence on my part, she jumped as high as she could, as if over a hurdle, and then carried on walking. I called it quits for the day soon after, though. I was thinking about what had happened more than anything else. What was in the way, that she was so scared and had to make that leap? My dog has greyhound in her but is smaller; maybe a âsightâhound skill?
You sometimes get that effect when taking a "panorama" shot where you move the camera to get a wider shot and the computer then stitches the image together.I've taken it a bit further and the more you look, the odder it gets. I've lightened it and cropped it to show up some of the detail. On the left of the frame, on the other side of the road, there is some blurred, unidentified object - perhaps a fast moving car if you used a slow aperture speed. On the right, there is another, similarly truncated bike with what looks like a cyclist behind it in mid air with no bike (Lhollo's man in an orange coat). Both bikes appear to have legs pedalling them and are blurred at the top, as if they are reflections on the edge of a curved surface. You would have to look at the original image and see what is going on with the pixels, but I suspect another image has been somehow superimposed on top of this one.
View attachment 110028View attachment 110029
I think something like that could have happened. The three anomalous details of the two bikes and the man in the orange coat look a lot like components of the same sequence, i.e. 3 incomplete shots of the same cyclist at short intervals.You sometimes get that effect when taking a "panorama" shot where you move the camera to get a wider shot and the computer then stitches the image together.
The stitching process takes more notice of long consistent lines like the metal barrier and the white line on the road while putting much less emphasis on getting individual components correct such as the cyclists.
Yes, but @Charles Zammit has said there was no cyclist there, and digital cameras donât create these effects unless you either choose panorama mode, in which case the bike would have needed to be there, or deliberately create a double exposure, which isnât the case here. Anyway, I like the mystery of it, to be honest! I would still like to know if Charles saw the man in orange, though.I think something like that could have happened. The three anomalous details of the two bikes and the man in the orange coat look a lot like components of the same sequence, i.e. 3 incomplete shots of the same cyclist at short intervals.
Not seeing it doesnât mean it wasnât there. The phone was likely in panorama mode by accident. Been there and done that. The easiest explanation is the best in this situation. A persons complete focus can be monopolized by an action, selective attention. Rather common.Yes, but @Charles Zammit has said there was no cyclist there, and digital cameras donât create these effects unless you either choose panorama mode, in which case the bike would have needed to be there, or deliberately create a double exposure, which isnât the case here. Anyway, I like the mystery of it, to be honest! I would still like to know if Charles saw the man in orange, though.
The calling of the Camino is strong in some (including me).After my first Camino in 2014 I returned home and within a month or so I felt I wanted to go back like so many of you have. I thought the temptation with logical argument. â I canât go back and walk the same path without a reason.â I thought. But the urge persisted and I cannot make any sense of it.
The Camino has done its work on you. I will be heading out for another one in 2 weeks from now. Obviously not finished yet.Apparently he was willing and I was able to learn. Iâve been going back two to three times a year ever since with the simple goal of helping people and sharing the truth wherever the opportunity presented itself.
I have had many encounters and confirmations that this is what I am supposed to be doing.
I thought Najera was so beautiful, I wanted to live there! That river full of big trout, with outdoor cafes above the grassy banks. However I never liked Ponferrada. Last time I chose to bus through it so I wouldn't have to stay there. I don't know why.Speaking to @VNwalking "dark feeling" comment (which is a fascinating testimony-I firmly believe our spidey senses pick up events or imprints that our brain cannot compute).
A few years ago, there was a very active thread on the APOC Facebook page regarding places that give you the "willies". One commenter casually mentioned walking into Najera and getting a very dark feeling from the town. The comments exploded underneath the thread. Which was affirming because I felt exactly the same way! So many people had the "I don't like this town but I don't know why" feeling walking through Najera, including my friend when I mentioned the post to her. She was like "Omg me too! I was going to spend the night but quickly changed my mind once I arrived".
Stranger things.
Hi, I have walked two Caminos. I have only made one RSVP. One was in Najera. When I got there I asked to see the room first. I walked in and right back out. I left Najera and walked to the next small town.Me, too!