Summer Break: Susto, La Taconuda

Hello, Hello, this is Christina and this is another episode of his Spooky Tales, the podcast for all things as spooky Hunted the places sometimes to crime in Latin America. But today is not a regular episode. Like I said last week, Carmen and I, we're taking a little short summer break for once, an announced planned summer break, but we're not going to leave you hanging. We have some of our podcast besties filling in for us at today. It is Aiden from Sousto, which I'm sure a lot of you know, but if you don't, you will now. And Susto, as I have said many times, is the podcast that inspired me to start as Pooky Tales. To me, the og of spooky Latine podcasts really the best out there. So what he does is amazing. He has an original story written about a legend, and he reads the story in his amazing spooky voice, and then he's like, hey, gol friends, guess what this is? What I know about this? And then he just deep dives into that legend. It's so fun. Literally, we love Aiden at a Spooky Tales and we hope that you enjoy this episode. This is a very fun one. Hey, cool friend, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I am the host of the podcast Sustal. If I am new to you, allow me to introduce myself. Sustaal, the Spanish word for fright, is a show centered on paranormal folklore from Latin American and Hispanic cultures, and this week, your typical ghost hosts have been so generous as to allow me to take over their feed and haunt you with a chilling little tale. I hope that you enjoy this episode and that you enjoy Sustal if you would like to listen to more sustal. It is available on every podcast platform. You can follow me on social media at at sustal podcast on every platform, and you can visit my website sustalpodcast dot com. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you enjoy this episode. Alma was on Cloud nine. It was her and her boyfriend's anniversary, and she knew it was the night he would finally ask her to be his wife, or so she hoped. Their plan was to meet at the final stop of his shift as a bus driver. From there, they would drive to the station, get in his car, and enjoy the evening that would mark the beginning of their new life. She slipped on her nicest dress, styled her long silky black hair, did her make up the way she knew he liked it, and slid on her favorite pair of heels. The bus stop was a short walk from her home, but Almah's excitement made her feel as if she couldn't get there fast enough. The whole way there, she imagined how he would ask her what food they would serve at their wedding, how handsome he'd look in a tuxedo. When Almah finally arrived at the bus stop, she was left speechless. Her lover adorned his bus with string lights, their song played softly from its intercom. He stood at the door of his five ton steed, dressed in his own best, holding a bouquet. Alma was right, She knew in her heart, in her soul, that he was going to propose. Her smile stretched across her face, illuminated by the glow of the lights as he began to profess his eternal love to her. He was nervous, like she knew he'd be, But at last he reached the end of his speech. Alma, he said, what I'm trying to tell you, to ask you is will you come? A piercing screech tore through their song, interrupting his final words. The lights grew brighter, blinding them Before they could realize what it was, A bright yellow car blazed through the red light at the intersection. It missed one car, then the next, before slamming into the nose of the bus, pinning Almah's would be fiance in its doorway, where he stood only seconds before. Almah's lover was dead on impact. When first responders arrived, she was frozen in place, eyes wide, shaking, and quietly crying She's in shock, someone shouted. As medics attended to her, trying to get her to respond. She overheard an officer telling another the taxi driver is going to make it. He said he was distracted by the girl, missed the red light and swore through traffic. Although she was physically untouched, Almah felt a pain so deep and agonizing, an excruciating sensation that never left her. Days later, Almah was found unresponsive in her home, still in her dress, her makeup she knew he liked, and her favorite heels. In the following weeks after her and her lover's passing taxi drivers throughout the city reported strange events. Footsteps in empty streets, a serial fair evader who seemingly vanished into thin air, leaving only traces of perfume behind. Strangest of all, and what made drivers and their shifts before sundown was the deaths of four taxi drivers. But these stories didn't stop. Oscar recently kicked out of his girlfriend's apartment when she discovered his infidelity. He needed quick money for his own place. He knew there was a driver shortage and took advantage of the situation. It wasn't long before Oscar fell witness to a bizarre late night inside. In the dead of night, he pulled over on a quiet stone paved road to take his break. Oscar rolled down his window to enjoy the cool breeze. He hummed along to the song playing faintly on his radio. He was tired after working days on end and late into the nights. He was nodding off when he woke startled by the sound of footsteps right by his car, but the road stood empty still. He could hear what sounded like high heels on stone in the distance. Brushing it off, he started his car and as the headlights came on, he jumped again. Standing in front of his car was a woman. Hey, beautiful, Nita, ride, he asked with a chuckle. Silently, she walked over to the back passenger side of his car. The vehicle's door opened and shut. While we're going to night gorgeous, he asked in a low, barely audible voice. She gave him an address, He plugged it into his GPS, started the fair meter, and they left. Oscar tried to make small talk, but was met with silent His questions became more and more personal. What do you do for fun? Do you have a boyfriend? Ever been at this cafe here? I could take you sometime. I'll take your number when I drop you off. What are you doing out so late? Looking so nice? Huh? Eventually Oscar became enraged when she would not answer. You know, he said, you could stand to be more polite. His GPS interrupted him with an alert, you are approaching your destination. More Frustrated now, he turned to continue, When a man is being nice to a pretty lady like you, you should show some gratitude. As he turned to face the beautiful stranger, he exclaimed, You're not even that pretty. The glint of her blade caught his eye, and before he could continue, she plunged it deep into his neck. His car continued to roll slowly down the road. He began to lose consciousness when he noticed the song playing was the same one as when he pulled over earlier, a song about lost love. The music began to loop and glitch in a way he'd never heard before. In his final moment, without a sound, the woman vanished and the smell of perfume filled his car. He could taste blood pooling in his mouth. He could see a hazy glow from above, the light from a bus stop. Welcome back, Wild friends. Okay, again, that was an original story. I hope you enjoyed it. It was very easy to write this story because there were good like bits and pieces about this story that already existed, and I kind of just took those things and instead of piecing those things together, I like, you know, the meme of that lady with the numbers floating around her face doing the math. That's me right now, trying to explain what writing is to you. But anyway, okay, so to get into it from what I saw, the sources that I used really heavily is this story is based out of Ondas, more specifically in the I think it's the capital of Ondudas. Yes, the capital Degusigalpa. And actually when I went to Honduras, I was very close to the capital, to Tegusigalpa. I am sad that I didn't hear this story. I don't think. I don't know if I was doing Susto then yet, maybe that was during my hiatus. I'm not sure, but I wish I had thought to ask or like to ask about scary stories. But also we were with a bunch of little kids, and so I'm sure that they didn't want to scare them. But anyway, so this story is based again out of the Gui and so we're going to go through the sources here. Again, the direct links to the sources are in the Susto Google doc. So the first one that I have here is from Rivista Chilena de Liratura and it's a it's an academic article that looks like from Universidad de Hyenne, Espana. And this article is titled the Weeping Woman, the Sejanaba and other Female Ghosts Typological configuration and legendary motifs Okay and there's just a snippet. This is like, of course, higher article about all of these types of as I like to call them here on Susto cryptid femmes. But they bring up the specific instance of the takunuda in English. I think it's just like a woman wearing heels, yeah, or like high heels, But in this instance it's la takunda as a woman or a person wearing high heels. This stimpot of this article says, on the other hand, there are stories that only describe the appearance of ghostly women on the road without adding the reason for the driver who put her in the car. Quote. A large light crossed in front of our car, and out of nowhere, when we turned to look, we saw women dressed in white. She was illuminated and looked half blurry because of so much light shining on her, to which is added in this endurant exhibition of the explanation of the reason for her death. Quote, A gas station worker told us that this ghost is of a woman who died in a car accident. He told us that she was with her family in a car and they flipped. The man says that only she died. These types of apparitions are characterized as malignant beings in many of the stories, as is this exhibition also from Mandudas quote. When someone is driving along downhill, that is when the driver turns to look in the rearview mirror, and it is at this very moment that the woman appears. That ghost has caused all kinds of accidents. Here Jarvi's lose control and crash. There's another part here, but before that. This reminds me of stories like is it like the is it the Donkey Lady Bridge? I think I remember growing up. If anyone listening is from the Rio Grande Valley, there's this stretch of road I think it's one oh seven in Edinburgh, like on the edge of or the outskirts of Edinburgh, and they would say that you there was there was a Why I think it was a convenience store called the Why out there. But they said that if when you if you drove past that late at night, that you would see a beautiful woman on the side of the road, and that you were supposed to offer her a ride. But before you got to the destination or when you like looked back, she wouldn't be there anymore. She would Vanish and they said that a different version of that same story was that if you saw her and you did not offer her a ride, that when you looked in the rearview mirror, she would be in your back seat and she would have the face of a horse. I think I may have mentioned this in the episode of the Donkey Lady Bridge, because this idea of a horse or a equine kind of shaped face is something I think that we see repeated in these types of stories. Okay, but this continues the same context serves as a framework for some legends about the Takududa told in Onduas. According to the testimony of informant from Thagusigappa, she is the girlfriend of a bus driver who died when his vehicle collided with a taxi. Since then, her ghost has wandered the streets looking for taxi drivers to take revenge on. When the taxi drivers pick her up, they look at her, and when they turn around to collect their fare, she was no longer there, and she doesn't make any noise or anything to get out. They say that when they turn around to look back, she is already there with a knife and stabs them and kills them. They say that she has already killed about four taxi drivers. That was a story from someone, and it continues in other Ondurdan stories. She is described as the ghost of a woman with high heels who is murdered in the streets by an individual who tried to abuse her. As in certain versions of Layorona, this figure is all associated with the motif of the contradictory perception of the feeling of danger and the proximity of sound. So I tried to add that in the story because again this is I think what we see with like Elsilbon. I think some people have said this about Latusa's or other kind of bird cryptids, is that the closer there sound is. So with Elsilon, it's the whistling. With la it's it's her weeping. With Latakunda, it's her high heels. The closer that you hear her, the further away that she is, versus the further away that she is, that means that she's actually nearby. So this just kind of echoes that it says. They also say that when footsteps are heard nearby, it means that Latakunuda is already far away. But if the footsteps were heard far away, it means that she is approaching. So again, I don't know what it is with this. Maybe I think maybe it's just a trope that people use in these kinds of stories, is to add this element of confusion or disorientation. It makes it more dangerous because you think you're safe because you would think, Okay, it's far away, I can hear as far. But that's not the truth. That's when you let your guard down, you're more vulnerable, and that's when they get you. Right. So yeah, just these kinds of I think interesting connections between these stories of women on the side of the road, like hitchhikers or whatever. But this one was interesting because there's a distinct story or a distinct cause for the reason that she haunts, right, is that and I guess tagically there's two is. Some people say that she witnessed her, her boyfriend, her lover being killed by a taxi driver. I think some people also go so far as to say that the reason that the taxi driver, and that's why I included it in the story, the reason that the taxi driver collided with the bus is because he was distracted because he was looking at her, and so she I guess Eventually, either she dies of a broken heart, maybe she dies by suicide. It's not clear how she passes, but her spirit is still so unsettled and so upset that she takes it upon her to seek revenge on any taxi drivers, which sorry taxi drivers, but if you're out there, be careful. And maybe you know that's falls into that realm of the types of stories that are meant to discipline us or to keep us in check. So I guess then you could say that the takeaway from the story is don't be a distracted driver, because if you're distracted and you're looking around, you're going to see Latakunuda and she's going to get you. And also plot twist, maybe this one is for the women and for the femmes, and the story now is don't objectify women. Don't be staring at women like pieces of meat and objects in the street, because if you do, she's going to get in your car and she's going to get you. And then in some versions she just simply disappears when they make it to the destination. So again, if you're not distracted, if you're keeping your eyes forward on the road, then you're fine. So the next source that I have here is from It's a blog called de Wustoon Duras and this is again about taxi drivers, but it also includes story of someone just doing chores late at night, so again it could be the whole thing of don't be out late at night. This one's kind of a short one. It says a neighbor from the Canadian neighbor tells of an encounter with a woman in high heels. It happened one night as he was used to staying out late at night in the blocks. He started smoking a cigarette and it was almost three am. The atmosphere was calm. Suddenly the wind started to get colder than usual, and then he heard footsteps approaching, but with the sound of heels. He saw the silhouette of a woman coming. He didn't pay attention to it. What surprised him later was that the woman wasn't moving. All he could hear was the clicking of heels. Immediately, he felt a chill run through his entire body, and without thinking twice, he ran out, and in the distance, he continued to hear the footsteps of heels as if they were following him. He entered his house and from that day on he tried not to wander around late at night, so again, behave stay home, don't be out late at night, because the la tachunula will get you. Another event that occurred in the same neighborhood in the blocks of Zone two, tells us that a young man was doing tasks in the early morning hours, approximately at one forty am, and that in front of the house he suddenly heard the sound of heels. He thought it was a neighbor who worked late and had just arrived home, But the strange thing was that the sound was short, only a few footsteps, and he did not hear any door open. Later, on another day of the same week, he had to repeat the same thing, staying doing chores in the living room of the house, and almost at the same time, he heard the same footsteps of heels again, and immediately, out of curiosity, he positioned himself to observe through a hole in the door while the sound of the footsteps came closer, hoping to be able to see who it was when they passed exactly in front of the house. But such was his astonishment when he heard the sound so close, as if someone was walking in heels in front of the door and did not see anyone, not even a silhouette. And to top it off, the blocks looked clear, and the young man felt an intense fear that he couldn't finish his task and instead went to his room to try and calm down. Could it be an evil ghost, a soul in pain, or simply a woman. This page was originally in Spanish was translated into English, so sorry if it sounded a little clunky, that's just Google Translate. And then again, there's another short version of the taxi driver kind of version. This one happens in another city in Honduras called dan Lee, and it says this event happens in this of the hills don Lee. It is the taxi drivers who narrate this mysterious event. They say that late at night, they're working on the streets looking for passengers, and they see a beautiful young woman wearing high heels stop them and they take her. She starts talking to the driver and says that she's coming from a party and it's late and she's going home. The taxi driver is driving according to the address that the young woman indicated, and suddenly he no longer sees her in the back seat. But instead she is walking on the sidewalk without realizing when she got out. There are several taxi drivers who have gone through the same experience without knowing the explanation for it. One of them supposes that it could be the sole in pain of a young woman who is perhaps assaulted and murdered when leaving a party. But the strange thing is that nobody knows her despite the descriptions and the detail that she is wearing very high heels. And I'm reading this verbatim. It says many taxi drivers no longer do the night route very often for fear of this occurrence, since one of their colleagues went quote crazy because of it. One of the drivers says that he pays close attention to who stops him, and if he sees that it is a beautiful young woman in a party dress and especially with high heels, he does not let her get in and speeds up. So he's just like, nope, sorry, sorry, okay, so so sorry to all the pretty ghouls in high heels like me, we just apparently can't get a ride. I think what I really like about this story is that when you strip kind of everything away from it, it's saying leave women alone, Leave women alone when they're walking at night. Unfortunately it's like, well, no, they should still get a ride. They need a ride home maybe, but yeah, I don't know. It adds this element of danger to approaching women late at night on the street, which I am one of those people where if I'm walking, I will cross the road. I will not make you have to walk by me or near me, especially if it's in the evening. And I'd never even heard the story of the Takunuda before putting this episode together. The next source that I have here is this looks like it is a thesis by two folks. One of them was referenced in the first source that I had here. It's by Martinezreeez and Fernanda Maria. And this is an oral narrative in Ondudas New explorations at the beginning of the twenty first century. So this thing is kind of spread out across different places, but if you search that you should be able to find it. There's a PDF that I found of it, and I have here the specific pages that I wanted to reference. Okay, so in this thesis, it looks like they collected various anecdotes from people about all these different kinds of folklore and stories from people in Ondudas. But this one a couple sections I wanted to references about Latakunuda. So the one here was collected by this woman named Stephanie Ferrufino, who is from the Saint Lawrence Valley in Ondudas, and it's just her telling basically the same story about the taxi drivers. It says that the taxi drivers don't pick women up at night because there's a woman called Lauda. She was the girlfriend of a bus driver and that the bus and the taxi crashed and that he died. This one, actually there's a slight difference in it. It says that she was also in the bus and that they crashed all together and that she died, and so now she, you know, haunts the streets. But she was said to have law hair, that she was attractive, that she wore high heels, and that's why they call her Latakunuda, and that in Degusigapa they say that she comes out. In Vianueva, that when taxi drivers pick her up they look at her or when they like try to collect the fair that she's not there, that she doesn't make any noise, so they don't hear her getting out of the car. She just vanishes if they're distracted and they look back at her while they're driving, that she has a knife and she she kills them. But the other parts of this that I wanted to read, this is like a very lengthy document. Yeah, these are just collected from people. This is from someone named Cecilia Mehia and she's from the Central and she says that she was a very tall woman, she was young, she had long hair, just describing how she looked, that she had big lips, that she was dressed in white, and she wore heels, like super high heels. And they say that she is a woman that comes out in the middle of the night in Degusigapa, that people can hear her takuasos, that they can hear her high heels in the streets. Another one that says and that she leaves a trace of perfume in her trail that it just attracts men. And then this next one says it's called the tragedy La tak Takula leaves between midnight and three in the morning in the pedestrian streets. They say that she was a pretty girl, she had long hair, that she went to a party in her dress and her heels, that she was on her way back home, that a man assaulted her. She managed to escape him, she ran away in the streets wearing her heels, screaming for someone to help her, but that no one came out to help her, and that the man caught her and he ended up killing her, and that now her spirit remains on those streets. That's like the other kind of popular version of this story of Latakunulda that I keep seeing is that if it's not the taxi driver, it's that she was assaulted and ultimately murdered, and that her spirit, you know, of course, would remain disgruntled. Again, we bring in this idea that we always talk about here of traumatic events and how they leave an imprint of energy. Obviously that would do it right. This last one on here that was able to find in this PDF is from someone named Zelenya Eggi Jure from the Tumbla in Fracisco, Morasan, Okay. So this says that that she used to live in a house I think like off of a sidewalk, and that every day at twelve at night that they would hear heels in the streets, and that they were that they sounded like they were quick steps, like if they were running, and that when they went out to see what it was, they didn't see anybody there. They see that only men can see La Tacunuda, and that also when her steps again, when her steps are heard nearby, it's that she's far but that if the steps are far away, it's because she's approaching you or she's nearby. So the next one that I have or the last one that I have. Actually, this is a very different version of this story. This is actually a story of La Taku Nuda from Cuba. This has nothing to do with taxi drivers. It said that her spirit roams staircases in haunted or abandoned homes. This is something that was written on Medium dot com by a user called Chaotic Pair. This is actually posted in April of twenty twenty four, so very recently. It says echoes of the Night exploring the legend of Latako Nuda. And I'm not going to read the entire thing. It's not super long, but it says, step into the shadowy realms of Cuban folklore where the legend of Latako Nuda takes center stage. Described as a ghostly woman clad in black with a veiled face and long flowing hair, Latako Nuda is said to appear to unsuspecting victims as they ascend or descend staircases. The only warning of her presence is the faint sound of her high heeled shoes tapping against the steps, drawing ever closer with each passing moment. As children, you are warned never to look back as you climb the stairs, and most important of all, never dally as you go down. In some versions, she is said to have long nails that can act like claws, and some have seen her dressed in all black except for her red heels. Okay, red bottoms. M So again, this is another kind of go warning kind of a story. It's like, be careful in staircases, don't like look where you're walking, don't be looking around. I'll be messing around on the stairs because if you are, UNA's going to get you, which to me would make me want to run up or downstairs right, which I don't think that is the goal, but I would run if I heard that, or I would run so that I wouldn't encounter her, I don't know. Another piece of this says, when I was growing up, my best friend at school came one day retelling her encounter with the entity. She said that she had sneaked out from home to go to a party and had returned to her building in the early hours of the morning. She was tired and her feet hurt since she had stolen her older sister's heels that didn't quite fit. As she started to climb to her fourth floor apartment. We do not have many elevators in Cuba, particularly in the buildings that are less than eight floors, she all of a sudden could hear heels going up the stairs loudly. With her only problem, the sound was completely different from her heels. She said. She started to worry when she heard a female voice start to hum. As a wave of fear rushed through her and she ready to sprint up the stairs, she heard a very calm but completely inhuman voice say, do not run. With her her heart in her throat, she did her best to quickly but safely get to her floor. She swears that as she slowly slipped into her home, she heard those high heels begin the descent back down the building and a haunting hum softly filled the space. Again. See again, that would have just made me run if I hear disembodied heels behind me, and then as I'm getting ready to run, they say, don't run. Guess what I'm doing. I'm a runner, I'm a track star. I am not. I'm not gonna listen to whatever that is. I am going to get out of there. So this says that I want to read the origin part of this. It says while the origins le Takunula remain shrouded in mystery. Some believe her legend is rooted in tales of lost love, betrayal, or tragic accidents that occurred on staircases. Others suggest she is the vengeful spirit of a woman wronged, condemned to roam the earth in search of justice personally growing up, every version I ever heard mentioned she had an accident of some sort down some stairs and now haunted steep or dangerous stairs. This is really cool. I'm actually want to reach out to this person because they're actively posting and this is really cool, and I would love to hear more about Cuban folklore. So Chaotic pair, if you actually are listening, you feel free to reach out to me, but I'm going to reach out to you. So yeah, it was really really cool to come across this one. It's again a completely different culture, but it's this idea of a woman's spirit wearing high heels. And let me tell you something, this is the slayest. This is the most slay she is serving giving. She's very demure. You see how she walks down the stairs slowly. She's demure. She's not like these other ghouls. She takes her time on the steps. She's very cute. See. I don't know if you've all seen that trend on TikTok, but I'm obsessed with it right now. But yeah, again, just really fun to make these connections to different cultures. I think this was the only other one that popped up in the first page of Google results about a high healed spirit about Lata Gunuda. So if you have your own story about Lata Gunuda, obviously, always, always, always, feel free to send in your versions. Welcome back, girlfriends. Honestly, this story just inspired me to make a bunch of tiktoks wearing my heels. I have a collection of heels. I don't know if anybody listening. I don't know if you all know this. I don't know if you know this, you listener, But I have a collection of heels that I like to wear heels sometimes when I go out. When I say I'm gholie pop, I mean it. And I don't get a chance to wear them often anymore. You know, I'm in my thirties. My feet hurt very easily now. But I will say, I do marry the heels. I do not take them off again. I'm demurror. I'm not like these other ghouls. I don't take my heels off and walk in the streets in the club with my shoes off. I commit to it, and then I don't feel my toes for a week. But I can just imagine the funny tiktoks I can make about latakun muda and walking to my heels, especially with that sound that's like let it and then the heels, the clickings of the I don't know anyway, I'm I feel like I am. My mind is slowly unraveling. The wrinkles in my brain are smoothing out. I don't know what's happening, but you know it. But you're here with me, and I appreciate you and I'm so grateful. Thank you for spending this time with me. Thank you for listening to today's episode again. Any and all updates on the show on events that I will be at, you can follow me on social media that's at sostal podcast on every platform. Feel free to leave a rating review wherever you are listening. 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