Sanatorio Durán

OVERVIEW

A large tuberculosis sanatorium 7 km above Cartago on the road to the Irazú volcano, founded in 1918 by Dr Carlos Durán Cartín, physician and briefly president of the republic, after his own daughter contracted the disease. Built for around 300 patients in the cold mountain air, it later took psychiatric patients and, after antibiotics ended its purpose, closed in 1963. It was used as a prison and an orphanage for short periods and then left; the shell stands in a dairy farm and is open to visitors.

HISTORY

Thousands passed through it in the decades before streptomycin; many died there, children among them, and were buried nearby. The site is a protected historic structure.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The most repeated accounts, in the Costa Rican press and every visitor guide: a nun seen at the chapel windows and on its stair, a small girl in the corridors, a monk at night, beds and metal objects moving, cold spots and touches, and lights in the old cemetery. Videos circulate. The reports are consistent and numerous and none is verified; the deaths that underlie them are.

VISITING

Open daily for a small fee; the ruin is unlit and unstable in places. Cold at altitude.