"The Long Road Home" from Otherworld

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Speaker 6 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

Speaker 6 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.

Speaker 6 And it's something he stumbles into by chance

Speaker 6 after realizing how many people in his life had experienced something that they couldn't explain and never told anyone about.

Speaker 6 Jack picked out this episode specifically for spook listeners.

Speaker 6 Otherworld.

Speaker 8 Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Mexico specifically has such a rich and intense connection to the supernatural with many specific legends that have been passed down through generations.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 I did not expect our first Mexican Otherworld episode to be coming from a Scottish camp counselor.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 This is episode 90. The title is The Long Road Home, and you're listening to Otherworld.

Speaker 8 Hello? Is this Bobby? Marketing.

Speaker 10 That's at its core, the science, you can't argue.

Speaker 10 I'm storied about

Speaker 8 up in the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening.

Speaker 10 I'm mixed, I'm gonna die. I'll fly.

Speaker 8 Its whims were just like wrong.

Speaker 8 Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 The Robin Scotland is great because,

Speaker 8 well I mean like we have

Speaker 8 like everyone has like their nearest castle. It's quite funny.

Speaker 8 In terms of ghosts and things they're more of like an annoyance than a

Speaker 8 they're like oh my like this place is haunted like we're good.

Speaker 8 It's just like another thing

Speaker 8 but it's like

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 But so it was a camp for boys and

Speaker 8 you either got really really polite ones or like this is like my fourth home, which is what a kid said to me.

Speaker 8 So like you've got that kind of really nice or really spoiled child.

Speaker 8 And then like they would ask me things like, do you have technology in Scotland? Like do you live in a like a cabin?

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 I really am passionate about making sure people are comfortable in their workplaces.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 I had deferred my my masters for like this September coming for this next year because I wanted to keep traveling.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Like not, it's like, when am I going to have this chance again and this time again to do this? And

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 So I went for Independence Day.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And like, I've never been somewhere that feels

Speaker 8 so

Speaker 8 like

Speaker 8 kind.

Speaker 8 Like, everyone seemed to be kind of in it together, and it just felt very...

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 I

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 someone I knew kind of not but not really from the job in DC, just outside DC.

Speaker 8 I'm going to call him Roy.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Roy

Speaker 8 was

Speaker 8 like

Speaker 8 a very outgoing person.

Speaker 8 We don't talk anymore,

Speaker 8 but we'll get to that.

Speaker 8 He

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 past Ola. And I was like,

Speaker 8 you were going to Mexico for like a few months and you're

Speaker 8 you didn't learn any Spanish? And he was like, well, no, I just thought they'd speak English. And I was like,

Speaker 8 okay,

Speaker 8 right.

Speaker 8 Because I had learned enough Spanish to get me by.

Speaker 8 And it only strengthened my time there. But

Speaker 8 he was a very,

Speaker 8 he was quite arrogant with

Speaker 8 like hospitality workers, things like that, hotel staff. And I kind of took that on note,

Speaker 8 but I always put it to the back of my head because I just thought

Speaker 8 I don't want to be traveling alone.

Speaker 8 And he came up with the idea after Mexico City to go to Puerto Escondido,

Speaker 8 which like I'd never heard of.

Speaker 8 All I knew that I didn't really know too much about Mexico, like

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 I walked in on them, like having sex in our room.

Speaker 8 And I was like, oh,

Speaker 8 this is my holiday.

Speaker 8 This is my time to travel. And they're kind of ruining it a little bit.

Speaker 8 But anyway,

Speaker 8 Puerto Escondido is an amazing town. It's lovely beaches.
I've done a turtle saving sanctuary there. So

Speaker 8 that's why I wanted wanted to go more than anything.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And it made me feel like I was doing something while I was traveling, like I was helping someone or something.

Speaker 8 Roy and Nora didn't want to do this because

Speaker 8 they

Speaker 8 not their thing. It was not their thing.

Speaker 8 But it was nice to have that time alone with the turtles.

Speaker 8 Anyway,

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 Zapolite.

Speaker 8 beach like it's just off Zapolite Beach, which is a nudist beach and just

Speaker 8 it's like a maybe an hour or so drive away from Pretorus Cundido.

Speaker 8 And I've had a few nights of relaxation. I'm ready to party a little bit.

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 great.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 So,

Speaker 8 do you know what I mean? Like, those kind of people. And I was

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 he wasn't going to be drinking at the party. And I was like,

Speaker 8 maybe I won't drink either because

Speaker 8 I don't know. I was just

Speaker 8 I had been traveling a while, so I was like, you know,

Speaker 8 like, he's cute. cute so

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 there was like a you know when on the side of the the road, when they have like a, like a cross,

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 it was

Speaker 8 nothing really, just a road of

Speaker 8 nothing. Like, I can't really explain anything.
It was just

Speaker 8 the planes, you know,

Speaker 8 a bit of gitty nitty kind of thing.

Speaker 8 Like,

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 we get to this party.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 tourists who were at this party um

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 we're leaving. What are you doing? And they said that they're going to stay.

Speaker 8 And I said, well, good luck getting home, I suppose.

Speaker 8 Best of luck. They have each other.
And there was like

Speaker 8 I just felt like I deserved

Speaker 8 to leave. them there a little bit

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 i get it yeah

Speaker 8 we all get it yeah okay I just hate coming across this look at Dick but they they needed yeah

Speaker 8 so me and this guy let's I'll give him a name let's call him Peter

Speaker 8 we ended up leaving the party and getting in we got into the car we'd been driving for about 10 minutes I was

Speaker 8 actually really relieved to be leaving these two to be leaving Roy and Nora behind like I can't even describe how

Speaker 8 I've never met people that are so like irredeemably just not nice and like they just

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 kind of happy and like we were just having that weird small talk in the car um

Speaker 8 and it was like 10 10 minutes or so into into the drive and we're on the dirt road. So

Speaker 8 there's no other cars there. It was like pitch dark.
There's no street lights or anything.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 we hear a thud under the car.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 so

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 I get out of the passenger seat and the car's still facing towards

Speaker 8 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...

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Because I've never, like, that's never happened to me before.

Speaker 8 Like, how could we be, like, we, how could he not have seen that coming? Um,

Speaker 8 and then

Speaker 8 he takes out his fly, his, like, phone flashlight, and all I'm thinking is,

Speaker 8 like, what is the, like, what have we hit?

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 like,

Speaker 8 whatever it is, I really, really hope it's not dead because this has never happened to me before. And

Speaker 8 I just, I've just spent like the past couple of days saving turtles. Like, imagine it, like, I go and like hit something.

Speaker 8 That's not a fun thought.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And I was like,

Speaker 8 We've had we've hit like a dog or something.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I remember like getting a little teary-eyed because I was

Speaker 8 just like

Speaker 8 upset, I guess, about the whole thing.

Speaker 8 Is

Speaker 8 like I was having, you know,

Speaker 8 I was having like a decent night so far, and this had happened. And

Speaker 8 Peter, the guy,

Speaker 8 put his flashlight onto it.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I was looking at its spine because that's what was facing us at the point, its back.

Speaker 8 And I thought,

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 I was like, just this pit of dread in my stomach of we've...

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 jags coming out of this like of where the spine would be

Speaker 8 and i

Speaker 8 i thought

Speaker 8 whatever we've done to this with our car

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 oh like

Speaker 8 like I've done such a horrible thing

Speaker 8 but then I started to realize that that's how its body was like that's um

Speaker 8 that that's not how it's not been messed up its body looks like that it has

Speaker 8 not hardened spikes but it's got like jags coming out of its back like that's just part of how its body is

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 the creature, the animal, starts to kind of move. And I'm thinking, like, I just sigh of relief of thank God.

Speaker 8 Thank God it's alive.

Speaker 8 Like, I didn't really care at this point what it was. I was like, it's alive.
That's all that matters.

Speaker 8 And then

Speaker 8 when that feeling of relief passed, I started to think, oh, it's like a mutated dog or like a mutated goat,

Speaker 8 something like that, or even some kind of black fox. I don't know.

Speaker 8 And then it faced us, and

Speaker 8 its eyes were piercing yellow. Like

Speaker 8 it could light, like it's almost like if someone had two flashlights inside its skull,

Speaker 8 the eyes were that yellow.

Speaker 8 Its

Speaker 8 fur

Speaker 8 was so short, but

Speaker 8 it was like pitch black.

Speaker 8 The animal itself was pitch black.

Speaker 8 Like as dark as the rest of the night.

Speaker 8 But my mind is going in slow motion almost at this point because I'm looking at this

Speaker 8 thing

Speaker 8 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?

Speaker 8 I've never seen anything like this before.

Speaker 8 Peter was just speechless. Couldn't, he just couldn't vocalize anything.

Speaker 8 I think he was startled more than anything that he had hit something.

Speaker 8 You know how, like, see, if you, see, if you've ever been in like...

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I was just happy that it was not dead.

Speaker 8 And we watched as

Speaker 8 the thing began to kind of move. and it started to face us.
And

Speaker 8 I was just thinking this whole time, it was a mixture of relief, confusion, and still dread in my stomach of

Speaker 8 now

Speaker 8 what is going on. Like, I have no idea what I'm looking at.

Speaker 8 And it begins to rise, it begins to stand up on its hind legs

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 it's like a four-foot-ish tall, I would say, about four foot.

Speaker 8 And at this point,

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 I was just like making sure, like, my number one goal is making sure that whatever this was was okay.

Speaker 8 And then, um,

Speaker 8 it just lets out this scream of

Speaker 8 just

Speaker 8 it wasn't a scream it's more of a shriek and it was like

Speaker 8 I was listening to someone find out that their whole family had been killed it was

Speaker 8 I've never heard anything like it before it was dreadful to listen to

Speaker 8 it's just so many feelings of confusion

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 like just I have no idea what's going on like this has all happened pretty fast fast, like, within two minutes.

Speaker 8 And it was like screaming at us almost, like, it was doing this horrible, horrible noise. Like, see, when you hear like foxes cry,

Speaker 8 kind of like that noise of just

Speaker 8 dread. Like, it, I don't know, like, I've never heard anything like it before.

Speaker 8 I just remember thinking,

Speaker 8 we should go.

Speaker 8 Like,

Speaker 8 we should get back into the car because

Speaker 8 this animal is okay,

Speaker 8 but I don't want to get involved any further because this is not.

Speaker 8 I have no idea how to deal with any of this.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 we just give each other a look.

Speaker 8 Let's let's go. We're good.
We're good. It's alive.
Let's keep driving.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 we get back into the car, and

Speaker 8 Peter is still in

Speaker 8 just this.

Speaker 8 I'm, I guess, a state of shock. Like, he

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And although I'm not talking to him either, I

Speaker 8 it feels like he doesn't want to talk about it. And it feels like

Speaker 8 all I wanted to do was discuss what just happened.

Speaker 8 His eyes were on the road, he wasn't looking at me, he was

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 My mind is doing cartwheels at this point. Um,

Speaker 8 I'm trying to process things. Um, as we're driving away, I can still hear it screaming.
Um,

Speaker 8 and I was just like,

Speaker 8 I gave him this look of,

Speaker 8 what the fuck?

Speaker 8 Like, what the fuck was that?

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 he looks at me

Speaker 8 and he just looks back at the road. And I remember we seeing the abandoned scooter.
We drove past. And I was like, okay.

Speaker 8 And then...

Speaker 8 We kept driving and then we drove past the crucifix, the cross that was in the ground.

Speaker 8 I was like, okay, right, we're getting somewhere familiar here.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I remember like nodding

Speaker 8 to sleep almost a little bit. And then I woke up again and we drove past the scooter again.

Speaker 8 And I was like,

Speaker 8 I just immediately thought, okay, everything that just happened was just a dream. We're fine.
And then I looked to him.

Speaker 8 Like, I'm really trying not to sound crazy to this poor boy at this point. I was like, hey,

Speaker 8 did we get out of the car earlier and see that really weird looking animal with the yellow eyes? And he said, yes.

Speaker 8 And then I asked him how long I'd been asleep for and he said 20 minutes.

Speaker 8 I looked around and we were still driving on the dirt road.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 It should have only taken us 20 minutes to half an hour. It didn't make sense that we were still here.

Speaker 8 All right, we have to take a break, break, but we'll be right back with the rest of Simon's story.

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Speaker 8 So I was

Speaker 8 confused. And then

Speaker 8 we drove past this the cross and the road. And he said,

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 I

Speaker 8 could just feel almost like everything coming out of my throat.

Speaker 8 I just wanted to throw up because I was like,

Speaker 8 Am I in hell?

Speaker 8 Am I in hell for hitting an animal? And I was like,

Speaker 8 What is going on? I looked at the time on the like the

Speaker 8 radio, the car, and

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 ish on this just dirt road we had driven past the cross and the scooter

Speaker 8 like

Speaker 8 i lost count but like it was like it kept we kept driving past them but it wasn't continuous it would be driving

Speaker 8 through nothing and then seeing the cross again seeing the scooter again. That's when I start to get

Speaker 8 scared, like actually scared for the first time in this whole night of

Speaker 8 just this feeling of claustrophobia almost of being trapped inside

Speaker 8 like a loop almost of we just keep going forward. There's no other way to go.
So how do we get out?

Speaker 8 How do we get out of

Speaker 8 this loop

Speaker 8 that felt like

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 drive-in

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 something wasn't right like with with time

Speaker 8 and that

Speaker 8 I was so completely overwhelmed and just I wanted to throw up

Speaker 8 so I I asked Peter to stop driving the car and

Speaker 8 I had to get out of the car to get fresh air

Speaker 8 when

Speaker 8 I got out of the car it was of course

Speaker 8 pitch black um except from the the light of the car

Speaker 8 and in the distance I saw a car coming towards us which

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 it was the exact same colour and make of car that we were driving.

Speaker 8 It was like the same white car and I thought that my mind didn't really

Speaker 8 think too much of it at first because I just thought it's another car great

Speaker 8 And then the car stopped and I saw the passenger and the driver door, they both opened and two silhouettes got out.

Speaker 8 And the

Speaker 8 guy coming out of the passenger seat walked to the back of the car as if he was looking at something

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And that's when I realized

Speaker 8 that something was

Speaker 8 something was messed up. Like something,

Speaker 8 time had messed up on this road. And

Speaker 8 I was looking at me and Peter finding the animal

Speaker 8 as if I was watching

Speaker 8 a movie of his.

Speaker 8 from like an hour ago or whatever.

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 let's just go home. And

Speaker 8 he's starting the engine up again and I look out of the window and

Speaker 8 in the darkness and

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 and I was

Speaker 8 I just it and it I've never had this experience before but my mind had already decided

Speaker 8 we're gonna take all of this in but we're gonna think about it later

Speaker 8 We're just gonna

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 But yeah, this is my first time deeply analyzing all of this, which is

Speaker 8 bringing back a lot of memories.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 we drove for

Speaker 8 maybe 20 more minutes, and we passed the cross and we passed the scooter two more times.

Speaker 8 And then

Speaker 8 I it wasn't like with a

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 I kept expecting to see the scooter or the cross I kept on expecting, like my eyes were not coming off

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And I find myself, like, even

Speaker 8 like now, I'm back home sometimes waiting to see like

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 it was just, it was so,

Speaker 8 there's no other word for it than claustrophobic, even though I'm in an outside space, I just feel so trapped in

Speaker 8 a loop.

Speaker 8 And we drove back to Puerto Escondido

Speaker 8 more or less in silence.

Speaker 8 We get back to the hotel and I just shut my bedroom door in his face.

Speaker 8 And I was like,

Speaker 8 I need to think about everything that happened tonight. Like,

Speaker 8 this was not,

Speaker 8 I did not have a good time tonight. And I'm sitting in my room and I'm like,

Speaker 8 that was us on the road.

Speaker 8 Like,

Speaker 8 the car and the people I saw was us looking at

Speaker 8 the animal.

Speaker 8 Almost as if I was someone

Speaker 8 when we found the monster. or the animal

Speaker 8 almost as if someone from a distance had been filming that and then

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 it just i just knew that what i was looking at was us

Speaker 8 um

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 because I didn't understand.

Speaker 8 I didn't understand anything that happened.

Speaker 8 So Roy and Nora get back the next day.

Speaker 8 And at this point, me and Peter had had breakfast.

Speaker 8 And we just kind of,

Speaker 8 we were trying to talk about other things.

Speaker 8 But

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 we stopped eating breakfast, and I was like,

Speaker 8 fuck this. And then I started to realize, where is Roy and Nora? Like, why are they not here?

Speaker 8 And then

Speaker 8 they got back to the hotel, still drunk, at like 10 in the morning at this point.

Speaker 8 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,

Speaker 8 no.

Speaker 8 No, we didn't.

Speaker 8 And I just thought, Puerto Escondido, you've been great, but I need to keep, I need to, I need to leave these people.

Speaker 8 So I called my friend Saul

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 They watched as my friend Saul,

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And I explained what I saw to Saul, and he chuckled because he was like, well, that's, that's a chubacabra.

Speaker 8 And it's just like this thing that goes about and it

Speaker 8 like drinks cows or goats' bloods and all that sort of stuff. And

Speaker 8 when I went to do some research and I looked at pictures,

Speaker 8 there were similarities to what I saw.

Speaker 8 It looked a bit alien.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 skinnier and more

Speaker 8 kind of panther-like almost. Like it was on all fours and it was all

Speaker 8 although it was smaller in the pictures, it seemed like more of a threat

Speaker 8 whereas what I saw on that road

Speaker 8 seemed more like

Speaker 8 just a creature minding its business and

Speaker 8 to me that horrible horrible scream

Speaker 8 I interpreted it as just that's just the noise it makes

Speaker 8 like I never interpreted it as

Speaker 8 a threat or anything like that I just interpreted it

Speaker 8 as that's that's the noise that animal makes.

Speaker 8 Well, the whole point of me traveling was to find myself

Speaker 8 cringy.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 one weird, weird night kind of keep me from enjoying the rest of my travels.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 doing some chupacava research on my phone and looking at it and being like, this is so silly.

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 if I keep doing this and if I keep on

Speaker 8 like,

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 I think honestly,

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 having something like this happen to me,

Speaker 8 I'll probably never get an answer for it.

Speaker 8 But I don't know.

Speaker 8 I guess

Speaker 8 that's what makes it more interesting. And that's what's going to keep this probably

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 core moments of my life.

Speaker 8 This is definitely up there because it shaped me

Speaker 8 to be more inquisitive, I guess.

Speaker 8 braver when it comes to to weird situations and creepy situations And I'm not so afraid of the dark anymore either.

Speaker 10 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

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Needless to say, there is no animal in Mexico or anywhere that matches that description.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 He's also so naturally funny even when he wasn't trying to be.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 If you have stories from Mexico, Latin America, or anywhere, we want to hear them. Send them on in.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about Otherworld.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 Follow and listen to Otherworld Now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 10 And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us your story at storiesoftheworldpod.com.

Speaker 8 That was the long road home from Otherworld.

Speaker 6 And yes, you can find more Otherworld episodes wherever you get your podcast.

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