Boo! Haunted-House-Sitting in Antigua, Guatemala

So there I was, in the kitchen of a beautiful home just outside Antigua, Guatemala, speaking to a ghost.

After weeks of unexplained events—radios turning on and off by themselves, an intolerable sense of sadness in certain rooms, and a sudden chill when walking between the living and dining rooms, it was what my husband shared with me that finally led me to having this conversation with someone I couldn’t even see.

Billy is a practical sort: down-to-earth, business minded, and skeptical of anything “woo-woo.” When he told me he saw lights from no observable source crawling up the dining room wall while eating his breakfast, I knew it was true.

We were haunted-house-sitting.

I wasn’t sure what to do about our situation and I had never had a conversation with a ghost before, but all the above events pushed me to try. Actually, I preferred it all to just go away, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen.

“Hello?” I began… “I’m not here to hurt you or to ask you to leave. I just want you to know that we’ll be living in your home for the next few months, and I’d like it if we could get along.”

I mean, how else was I going to start this conversation? I felt silly standing there in the semi-darkness talking to… no one. I was glad nobody could see me.

After several seconds ticked off the clock, I didn’t exactly hear direct replies to my queries but I was “impressed” with responses. I received no name, but it was an older woman with whom I was chatting. “Grandma” had died in this house and it was hers. She never wanted her daughter to sell it but she did and now she had no place else to go. And besides that, she had unfinished business with her son, who was adopted. She had never told her son about this until later in life, and he hadn’t forgiven her—or at least that is how she felt.

She was very sad and there was a clear angst about her and this “conversation.”

I listened.

She felt the need to protect this house from anyone who meant harm. My husband and I were not the normal people who had taken over the home, and she was confused. What were we doing here?

I told her everything would be ok. We were house sitting and would care for the home as if it were our own. Not only that, but I was sure her son had worked it out about his adoption by now. I even said if she wanted to talk about anything further, she could let me know.

(What was I saying?! Talk again? To someone invisible? Oh dear…)

In the end, we sort of became distant “friends.” She no longer turned the radio on and off, there were no more lights sliding up the dining room wall, and I never felt lonely, sad or unbearably cold downstairs. I guess you could say that the “energy was friendlier.”

This was one of the more unusual experiences in my life, but I’m always up for an adventure. Even of the metaphysical kind.

About the Author

Billy and Akaisha Kaderli are recognized retirement experts and internationally published authors on topics of finance, medical tourism and world travel. With the wealth of information they share on their award winning website RetireEarlyLifestyle.com, they have been helping people achieve their own retirement dreams since 1991. They wrote the popular books, The Adventurer’s Guide to Early Retirement and Your Retirement Dream IS Possible available on their website bookstore or on Amazon.com.

Featured image via Unsplash.