The lack of creativity when talking about sinister places is a constant problem that we don’t know how to overcome. From the eternal reference to Iker Jiménez or the chattering of teeth, to always following the same development: history of the place and rumors to end up challenging the reader of these lines. “You dare not go”. Like vampire literature or cowboy movies, articles about abandoned places are a genre in themselves.
In the case of La Mussara it cannot be otherwise. La Mussara is a ghost village, belonging to what Sergio del Molino would call empty Spain and what María Sánchez would call emptied Spain. But that is another matter. La Mussara is in the Baix Camp region. And more specifically in the municipality of Vilaplana.
The adjective empty or emptied has its origin in 1950. It is said that a plague (an epidemic of phylloxera, an insect that attacks the vine leaf), pressing problems of drought and the barrenness of the land were sufficient reasons to expel -or naturally invite the citizens of the time to leave. The rural exodus made flesh.
At this point, the area became popular as a place for hiking routes. And to this Sunday popularity were added paranormal events, according to those who have visited it.
The subject of the fog, for example, is probably the one that makes the teeth chatter the most. Legend has it that La Mussara is a dimensional gateway and the fog acts as a hinge to another reality. A concrete testimony is pure Interestellar -sorry for the Spoiler-: a person disappeared 14 hours and had the sensation of having disappeared only 2. At least he came back, those who have learned the history of La Mussara will think: there are cases of people who never returned after their disappearance in the mist.
However, what would be able to awaken the attention of Iker Jimenez is the Church of San Salvador. Those who have had the good (or bad) to enter it say they have seen satanic paintings and inverted crosses. The psychophonies are taken for granted.
The magic, the terror and the fantasy are concretized in a moment: the fog rises and the bells ring that are not in the Church of San Salvador. They say. In any case, the fog seems to act – as in Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel – as both reality and metaphor. But it doesn’t matter because it’s all hearsay, isn’t it? You can see for yourself… if you dare to go.