Day 149 - The Castillo Azul

The Castillo Azul

A few weeks ago, when I was in Tarija, I saw from my hotel what I thought was a blue and white stripped church.  So one of my days there, I went searching for it.  It seems it was not a church after all, but a Victorian mansion.  Several friends suggested I do some research.  Hmmm?  Good idea.

It seems I am not the only one who has thought it was a church.  One of the owners tells the story that regularly when campesinos (people from the country) walk by that they cross themselves.  On more than one occasion, someone has knocked on the door to ask when is the weekly mass.  From a distance it does look a bit like a church.

It was built by the Navajas family around 1910 with materials left over from another house they built.  At the time, this house was outside of town, though today Tarija surrounds it.  It was bought by the Rengel family in the 1960s, who spent a dozen years restoring it to its Victorian glory days, or more accurately, early Art Nouveau.  They added further living quarters in the back, so no one lives in the house itself now.

Patricia Ibáñez, of El Pais, said that the Blue Castle is “imposing, disturbingly solitary and suitable for a ghost story.”  Objects are found moved from where they were the day before, or lost for weeks.  Sounds are heard in the middle of the night, like doors opening and closing, or footsteps approaching.  People who spend the night there report a feeling that they are not alone in a room.

Doña Bertha Reinoso, who lived there many years, recollects the many nights the dogs went crazy, barking in fear and desperately trying to escape from the house.  A neighbor borrowed their bread oven, found outside the house, and reported a shower in an unused bathroom turning on.  Sounds of furniture moving, things breaking, or heavy breathing, occurred often, though always nothing was moved, nothing broken, and nobody was present.  The stories continue until this day.

But with a clear blue sky, on a sunny Tarija morning in October, seeing the crisp blue and white house, that I thought was a church, it is hard to imagine ghosts and phantoms.  Instead I see a beautiful Victorian mansion gracing this lush valley in the Andes Mountains.

From elpaisonline.com