The Very Haunted Merida, Yucatan, Mexico

Founded in 1542, #Merida is the largest city in the #Yucatan Peninsula. This colonial city contains impressive and picturesque #architecture that must be experienced in person, as photos do the ambience zero justice.

Old cities with rich history are inclined to offer us something supernatural in addition to romantic architectonics, Merida being no exception.

Just outside of Merida city limits, you'll find the infamous #Chicxulub Pueblo, which is Mayan for "flea of the Devil". The implication being that they didn't much care for the place. It's home to it's own hollering woman legend, similar to "La #Llorona", and located at the edge of the Chicxulub crater, the one left by the very meteor that scientists believe took out the dinosaurs.

There has been a lot of abandonment over the years in Merida and so it has a peculiarly high number of old, empty mansions to appreciate...from outside. A drive down Paseo de Montejo offers 3.4 miles of dilapidated mansion-viewing pleasure. However there's no shortage of haunted mansions that have become inns which often come with their own resident ghost stories.

#Cholul Hacienda, a now abandoned 19th-century agave plantation, is no place for the spiritually meek to wander. It's believed to have been passed down through generations of practitioners of dark witchcraft and devil-worship, with some of their spirits now appearing in owl-form to watch over the land to this day. There are inexplicable goings-on likely linked to its dark past and portals that have been left open. You'll see shadow people in the windows or a woman holding an infant, one whose cries can even be heard. The plantation is also home to the ghost of a laborer who died at his own hands to escape persecution after killing his fiancée's rapist.

Let's not gloss over the regions ancient history of ritual killing and human sacrifice. #Maya and the #Mexica, believed that human sacrifice nourished the gods. Without it, the sun would cease to rise and the world would end. And #sacrificial victims earned a special, honored place in the afterlife. It's entirely plausible that the #spirits of those victims did not quite make it that special place.

Merida is undoubtedly worthy of anyone's bucket list of paranormally active places to visit. It has an aura de misterio y aventura that begs to be attended.