Travel diary, Portugal, February 11, 2010:
“We left for Evora.
Along the way there were millions and millions of nests of storks that had long beaks and long legs.
We visited a castle.
We took photos and ate cod.
Then we entered a horrible chapel built with human bones and a phrase at the entrance that said: We, the bones that are here, wait for yours.
Every once in a while, when my memory gets cloudy, I ask my son for permission to open his “memory box,” the one that contains his travel diaries.
Now I wanted to know how he remembered, at 9 years old,
that very strange chapel
that had left me cold, with a “cold smell” impregnated in the clothes (if anything we can put a temperature to the aromas).
Because that was an acid cold that penetrated the bones.
The bones of the living, those of us who were there taking photos of the bones of the dead that covered the walls and columns of that macabre tourist spot.
How had it occurred to us to take our son there?
There is an ossuary built in the 16th century by a friar who wanted to show the transitory nature of life.
It is estimated that
5,000 skeletons were needed to carry out such a work.
But despite everything - and the two stuffed corpses hanging from a chain - the page that my son dedicated in blue ink to that day in February ends with a tender drawing of two storks in their nest, with a little egg in the middle.
Well there
, I smile, returning the travel diary to his box: there was no “psychological damage.”
Life won over death.
Skulls on ceilings and walls.
The chapel of bones, in Evora
Dark tourism is a trend that is already all the rage in the world.
Some prefer the beach or the mountains, but more and more people choose places where death is the protagonist.
This summer, for example, a flood of tourists arrived at the Valley of Tears, in Mendoza, where the Uruguayan plane crashed in 1972.
Pushed by the movie “The Tragedy of the Andes,” they decided to trek for three days and two nights to see the exact place where 16 boys managed to survive.
The landing gear, two wheels, pieces of seats, an armrest and rugby socks are still there.
And a monolith with the names of the 29 deceased.
Trekking to the Uruguayan plane, in Mendoza.
Photo Tuiti Trekking
Monolith with the names of the 29 dead.
What is dark tourism?
It is the name given to places that remember disasters.
It is not for nothing that the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl is one of the most visited places.
Especially after the HBO series from 5 years ago.
And also Fukushima, the Japanese city of the 2011 nuclear tragedy.
Chernobyl.
An old abandoned nursery.
(EFE)
But sometimes there are tragedies that call for tragedies, like that of the submersible that imploded last year with 5 people trying to reach the remains of the Titanic.
In 2018, journalist David Farrier starred in the series “Dark Tourist” on Netflix, where he visited the darkest and most visited places on the planet.
For him, black tourism is increasingly popular because people want to challenge their fears.
But maybe, as he explains in one of his eight episodes, it's best to simply realize how good it is to come home.
And feel happier to be alive.
See also
See also
Perfect days, do they exist?