"The Long Road Home" from Otherworld

Support for Spooked comes from Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.

OAK offers non-stop flights to your favorite destinations across the U.S.

and Mexico with new non-stop flights to Los Cabos and Zacatecas.

OAK makes travel easy with Park OAK's convenient parking options.

Reserve a spot in the daily lot or economy lot and save on your next trip.

Learn more at iflyoak.com, the best way to San Francisco Bay.

Where would breakfast be without bacon?

And why even have pizza without the spice of pepperoni or the flavor of sausage?

It's pork that brings the flavor every time.

So see your chops, bake tenderloin, and taste what pork can do.

This message was brought to you by America's Pig Farmers.

Surprise!

Beach day, no excuses.

I'm in.

Give me five.

With Bic Soleil Glide Razor, you'll have hydrated, smooth skin that's ready to go on the fly.

No shave cream needed.

You can prep, shave, and hydrate all in one step.

Thanks to moisture bars that hydrate your skin during and after shaving.

Five flexible blades hug your skin for a close shave.

Glide into smooth.

It's your time to shine with Bixolet.

Buy now at Amazon and Walmart.

Ready?

Your skin looks amazing.

So smooth and beach ready.

Let's go.

Time to find out who's the coach, the greatest cashbacker of all time with Chase Freedom Unlimited.

Stephan Curry hits 3% cash back on lunch.

But Asia Wilson scores 5% on a trip downtown with Chase Traveler.

Chase Freedom Unlimited.

How do you cash back?

Cards issue by JP Martin Chase Band, any any member FPIC.

Change is always happening.

But no matter what changes in five years, there's one thing that will stay the same.

The price of your internet.

With the Xfiniti five-year price guarantee, you get five years of the most reliable Wi-Fi with our best equipment included for a price that stays exactly the same.

Restrictions apply, new residential customers only, taxes and fees extra and subject to change.

Most reliable Wi-Fi based on Open Signal Awards USA.

Fixed Broadband Experience Report, August 2024.

oh spooksters this week i am excited to bring you an episode from our friends at the show otherworld otherworld features real people who've experienced something paranormal something supernatural or just something unexplained

the washington post called Otherworld the paranormal this American life because host Jack Wagner goes to great lengths to investigate the strange and the uncanny.

And it's something he stumbles into by chance

after realizing how many people in his life had experienced something that they couldn't explain and never told anyone about.

Jack picked out this episode specifically for spook listeners.

Otherworld.

Welcome to Otherworld.

I'm your host, Jack Wagner.

I'm particularly excited for this episode.

Since starting the podcast, I've been waiting for a story to come in from Mexico or Latin America in general.

Mexico specifically has such a rich and intense connection to the supernatural with many specific legends that have been passed down through generations.

And as a nation, there seems to just generally be a stronger belief in a spirit world or outside forces that intertwine with the physical.

For that reason, and the fact that we make this show just two hours from the Mexican border, I've been eager to do some episodes that take place in Mexico, and I figured we would have gotten more submissions now than we have.

However, we finally got a really exciting one about something very strange happening to a person in Mexico.

But the person this happened to is not from Mexico.

They are in fact from Scotland of all places.

And this happened to them while they are visiting Mexico and the United States for the very first time after finishing a job at a summer camp.

I did not expect our first Mexican Otherworld episode to be coming from a Scottish camp counselor.

But then again, I think that kind of unusual perspective is what makes for some of the best episodes of this show.

This story ended up being one of my personal favorites.

It's somehow completely terrifying, but also a little funny and heartwarming at the same time.

I also just really liked speaking to this person about their experience and hearing the story.

This is episode 90.

The title is The Long Road Home, and you're listening to Otherworld.

Hello?

Is this Bobby?

Marketing.

That's at its core, the science, you can't argue.

I'm storied about

up in the sky.

It's almost frustrating that it's happening.

I'm mixed, I'm gonna die.

I'll fly.

Its whims were just like wrong.

Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute.

Hello, my name is Simon.

I'm 23 years old.

I live in Glasgow, Scotland.

I'm currently a bartender and I'm going to be going into studying my master's at the University of Glasgow.

The Robin Scotland is great because,

well I mean like we have

like everyone has like their nearest castle.

It's quite funny.

In terms of ghosts and things they're more of like an annoyance than a

they're like oh my like this place is haunted like we're good.

It's just like another thing

but it's like

no Scotland's lovely especially I live well I grew up between Glasgow and between like the Highlands so I was able to get a mix of both the city life and the country life which was great because Scotland is beautiful when it comes in terms of nature and then also just in terms of cities as well.

So I, for the past couple years, worked as a camp counselor in Maryland and it was like my first time in America and I

was stationed I guess in a camp in Maryland and I was like I've never heard of this state.

It's gonna be interesting.

And then it turns out I had like Baltimore and hairspray, all that sort of stuff.

But so it was a camp for boys and

you either got really really polite ones or like this is like my fourth home, which is what a kid said to me.

So like you've got that kind of really nice or really spoiled child.

And then like they would ask me things like, do you have technology in Scotland?

Like do you live in a like a cabin?

And I'd be like, yes, this is my phone.

And they'd be like, you didn't get that to come here.

And I was like, no, we have these.

I remember a child, and by child, I mean mean a 13 year old asked me if we had halloween in scotland and i was like we invented it

i don't know what to tell you but for the most part for the most part like i've some of my best friends live in maryland i really loved working at the summer camp and then helping a lot of the international staff kind of get settled and making sure they were comfortable, getting paid properly, had social security numbers.

I really am passionate about making sure people are comfortable in their workplaces.

But like afterwards we have like I have got like enough time with my visa where I can travel America for a month.

So I've done like Texas, Vegas, I've done LA as well and

I had deferred my my masters for like this September coming for this next year because I wanted to keep traveling.

and I wasn't ready to get back to real life.

I just thought I've finally got this time where I can just do and go wherever I want and I'm going to take full advantage of that.

Like not, it's like, when am I going to have this chance again and this time again to do this?

And

I've just always wanted to see Mexico.

I've got a friend who lives there.

I was going to, I went to go visit him.

That's when I flew to Mexico City.

Mexico City was lovely.

So I went for Independence Day.

And do you know, I'll never, like, I keep saying this to everyone I recommend, like going to Mexico to, like, the people in Mexico were nothing but like so kind and so generous and so, like, lovely.

And like, I've never been somewhere that feels

so

like

kind.

Like, everyone seemed to be kind of in it together, and it just felt very...

It felt very, not Scottish, but just very, like, everyone in this country is kind of banded together a little bit and it just felt quite lovely and everyone was more than happy to help but

I

also realized that I was in a new country by myself that I'd never been to and I ended up getting a travel buddy

someone I knew kind of not but not really from the job in DC, just outside DC.

I'm going to call him Roy.

We had the same route, the same route in Mexico, and we were going to travel together because I just thought, I don't want to do this alone, especially in a place I've never been to before.

Roy

was

like

a very outgoing person.

We don't talk anymore,

but we'll get to that.

He

like always wanted to go to like find best club in Mexico City.

He wanted to try all the best, like try the best food.

And then I started to realize that he didn't know any Spanish, like

past Ola.

And I was like,

you were going to Mexico for like a few months and you're

you didn't learn any Spanish?

And he was like, well, no, I just thought they'd speak English.

And I was like,

okay,

right.

Because I had learned enough Spanish to get me by.

And it only strengthened my time there.

But

he was a very,

he was quite arrogant with

like hospitality workers, things like that, hotel staff.

And I kind of took that on note,

but I always put it to the back of my head because I just thought

I don't want to be traveling alone.

And he came up with the idea after Mexico City to go to Puerto Escondido,

which like I'd never heard of.

All I knew that I didn't really know too much about Mexico, like

in terms of geography or where to go.

I just knew that I knew that I wanted to go to Oaxaca next, but we decided to do Puerto Escondido for like a few days.

So it was like a 15-hour bus journey, which I've been traveling for a few months in America at this point.

I can handle a 15-hour bus journey, you know, at least it's not a greyhound.

So

we had the time of our lives in Mexico City, enjoyed Independence Day, and then we went down to Puerto Escondido and we met up with his friend from back home and I'll call her Nora.

I had booked a hostel for the three of us because I knew that we were going to be meeting this girl that I'd not met before.

And we got to the hostel and they start freaking out about the rooms and then they cancel our hostel which was really annoying they didn't ask me they just cancelled it and I was like oh you cancelled my reservation too great Roy and Noda then booked us a really really sketchy hotel as far away from the beach as you could like imagine and at this point I was like

getting kind of sick of them because they were just they were being very horrible to like that the staff in the hostel we cancelled and

I walked in on them, like having sex in our room.

And I was like, oh,

this is my holiday.

This is my time to travel.

And they're kind of ruining it a little bit.

But anyway,

Puerto Escondido is an amazing town.

It's lovely beaches.

I've done a turtle saving sanctuary there.

So

that's why I wanted wanted to go more than anything.

I wanted to, they have these lovely kind of things they save these turtle eggs from poachers and things, and then we farm them, keep them in safe environments, and then release them out into the water and make sure that they get that they're safe, which I just thought was a really lovely thing to do.

And it made me feel like I was doing something while I was traveling, like I was helping someone or something.

Roy and Nora didn't want to do this because

they

not their thing.

It was not their thing.

But it was nice to have that time alone with the turtles.

Anyway,

I get back to this sketchy hotel one night after doing like the turtle saving sanctuary.

And they're like, we're going to go to a party in

Zapolite.

beach like it's just off Zapolite Beach, which is a nudist beach and just

it's like a maybe an hour or so drive away from Pretorus Cundido.

And I've had a few nights of relaxation.

I'm ready to party a little bit.

So they're like, okay, we've found someone who's got a car and they're going to drive us.

And I was like,

great.

Roy and Nora are like dangerously sociable people in the sense where like they if you have a car, you will be driving them after meeting them for like 10 minutes.

So,

do you know what I mean?

Like, those kind of people.

And I was

this poor boy who I had agreed to like drive them, I guess.

Um, I thought he was, I thought he was kind of cute, so like

he wasn't going to be drinking at the party.

And I was like,

maybe I won't drink either because

I don't know.

I was just

I had been traveling a while, so I was like, you know,

like, he's cute.

cute so

there was four of us and we were driving the drive there was like an hour long we took the main road and then after a while went on to basically a dirt road because that's I guess the road we had to take to get to this kind of beach area and that road was about 20 minutes half an hour long to drive on that road and on that dart road I remember driving past like

there was like a you know when on the side of the the road, when they have like a, like a cross,

it was a cross, it was very distinct because it was painted white and it had three yellow flowers painted onto it.

And then there was like an abandoned moped.

So that sort of thing, just,

I guess, distinct-looking trees, all that sort of stuff.

Just, but that they were only distinct looking trees because they were the only trees like in a while, if you know what I mean.

So it was,

it was

nothing really, just a road of

nothing.

Like, I can't really explain anything.

It was just

the planes, you know,

a bit of gitty nitty kind of thing.

Like,

on the way there, I just really wasn't taking note of too much except, I guess, the cross that I saw and the skirt.

So

we get to this party.

and it's like um at like an abandoned building almost and it's kind of just off from the beach not too far away people are clothed though even though it's just off the minute it's beach i do need to to say but um i think that it was heavily

tourists who were at this party um

it was a kind of a weird setup you would order your drinks and then you would wait like upwards of half an hour to get your drink you would just wait like with a ticket and i was like this is about weird it was just like it was like an average club except that it was outdoors really and everyone was recording it like everyone had their camera phones out all that sort of stuff so it was it was like very touristy

like maybe halfway through the party I was like yeah I'm not feeling this and I don't I'm not I'm not drinking and neither is this guy and this guy was like oh I was thinking about maybe going back and I was like oh same

and I was like we could go back and we could go to like the hotel or whatever and he was like, sounds good.

So we said to Noda and Roy,

we're leaving.

What are you doing?

And they said that they're going to stay.

And I said, well, good luck getting home, I suppose.

Best of luck.

They have each other.

And there was like

I just felt like I deserved

to leave.

them there a little bit

and

i get it yeah

we all get it yeah okay I just hate coming across this look at Dick but they they needed yeah

so me and this guy let's I'll give him a name let's call him Peter

we ended up leaving the party and getting in we got into the car we'd been driving for about 10 minutes I was

actually really relieved to be leaving these two to be leaving Roy and Nora behind like I can't even describe how

I've never met people that are so like irredeemably just not nice and like they just

there was just like I always look for the nice in people but there was just nothing there was just nothing to them and I was like right well fuck them I'm going to have a good night with this Peter guy so I was like actually

kind of happy and like we were just having that weird small talk in the car um

and it was like 10 10 minutes or so into into the drive and we're on the dirt road.

So

there's no other cars there.

It was like pitch dark.

There's no street lights or anything.

And

we hear a thud under the car.

And

we looked at each other.

At first I thought, oh, pothole or some just uneven road.

And he said it felt like we were driving over.

something

so

we just agreed okay we'll get out because we'd we'd driven for like maybe 10 more seconds and we're like, no, we should get out.

So

I get out of the passenger seat and the car's still facing towards

the way we were driving.

Because keep in mind, like, the only light is coming from the car, the way we were driving.

And I see kind of like a lump of...

just some like a lump in the darkness on the road and I think oh like we've hit we've hit like an animal or like this isn't, we've hit something.

And I'd started to feel really, really, really bad.

Because I've never, like, that's never happened to me before.

Like, how could we be, like, we, how could he not have seen that coming?

Um,

and then

he takes out his fly, his, like, phone flashlight, and all I'm thinking is,

like, what is the, like, what have we hit?

And

like,

whatever it is, I really, really hope it's not dead because this has never happened to me before.

And

I just, I've just spent like the past couple of days saving turtles.

Like, imagine it, like, I go and like hit something.

That's not a fun thought.

So I'm walking towards this and there's no light on it yet because the car is facing, it's still facing.

the way that we were driving.

And I just see a kind of lump in the darkness on the road.

And I was like,

We've had we've hit like a dog or something.

And

I remember like getting a little teary-eyed because I was

just like

upset, I guess, about the whole thing.

Is

like I was having, you know,

I was having like a decent night so far, and this had happened.

And

Peter, the guy,

put his flashlight onto it.

And

I was looking at its spine because that's what was facing us at the point, its back.

And I thought,

we've fucked this thing up with our car because its spine looked like it was coming out of its back.

And I was thinking,

I was like, just this pit of dread in my stomach of we've...

not only have we killed something but like we've done we've kind of just messed up its body the entire body was black and by what what i mean by its spine was coming out of his of its back is that its back was disjointed looking its back had

jags coming out of this like of where the spine would be

and i

i thought

whatever we've done to this with our car

We've messed its spine up and it's all messed up inside its body and it's trying to come out and it was like just such a horrible pit of dread in my stomach of

oh like

like I've done such a horrible thing

but then I started to realize that that's how its body was like that's um

that that's not how it's not been messed up its body looks like that it has

not hardened spikes but it's got like jags coming out of its back like that's just part of how its body is

And

the creature, the animal, starts to kind of move.

And I'm thinking, like, I just sigh of relief of thank God.

Thank God it's alive.

Like, I didn't really care at this point what it was.

I was like, it's alive.

That's all that matters.

And then

when that feeling of relief passed, I started to think, oh, it's like a mutated dog or like a mutated goat,

something like that, or even some kind of black fox.

I don't know.

And then it faced us, and

its eyes were piercing yellow.

Like

it could light, like it's almost like if someone had two flashlights inside its skull,

the eyes were that yellow.

Its

fur

was so short, but

it was like pitch black.

The animal itself was pitch black.

Like as dark as the rest of the night.

But my mind is going in slow motion almost at this point because I'm looking at this

thing

and its fur is like really, really short.

And it has yellow eyes and like like points coming out of its back.

So I remember being like, what the fuck is that?

Like, what is this?

I've never seen anything like this before.

Peter was just speechless.

Couldn't, he just couldn't vocalize anything.

I think he was startled more than anything that he had hit something.

You know how, like, see, if you, see, if you've ever been in like...

like an almost an accident or whatever, if you're in the car and something that feels life-threatening happens, you know, how that for those couple seconds, you're just kind of in silence.

It was almost as if he was in that, but for way too long, like he couldn't, he was in like in total shock that he had hit something.

And

I was just happy that it was not dead.

And we watched as

the thing began to kind of move.

and it started to face us.

And

I was just thinking this whole time, it was a mixture of relief, confusion, and still dread in my stomach of

now

what is going on.

Like, I have no idea what I'm looking at.

And it begins to rise, it begins to stand up on its hind legs

almost as if a goat would, like, when a goat kind of kicks up almost like that, but it doesn't go back down, it stays on its hind legs.

And it's about

it's like a four-foot-ish tall, I would say, about four foot.

And at this point,

I had gone over closer, and Peter had held back, holding the light, and it didn't seem to mind it, like up until this point that we had a light on it.

I was just like making sure, like, my number one goal is making sure that whatever this was was okay.

And then, um,

it just lets out this scream of

just

it wasn't a scream it's more of a shriek and it was like

I was listening to someone find out that their whole family had been killed it was

I've never heard anything like it before it was dreadful to listen to

it's just so many feelings of confusion

and

like just I have no idea what's going on like this has all happened pretty fast fast, like, within two minutes.

And it was like screaming at us almost, like, it was doing this horrible, horrible noise.

Like, see, when you hear like foxes cry,

kind of like that noise of just

dread.

Like, it, I don't know, like, I've never heard anything like it before.

I just remember thinking,

we should go.

Like,

we should get back into the car because

this animal is okay,

but I don't want to get involved any further because this is not.

I have no idea how to deal with any of this.

So

we just give each other a look.

Let's let's go.

We're good.

We're good.

It's alive.

Let's keep driving.

So

we get back into the car, and

Peter is still in

just this.

I'm, I guess, a state of shock.

Like, he

doesn't understand what he just wants, what he just saw, and neither do I, but I'm processing it differently than he is.

He's just in pure silence and driving.

And although I'm not talking to him either, I

it feels like he doesn't want to talk about it.

And it feels like

all I wanted to do was discuss what just happened.

His eyes were on the road, he wasn't looking at me, he was

almost as if he was like a robot just driving.

Like, that's all he was tasked to do, to just drive, and he didn't want to even think about what he just saw.

My mind is doing cartwheels at this point.

Um,

I'm trying to process things.

Um, as we're driving away, I can still hear it screaming.

Um,

and I was just like,

I gave him this look of,

what the fuck?

Like, what the fuck was that?

And

he looks at me

and he just looks back at the road.

And I remember we seeing the abandoned scooter.

We drove past.

And I was like, okay.

And then...

We kept driving and then we drove past the crucifix, the cross that was in the ground.

I was like, okay, right, we're getting somewhere familiar here.

And

I remember like nodding

to sleep almost a little bit.

And then I woke up again and we drove past the scooter again.

And I was like,

I just immediately thought, okay, everything that just happened was just a dream.

We're fine.

And then I looked to him.

Like, I'm really trying not to sound crazy to this poor boy at this point.

I was like, hey,

did we get out of the car earlier and see that really weird looking animal with the yellow eyes?

And he said, yes.

And then I asked him how long I'd been asleep for and he said 20 minutes.

I looked around and we were still driving on the dirt road.

And I was thinking, it just doesn't make sense that we're still on this road if we had been driving for that long before we hit the animal.

So we had been driving on this road for 50 minutes.

It should have only taken us 20 minutes to half an hour.

It didn't make sense that we were still here.

All right, we have to take a break, break, but we'll be right back with the rest of Simon's story.

Support for Spooked comes from Oakland-San Francisco Bay Airport.

OAK offers non-stop flights to your favorite destinations across the U.S.

and Mexico with new non-stop flights to Los Cabos and Zacatecas.

OAK makes travel easy with Park OAK's convenient parking options.

Reserve a spot in the daily lot or economy lot and save on your next trip.

Learn more at iflyoak.com, the best way to San Francisco Bay.

Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges.

From sleepless nights to stress-filled days, mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends delivered discreetly right to your doorstep.

You can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code SPOOOT for me.

The epic euphoria gummies are perfect for those days when you want to chill and hit the reset button.

What makes these different is how they've paired THC and other cannabinoids with herbs and adaptogens.

You're just not going to find gummies like this anywhere else.

No pesticides, no BS, and they can ship to most states in the U.S.

Best of all.

Not only does mood stand behind everything with the industry-leading 100-day satisfaction guarantee, but as I mentioned, listeners get 20% off their first order with code Spoot.

So head to mood.com.

Browse their amazing selection of functional gummies and find the perfect gummy for whatever you're dealing with.

And remember to use promo code SPOOT at checkout to save 20% on your first order.

Oh, Gecko, I just love being able to file a claim in under two minutes with the Geico app.

Could you sign up?

Sign what?

The app?

Yeah, sure.

Oh, it rubbed off the screen when I touched it.

Could you sign it again?

Anything to help, I suppose.

Get more than just savings.

Get more with Geico.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today, it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

So I was

confused.

And then

we drove past this the cross and the road.

And he said,

like, that's the fifth one of that I've seen.

And I said, What do you mean?

He goes, We keep driving past these crosses and they all look the same.

I said, That doesn't make sense because we've on the way here, we only drove past one cross.

And then, as I was saying, this doesn't make sense, we drove past the abandoned scooter again.

I

could just feel almost like everything coming out of my throat.

I just wanted to throw up because I was like,

Am I in hell?

Am I in hell for hitting an animal?

And I was like,

What is going on?

I looked at the time on the like the

radio, the car, and

it didn't make sense that we were still on this road.

Like, I was adding up all these time numbers that he was telling me.

And I was like, I just said, We shouldn't still be on this road.

Did we take a wrong turn?

He said, No, because it's a straight road.

Like, you can't go off of this dirt road, or else it's just dirt.

It's just, it's not a road anymore so um by the end of all we had been driving for about two hours of

ish on this just dirt road we had driven past the cross and the scooter

like

i lost count but like it was like it kept we kept driving past them but it wasn't continuous it would be driving

through nothing and then seeing the cross again seeing the scooter again.

That's when I start to get

scared, like actually scared for the first time in this whole night of

just this feeling of claustrophobia almost of being trapped inside

like a loop almost of we just keep going forward.

There's no other way to go.

So how do we get out?

How do we get out of

this loop

that felt like

I had at first tried to convince myself that maybe there was more than one cross that we'd driven past and I didn't see it on the on the

drive-in

but when I lost count of the amount of times we had driven past the cross and driven past the scooter that's when I started to realize that

something wasn't right like with with time

and that

I was so completely overwhelmed and just I wanted to throw up

so I I asked Peter to stop driving the car and

I had to get out of the car to get fresh air

when

I got out of the car it was of course

pitch black um except from the the light of the car

and in the distance I saw a car coming towards us which

which was great.

Like it was the feeling was just someone else is here, we're fine, we're good.

And as the car got closer I started to realize that

it was the exact same colour and make of car that we were driving.

It was like the same white car and I thought that my mind didn't really

think too much of it at first because I just thought it's another car great

And then the car stopped and I saw the passenger and the driver door, they both opened and two silhouettes got out.

And the

guy coming out of the passenger seat walked to the back of the car as if he was looking at something

to the back of the car.

And the guy who came out of the driver's seat was standing still at the car and flashing a light towards where the passenger was.

And that's when I realized

that something was

something was messed up.

Like something,

time had messed up on this road.

And

I was looking at me and Peter finding the animal

as if I was watching

a movie of his.

from like an hour ago or whatever.

And my mind just couldn't handle it at this moment.

So I just got back into the car and I told Peter, I'm okay,

let's just go home.

And

he's starting the engine up again and I look out of the window and

in the darkness and

just the nothingness, the Mexican nothingness of the what was off of the road, I just see two yellow eyes in the distance looking at us and Peter drove away

and I was

I just it and it I've never had this experience before but my mind had already decided

we're gonna take all of this in but we're gonna think about it later

We're just gonna

we're just gonna get home.

We're gonna get you home Simon Simon, first, and then we're gonna we're gonna analyze these thoughts.

But yeah, this is my first time deeply analyzing all of this, which is

bringing back a lot of memories.

And

we drove for

maybe 20 more minutes, and we passed the cross and we passed the scooter two more times.

And then

I it wasn't like with a

it wasn't climactic or anything we just got off the road the dirt road just stopped and we got back onto the main road even though I knew that I was I was I was driving past new things

I kept expecting to see the scooter or the cross I kept on expecting, like my eyes were not coming off

the window.

Like, I just kept waiting to see the cross and waiting to see the scooter and waiting to be trapped in that loop again.

And I find myself, like, even

like now, I'm back home sometimes waiting to see like

the scooter or like the cross just instinctually because I don't know, like, trapped on that road, it just felt like an eternity.

It was,

it was just, it was so,

there's no other word for it than claustrophobic, even though I'm in an outside space, I just feel so trapped in

a loop.

And we drove back to Puerto Escondido

more or less in silence.

We get back to the hotel and I just shut my bedroom door in his face.

And I was like,

I need to think about everything that happened tonight.

Like,

this was not,

I did not have a good time tonight.

And I'm sitting in my room and I'm like,

that was us on the road.

Like,

the car and the people I saw was us looking at

the animal.

Almost as if I was someone

when we found the monster.

or the animal

almost as if someone from a distance had been filming that and then

it was it was like i was watching a movie in real life of what we had done but like at a distance and i couldn't wrap my head around it and still can't um

it just i just knew that what i was looking at was us

um

And I was just sitting in this hotel room thinking about all of this and I just couldn't get back.

I just couldn't sleep

because I didn't understand.

I didn't understand anything that happened.

So Roy and Nora get back the next day.

And at this point, me and Peter had had breakfast.

And we just kind of,

we were trying to talk about other things.

But

I think I had made a joke about like cross, like, I had made a joke about last night, and he didn't find it very funny.

So, I kind of

we stopped eating breakfast, and I was like,

fuck this.

And then I started to realize, where is Roy and Nora?

Like, why are they not here?

And then

they got back to the hotel, still drunk, at like 10 in the morning at this point.

They immediately could tell that like the vibe wasn't there because they were like, oh my god, did you and Pierre like have a good night?

And I was like,

no.

No, we didn't.

And I just thought, Puerto Escondido, you've been great, but I need to keep, I need to, I need to leave these people.

So I called my friend Saul

and like, I was going to do a lot more traveling with Roy Nora.

And he said, you can just stay at my house and we can do day trips and things like that.

And that's what I did.

And I remember our bus to the next destination came.

This was a couple of days later.

Roy and Nora said to me, All right, this is our bus.

And I said, No, guys, this is your bus.

They watched as my friend Saul,

a very, very fit swimming instructor, drove up in a Jeep shirtless and picked me up.

And I waved them out the window goodbye, and I never saw them again, and I never will.

So

I'm living in Playa del Carmen, which is an hour away from Cancun.

That's where my friend Saul lives.

This whole thing has been playing on my mind and I don't, I've not had any answers yet.

So I just

ask him, oh, hey, when I was in Puerto Escondido, I saw this, like, I think it was like a dog, but like it, it didn't seem like it.

And like, I'm not too familiar with kind of the wildlife here.

And I explained what I saw to Saul, and he chuckled because he was like, well, that's, that's a chubacabra.

And it's just like this thing that goes about and it

like drinks cows or goats' bloods and all that sort of stuff.

And

when I went to do some research and I looked at pictures,

there were similarities to what I saw.

It looked a bit alien.

They're all like illustrations.

They're all like drawn pictures, more or less.

It was a lot smaller in the pictures, I thought.

It was a lot

skinnier and more

kind of panther-like almost.

Like it was on all fours and it was all

although it was smaller in the pictures, it seemed like more of a threat

whereas what I saw on that road

seemed more like

just a creature minding its business and

to me that horrible horrible scream

I interpreted it as just that's just the noise it makes

like I never interpreted it as

a threat or anything like that I just interpreted it

as that's that's the noise that animal makes.

Well, the whole point of me traveling was to find myself

cringy.

And I remember this whole experience, I was like, you know, I didn't find myself, but I definitely found out who I found out who I wasn't.

And I wasn't someone who was going to let people like Ryan know to like keep me from seeing what I want to see and doing what I want to do.

I wasn't going to let

one weird, weird night kind of keep me from enjoying the rest of my travels.

Sowell was a swimming instructor in the mornings, so I was sitting on the beach watching him take his swimming class and enjoying a margarita, like some kind of soccer mum, like

and

doing some chupacava research on my phone and looking at it and being like, this is so silly.

Because every time I look at this, every time I research this, I can just hear it screaming in the back of my head.

Like I can hear, I can still hear it scream.

And

if I keep doing this and if I keep on

like,

if I keep on ruining my time away, I'm just gonna keep hearing the scream.

So I decided to put the phone down and enjoy my time in Mexico.

I think honestly,

being able to reanalyse all of this has left.

I have more questions now than I did before because I've been able to deep dive into it.

But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I think that

having something like this happen to me,

I'll probably never get an answer for it.

But I don't know.

I guess

that's what makes it more interesting.

And that's what's going to keep this probably

the weirdest and biggest thing that's ever happened in my life.

It's going to, I'm never going to not think about it when I think of

core moments of my life.

This is definitely up there because it shaped me

to be more inquisitive, I guess.

braver when it comes to to weird situations and creepy situations And I'm not so afraid of the dark anymore either.

All right, thank you so much to Simon for sharing his story.

I know I joked around about the first Mexican story coming from a Scottish person, but

I think the most interesting part about this is that Simon is a complete outsider who had absolutely no idea what El Chupacabra is or that it even existed.

In fact, when he told this story to me, it kind of seemed like in the aftermath of all this, part of him was thinking that he may have just seen some kind of terrifying animal native to Mexico that he simply hadn't heard of before.

Needless to say, there is no animal in Mexico or anywhere that matches that description.

Either way, him having not known about this before is so striking to me and adds an entire new layer onto this already incredible story.

That and the time loop him and Peter experienced makes this so bizarre.

I really enjoyed speaking to Simon.

He seems like a very kind and sweet person.

He's also so naturally funny even when he wasn't trying to be.

I also thought it was very telling that he clearly views Roy and Nora as the real villains of this story because they were rude and unkind to people.

Even though he encountered this terrifying creature, the creature was still not the real villain to him.

And even though it was so terrifying seeing this thing, he was still experiencing guilt.

about potentially hurting it.

I think that says a lot.

Finally, I just want to say, we're always looking for stories from other countries, from other cultures and places.

But of course, all the stories you hear on this show are submitted by listeners.

So, if you have a story, send it in to stories at otherworldpod.com.

Simon actually wasn't even a listener of the show at the time.

His friend is, and the friend basically made him send the story in.

I'm so glad that they did.

If you have stories from Mexico, Latin America, or anywhere, we want to hear them.

Send them on in.

Thank you so much to Simon for sharing this story.

This has been episode 90.

The title is The Long Road Home, and you've been listening to Otherworld.

Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner.

Our theme song is by Cobra Man.

The soundtrack of this episode is by Juice Jackal.

This episode was edited by Theo Krantz and engineered by Theo Schaefer.

Our artwork is by Cul-DeSac Studios.

Our associate producer is Nikki K.

Delgado.

Production help by Haley Pearson.

Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about Otherworld.

If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash otherworld.

Our social media is at Otherworld Pod.

That's on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Thank you to the team at Odyssey.

J.D.

Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman, Leo Reese Dennis, Rob Morandi, Eric Donnelly, Matt Casey, Mauriceran, Curran, Josephina Francis, and Hilary Schuff.

Follow and listen to Otherworld Now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us your story at storiesoftheworldpod.com.

That was the long road home from Otherworld.

And yes, you can find more Otherworld episodes wherever you get your podcast.

Support for Spooked comes from Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.

OAK offers non-stop flights to your favorite destinations across the U.S.

and Mexico with new non-stop flights to Los Cabos and Zacatecas.

OAK makes travel easy with Park OAK's convenient parking options.

Reserve a spot in the daily lot or economy lot and save on your next trip.

Learn more at iflyoak.com, the best way to San Francisco Bay.

Introducing the five-year price guarantee from Xfinity.

No matter how your life or your taste in music changes in five years, your internet price will stay exactly the same.

Restrictions apply, new residential customers only, taxes and fees extra and subject to change.

They said the shadow would not let it happen.

They were wrong.

Join me, Glenn Washington, for Spook Live.

Amazing stories from people who can scarcely believe it themselves.

Magical, mystical, mysterious.

Best night out ever.

Spooked Live.

October 25th at the Paramount Theater in downtown Oakland.

Get tickets now at kqd.org slash events and don't turn out the lights.

I don't mean to interrupt your meal, but I love Geico's fast and friendly claim service.

Well, that's how Geico gets 97% customer satisfaction.

Yeah, I'll let you get back to your food.

Uh, so are you just gonna watch me eat?

Get more than just savings, get more with Geico.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

Smart choice.

Make another smart choice with AutoQuote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once.

Try it at progressive.com.

Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates.

Not available in all states states or situations.

Prices vary based on how you buy.