La cárcel del infierno en Costa Rica _ Relatos del lado oscuro

0:00 When we talk about a prison, a prison, we always get this feeling of violence, of danger, of death, of all kinds of horrible things, of deep sadness. Now imagine that to that is added the isolation, the violence by the authority that controls the place, the violence of own resources, the lack of food, the suffocating heat, a brutal solar intensity due to its proximity to the equator, the lack of water. So we' re at the entrance of hell itself, or we' re on the San Lucas prison island in Costa Rica. Come with me, let' s take a look at this place. Stories from the dark side, strange beings, inexplicable events, family reversidas stories that other minds prefer to ignore this image that

1:30 I' m projecting to you right now has a story. Every time some tourist dressed in shorts, sandals, a lot of suntan or sun block and a rare look comes up some of the guides. He comments on the legend of the Vikini girl. Legend has it that one good day, the prisoners thirsting for passion, thirsting for sexual impulses, managed to distract the guards, take control of the infirmary and kidnap the only nurse there was, with whom they did horrors, untold abuses, extreme violence. When satisfied with their lower instincts, they ended with that assault they murdered the nurse after mutilating her horribly used the blood to paint this image. Of course more than one tourist feels sorry to have seen that and there are even some who feel indisposed and have to leave the place. However, the story is not entirely true and is not entirely true. Not because the prisoners wouldn' t have done it.

2:46 No, of course I do. If there had been a woman there, they would surely have killed her in the most terrible ways you can imagine. Don' t doubt that they killed everyone who was passing them by. Yes, it was also painted with blood. No. The tests carried out in recent years show that there is no blood compounds with what was painted this image is basically a bit of enamel paint, probably the same one that was used for maintenance, some black paint and some charcoal, very similar to the other image that is around the lady of the Paraguas, which also represents a woman of natural size and voluptuous appearance. These images are nothing else, but the reflection of a life in captivity, in a barbaric isolation. They are part of today' s tour to San Lucas Island, currently declared a protected enclosure for nature. The prison, the old prison, is visited by tourists.

3:58 For some it turns out to be in very bad taste. This is not about going to visit the beach or going to visit a museum. It is a place where death was the everyday, where extreme violence was the everyday, where sexual, physical and mental abuse were the everyday, where the lack of even the most basic things were also everyday, where death could come from everywhere and in the most varied forms. It is not a place where a girl should appear in a small suit and take a selfi, nor is it the place where an imbecile guy with some alpargatas, a short that looks like a tent, a stupid smile making erotic poses next to one of these drawings, which represented, at best, the erotic longings of a prisoner who probably and died in the worst case. These images, which are now used as a selfi background, represent the hatred that one prisoner felt for a woman, the purest animal desire that another felt for a woman. There are stunning images in there Some of them are extremely explicit in nature, impossible to put into a video. Others represent messages of repentance, of guilt of death. Some of

5:30 them are small fragments that feel poetic, others are dramatic. It' s not a place where it feels right for people to take selfis, not because it' s a holy place, not because it' s a sacred place, but all the opposite. This was a place where the worst or the worst of the human being would float out or, otherwise, die let me tell you something else. Saint Luke Island was originally called by the natives of the Shara Shara region. It was an ordinary island It had a small community.

6:20 About 3, 000 years ago. It wasn' t a place of sacrifice, much less. It was simply a place where there was fishing activity, where there was gathering, etcetera. There was a huge population of birds of all kinds. It is located in the Gulf of Nicoya, in Costa Rica, on the Pacific Ocean side, near the mouth of the Gulf of Made the Pacific. It' s a peculiar place for several reasons. First, because it is relatively close to the land of the territory or continental.

7:00 It is a kilometer from the island to land, there is a kilometer on the other side, towards the region of Punta Arenas, there are about seven or eight kilometers. The place, as such, is not very big. It must be about four hundred and so many hectares, very densely covered with vegetation, with very high temperatures all year round and yet it is a somewhat dry place. Despite being covered with vegetation, there are no easy outcrops of fresh water. The water found on this island is obviously affected by the constant presence of salt water. The shore even when it' s close. At the same time, it' s very treacherous. The island is surrounded by strong currents, some ascending northwards, others southwards, that communicate to the Pacific and generate these strong currents that can drag anything. But along with this, also in the region near, to the coast to the mainland, there are all kinds of things, from alligators, populations, numerous caimans, animals, ponzoños ranging from vipers and insects, plants and clear on the way from the island to mainland, there is also a strong shark population, that is,

8:35 that this small island, this island, is a place surrounded by many dangers. But, in addition to this, it is a place that does not feel very fit for life, even with all this vegetation, even with all this abundant fauna. Let me tell you that in this place there were good deer turtles fishing birds. However, it is not suitable for other reasons. First, the lack of water, of fresh water one hundred percent, second, the terrible heats and then, when the rain storm comes in, the affectation by tidal winds. All this. Perhaps this was why in one thousand eight hundred and seventy- three he was considered the place to found a prison island. The place had been used years ago as a quarantine place when a ship was approaching Punta Arenas and inside it was sick, the boat was sent to the bay of San Lucas Island, a place somewhat protected from the currents and where it could anchor and stay there as long as it took when the crew had died those who had to die and those who were saved were saved well, the boat could continue its march. So I already had a history out there that, at least the bay was a place where bodies were thrown.

10:11 For that year of one thousand eight hundred and seventy- three, the then Costa Rican ruler, Tomás Guardia, decides to convert it, together with the island of Coco or Coco, into prison communities, to go penitentiaries places to send the prisoners. The idea was very simple. The most dangerous men didn' t have to be in the city, in the world, in the village, it was preferable to send them there. Away murderers, scum, garbage. Worst of all, those who had committed appalling crimes, who had frightened society, who had altered order, should be sent there. What few knew was that, in reality, the central idea of Thomas Thomas Guardia was not to get rid of the prisoners of extreme danger. There were not so many, if not so frequent, but Thomas Guardia was trying to stay in power constantly and permanently. So, in reality, the Isle of St Luke became the place to send political enemies, adversaries, journalists, writers, people who were opposed to it. It didn' t last many years.

11:30 This subject Tomás Guardia died relatively soon, about eight or nine years after having opened to the island of San Lucas as a prison facility. Tomás Guardia dies, but that doesn' t mean the island disappears, quite the contrary. The place continues in the beginning. The conditions were terrible. A small pier was built with dungeons that were there made of stone, with a small window on the top and a place where they threw the prisoners, literally throwing the prisoners. Beyond this were some huts where the prisoners who were sent the guard would be accommodated. He was usually military. The possibilities of escape very vague, very poor, despite the proximity to the land. That was part of the horror of being there, because from the shore of San Lucas Island you get to see land, you get to see the peninsula. So, it was dramatic, but they knew they wouldn' t make it. Those who tried most of the time did not get very far, although there were escapes, but in that first period the goal was not to send prisoners, of course some were also sent, but to end the political adversaries. When it disappears tomas guar that dies relatively young. Over the next few years, those

13:05 really become a prison killers, vagabond rapists. It was a mixture of incredible prisoners and the conditions are still the same, which made the chances of survival very low inside this place. But we' ll see about that later. Over the years and beginning the 20th century, some adaptations are made, some improvements. Let' s call him that. A suitable space for command is built, a chapel would be built a little later. The famous pavilions of the album are built, which was a place to accommodate the prisoners with an aljíber or a cistern to the central part in the form of a disc.

13:58 Some modifications were made and it was believed that it had improved that. With the passage of time and already by the fifties, the penitentiary island ceases to be as such a prison and becomes an agricultural prison colony where the prisoners could be in some form free. There were animals, there were plots to sow and self- sustaining. Let' s call them that. That was a thousand nine hundred and fifty- eight. However, despite this, the brutality within the island was embarrassing. Shameful for a country that had officially eliminated the army since a thousand nine hundred and forty- eight, when the Costa Rican army was declared extinct, for a country that had openly declared itself pacifist, to have the island to San Lucas and the conditions there were terrible. The construction of the famous axes was part of this project. It didn' t mean any improvement at all, but at least it was already a paradise compared to the original. For a thousand nine hundred and ninety- one it is decided to close it completely as a prison. There is nothing left and then it becomes a biosphere reserve, a place where there are all kinds of birds, bugs, turtles and other things. But why it has attracted so much

15:28 attention from its own and others. This island attracts attention because, like many other prison islands, conditions were extreme. However, when you see alcatraz the penitentiary island in the United States that you hear was practically a hotel compared to this island, going the marias in Mexico didn' t stay far behind either. The brutality was similar, but here there were so many factors adding up or s RLL. Nine hundred and sixty- three, a man wrote a book about this José León Sanchez. The name of the book is The Isle of Men Alone and it was a narration of his own experiences within the island and the experiences of other prisoners who told him. This opened the door to being known in the world. What happened there and obviously Costa Rica ashamed of that, ended up closing it, but it would not be closed, but until the ninety- one, long after, after this brief parenthesis or this introduction, let me tell you a little more. The island was originally considered a place for political enemies and this led to no care being taken towards the prisoners. When a prisoner arrived on the island, the first thing to break it, break it. It was known that the prisoners, regardless of whether

17:02 they were political criminals enemies of the regime, as in the case of the 1920s, or if they were criminals of the greatest violence or simply persons who had been pointed out and charged. That didn' t matter. They were taken there and broken to break a person. The first thing that was done was to put him in this kind of cell, in these dungeons that were near the port. Thus, arriving there was thrown by a group of men into a confined space with just a hole in the top. There was no greater ventilation, there was no adrenaje service, there was no toilet, there was no supply of anything. Those who fell there could have been above fifty degrees of temperature and then, then, the madness started in there with the absolute humidity attached to the body leather, the salt glued to the body.

18:02 The delusion of being locked up led to them slowly breaking down. Those men, tough, dangerous thugs would pass by, but obviously there would also be a guy who stole something, someone who killed but was not really a criminal, just on one occasion, for some lawsuit, for a quarrel and went to stop there the food. Those of us who were in these early separators are going to call him in this kind of dungeon. The food was very simple. At some time of the day, a guard with a bucket would throw food through this hole and then throw a bucket of water which he could eat with his hand would eat what had fallen to the floor, mixed with the feces of those who were there. In and after the water the same thing had to be drunk as you could the merla of the floor in the madness of being there for several days. Some would end up dead, others would kill the one next to the most brutal forms, strangled with blows as out. What they didn' t know was that the dead man would stay there. The guards wouldn' t do anything to get him out. Until all the prisoners were allowed to be taken out, they' d take out the dead man. This meant that with the passage of just a few hours,

19:33 the one who had died would begin to break down and after three days would be an unbearable pestilent mass. But that didn' t matter. It really didn' t matter whether those prisoners were alive or not. What mattered was that when his will came out he was so broken that they couldn' t fight that they weren' t combative in there anymore, where the other prisoners were those who saw survival gone to the first lock- up, The conditions were similar. So they wouldn' t have the strength to face the guards again. Thirty guards for two hundred and fifty prisoners. Sometimes even more would be relatively easy to lift and take down the guards. That is why it was necessary for them to break them in the worst way. They weren ' t innocent people. Some yes, obviously yes the political prisoner who fell there and who at the same time fell with a guy who had killed seven or eight or with the leader of a gang of murderers was lost, but who had sent him to prison would be perfectly clean. In the case of the dictatorship of the Tinoco brothers between seventeen thousand nine hundred and seventeen and nine hundred and nineteen, this was perfect. Anyone who objected could be sent to St Luke' s Island and would never leave there again alive. Who killed him, who knows what he died of. Who knows they sent him to kill, no, no, they didn' t send him to prison and

21:07 that he didn' t resist is different. So it was very appropriate. But other tremendous things are also told. He knows once that the first prisoners arrived and were thrown there if one of them was a pretty young man, that one in particular was very coveted. The Isle of Men Alone, there were no women, as its name indicates. Thus, acts of sodomy were frequent and the fact that it had reached a young person and that it could literally be commercialized among the prisoners was something very useful. So the one who came and fell there did have to go through that hole, through the famous Calabozo at the entrance. But if he died, they would take him out and very quickly. It is said that in the early days, the one who died there was quickly taken, washed, dressed as a woman and sold brutality in its greatest expression. But the others, if any of them died there, would stay there. This meant that entire groups of prisoners who arrived died. It was impossible to survive being next to a corpse after three days in a fifty- degree heat, it meant that very soon everyone would be intoxicated and sick and end up dying there in the past, which was the problem of removing the bodies. For this purpose lime was thrown and sent to

22:40 other prisoners to remove the bodies. The bodies as such, there was a cemetery, a small pantheon in there, but the pantheon only has a few bodies. So most of these bodies were most likely thrown into the sea. The downward current would take them to the Pacific Ocean. The rising current would lead them to the upper Gulf of Nicoya, where they would probably be devoured, either by shark alligators for what was there. There' s barely a dozen bodies in the graves. So, actually, in a prison that was open for over a hundred years, that' s not credible. There was also a second stage. If a group of prisoners had managed to survive the first phase, they would have to walk along a road that was known as the street of bitterness. Yes, I know there are many streets of bitterness, but this was called the street of bitterness, a small paved road that led from these first facilities to the inside of the prison there. In the early days, that meant getting there and putting on a shackle. The first thing that was done to prevent the escape of the prisoners was to put a shackle on them. The shackle was nothing other than a clamp that pressed the ankle, a kind of metal ring that tightened tightly with a simple iron screw.

24:15 At ankle height. The chain would have been about three meters and must have weighed about fifteen to twenty kilos. This one had to be loaded all the time. He wouldn' t take it off. The prisoners could go to an area of the island to cut vegetation to prepare pastures, as there would also be in this same place breeding grounds where deer birds were kept and sent to the mainland and served to pay the costs of the island, not for the food of the prisoners. No, sir it was, to pay the costs all the time. The prisoner had to run the chain. The target if he tried to jump into the sea with the chain, he would probably die, he couldn' t kick, he couldn' t swim, I mean n but the result of this was terrible. In the heat, without proper hygiene, without being able to bathe, without being able to remove that in a short time they developed from gangrene infections, anything, they ended up losing their foot and this was a damn death. In the place the medical dispensary would be built well into the 1930s, so before this the prisoner was laid wherever possible. Once the day was over, the prisoners were taken back to the places of night accommodation where they were chained. There was no such cell, singles, grilled beds, none of this. The prisoner was

25:45 simply hooked on a pole, on a wall where he went and slept on the floor, so that the will was breaking and there came the food. The food was not precarious. I' d lay down in every way. Lack of water, lack of food, lack of vitamins, lack of fresh fruits led to epidemics. Practically all the time. There were epidemics in some cases and, according to narratives, towards the end of the 19th century, one thousand and eight hundred and ninety. There were several epidemics that decimated the prison population up to sixty percent of the prisoners died. Where the bodies are.

26:26 Good question. It is known that there was this because of the testimonies of some prisoners who were subsequently released, but not because there are records. That' s interesting. Many of the records that are kept are by testimonies of survivors or even of the guards themselves. But of those early years, obviously, it was no use for anyone to have a record of what was going on there. There was left who had come alive and who had not come alive. Who I' d come out with alive. It was a matter that didn' t matter and, obviously, as the years passed.

27:07 No one should know. When a new President dies, he prefers to remain silent. When this happens in the 1920s, with the Tinocos the same thing, it is better not to be known and so on they would take records later in the 1950s, when that already becomes something different. But in those early years, from one thousand eight hundred and seventy- three to well into the twenties of the twentieth century. In there, life and death were of no importance. The worst of the criminals could be tied together with a man who had done nothing when the time for food came. The worst of criminals would obviously eat that guy' s stuff and use it for their low instincts as well. There was all this, but there were ways to end it too. Terrible things are said. For example, those who tried to kill themselves had no way of not giving you a tool to eat with their hand.

28:14 So, the guard would throw something on the floor and you' d take it and eat it you could drink some water. Over there, from some bucket that was from some warehouse, but you didn' t have any elements. There was nothing you could keep. There was nothing you could take your life with. Of course, some of them have tried to jump into the sea. Depending on the area, you could fall into the rocks, fracture and stay there until you died or drowned by the tide. On the other side, jumping into the sea would mean drowning and then dragging your body. It was a way out, but those who didn' t have the courage of that could ask the favor of someone killing us. It was such despair that you could ask for this There were guys inside who could kill you in the most varied ways in exchange for what you had already been cigarettes for serving him for rampant carnal instincts. The fact is that after this I could squeeze your neck to death and the disorder and the pain of being locked up is over. There' s proof of it, only testimonies. The fact is that prison itself, even with the passage of time, would not improve.

29:36 When the circle or disc pavilion was built in the 1930s, the conditions did not change the inmates' lodgings were this kind of long galleys with just three ventilations from each side and a single door inside, in a relatively small space, could fit up to seventy or eighty individuals at the fall of the afternoon when the door closed and all remained inside. The temperature reached extraordinary levels. There were no toilets at all, there were no beds, there was no separation between the two. And while already in the 1930s the matter that the shackles had ceased to be fashionable what they did, that they were locked in there and darkened, there was no electric power, there was no lighting, there was nothing going on in there, so there were those who were already known to be part of a group and therefore had a function. There was the hitter, there was the leader, like the old criminal horse that had been taken there. This one would come later. But in the 1930s there were these gangs in there who managed all kinds of things, who had control of sex, yes, they controlled the newcomers and sold them, they

31:07 could even dress as a woman and of course, the one who did not accept was lost because, anyway, they would continue to use it in the same way and end up killing it. Fever, typhoid, malaria were a common situation here. He who refused and assembled a lawsuit could also be sent to a new punishment. When the disk was built this module with the pavilions around in circular form as a kind of panoptic. When this was done, they realized it was a mistake. It had been built to store water. The water that fell on the roofs would arrive by means of a series of cañuelas towards this reservoir that would serve to store water, but it did not serve to begin, the places very dry the rain when the tank fell was empty, had broken and leaked quickly, but had a plus. The place could serve as a torture cell, a single hole, similar to the famous dungeons at the entrance, except much warmer. He who was thrown there could spend several days there scarcely would throw something at him When someone remembered the screams, the horror, the fact that being in a closed place that is exposed to the sun cover could reach temperatures of 60 degrees enough to dehydrate a person in just a few hours. Only a few survived and clearly survived if the

32:45 chief of the guard did. If the chief ordered no water, no water would be put on and the prisoner would die in two days. If the chief ordered it to be a punishment, but not death, water would be thrown at him and at some point food, but he had no services, there was no way to evacuate the waste and clear, when it rained and the water fell, the waste began to float around the prisoner that was in there, so that even when there was a lot of water, the quality of this was disgusting and within a few hours, when the water finished raining, it had leaked again. It wasn' t the only thing there were beatings, constant abuse, injuries were frequent. It was a place where life expectancy is lost when it arrives and someone loses the prisoners who were sent.

33:44 It was said that they were to life imprisonment that they would never leave again and yet they also suddenly sent a young man for stealing something with all intent. It' s not because I was a life- long prisoner. It was because they needed fresh meat, as they were told, and as soon as they arrived they were dedicated to it, but there were also animals. So the perversions that were practiced in this place were enormous. The fact of locking these extremely dangerous subjects in an isolated place virtually unchecked at night was a condemnation for the weak. That did not mean that the weak had not committed crimes in all cases. In some cases they were definitely innocent, but there they found their end. The horror that was lived in this place. It is what leads me to think if it is right to go there and take a selfi with a short and flip flops, when in this place, in this very place, where the woman of the boots is drawn to s s s who raped the companion, sexually abused the companion and then killed him, does not fancy the nice place to go in a colorful swimsuit an American tourist taking a selfi. It is a place that should already be on the ground,

35:19 because it is the memory of atrocities that were committed there even in the fifties, after Costa Rica had jumped to world fame for having abolished the army and being an example of a pacifist country, in this place they continued to kill people and continue to see abuses. José León Sánchez talks about that in a thousand nine hundred and fifty, when he was accused of a robbery and was named the beast of the Basilica or the monster of the Basilica for having gone to steal from a basilica valuables in the act had died someone. Actually, José León, he wasn' t guilty. He didn' t steal, he had been a relative who pointed him out. That gives you an idea of how many people who had committed no crime were there and clearly there were also great criminals and dangerous subjects, all mixed up. That set the tone for this place to be considered as the gate of hell, although some considered the gate of hell to be the entrance and here in it was the same hell. Years later these same galleys where today tourists take photos and smile and make absurd signs. In this place the prisoners painted these things. It was a reflection of their fear, of their desires, of their contempt for the lives of others, of the violence one cannot imagine when one sees these

36:54 images of extreme brutal sexuality, it is not there. We' re seeing something nice. Seeing a drawing that looks like the football player Pelé doesn' t mean it was fun, it' ll be there nothing. That' s what people saw, what they believed, what they thought, what they dreamed of, who slept there about each other, waiting to see when someone abused them, when someone killed us? It' s not a nice place. It' s clear to me when it closes. Besides, there' s not much information. Even though it was in the nineties. If you ' d expect information files, there isn' t. Important human rights researchers have requested access to the reports. The Inter- American Court of Human Rights, which is based in Costa Rica, has requested access to official reports to the reality of what happened there. The University of Costa Rica has done archaeological surveys everywhere, but they do not find the data. It strikes me because, obviously, in a country with a history of pacifism, the existence of this colony with such vexations was incredible. There' s a certainty that that happened. Yes, the guards themselves who have probably survived the latter, in recent times narrated this. They were saying, like, at a certain time.

38:25 The guards, finishing the last check at nine o' clock at night, were getting out of there. They didn' t want to know any of this, because whoever was around would hear what was going on in there It was preferable the next day to just report a lost prisoner. I wasn ' t really lost. He had been killed during the night and his own companions at dawn when the door opened, he would have been pulled and thrown into the sea or taken to the vegetation. He had already stayed in such a way that there were no guilty ones, there were no accusations. Of course, if someone beat a policeman or one of the guards would stop at the disc or before the disc was there he would go to a few small cells that were on the waterfront, where when the tide was rising, the prisoner would be left with the water at this point. If he was lucky, because on occasion watching the tide he would climb up a little bit more and kill him. There was also the cage. The cage was well established in the 1950s. That' s why I' m telling you I' m surprised. The cage was a cage, a steel gate, where they put a prisoner probably the most dangerous, the ugliest, the one who had committed the worst horrors and when the visits came, because already in the fifties there were visits, they could see it. Today we' d take a self in the inmate. It' s the equivalent what they' re doing now. They' d go for a selfi with the prisoner. That' s what was there. How many other things happened. I don' t

39:57 know. Guards died, yes, yes, there were many dead guards. It was easy to get distracted and the prisoner, who was closer to you with the chain, cut off your head, tied your chain until he finished hanging you and finally ripped you out. I had nothing to lose. And when he wondered what happened, no one saw anything, so neither were the guards safe. Perhaps that' s why it was reported that in the 1930s a terrible act was ordered. Apparently in the 1930s, a group of prisoners had killed one of the guards in one of the pavilions in the back of these, which were about two levels. One of those prisoners had killed a guard and then he had run and got into the cell along with other prisoners who were there and had locked the door, the captain had locked himself in order to set fire down. They had locked themselves in the top, whether the n n s the r s or the bottom, where they stored different things. There they placed zacate, i e grass, dry, wood, branches, whatever it was and set fire. They burned everyone, everyone up there, they died suffocated, burned out the next day, cleaned the place, the bodies were dumped over there and moved on so there was extreme violence everywhere. They killed the nurse to paint the painting. No, but if

41:29 a nurse had come. They probably would' ve killed him. They weren ' t good people. A lot of those in there weren' t good people. They were despicable beings in many ways, able to kill, to abuse, to raise the worst instincts of the human being and to focus them against less force, against which could not be defended over the years. That must have left a burden impregnated in this place. Those who have visited the site say that you still sit down and let me tell you something. The places that are visited today, these places where the paintings are like those of the women I have shown you, are not the places where the worst atrocities were committed. These were the quiet places. These were the places that opened up. The 1930s are already in. Yes, these were not the worst and yet the simple fact of going in there permeates a strange energy vibration a feeling of loneliness, of abandonment of anger I do not know how you can take a selfi in a colorful swimsuit next to one of these images, what you think clearly, is a historical enclosure, but there should be some respect.

42:50 In Mexico, for example, we have the Black Palace of Lecumberry, one of the worst prisons that you remember and it wasn' t this. It was a harsh, violent, cruel prison. When it closed, it was going to tear down, it was simply going to sweep completely. With this it was chosen to preserve it, because it was a historical monument. As for the building, but it was given a meaning, it became the historical archive, in the general archive of the Nation, where the records of those who lived there, who suffered there, are archived. The island of St Luke feels that it should have something different, because within there the vileness, the cruelty, the pain, the fear, remained impregnated paranormal phenomena.

43:40 There must be. There must be, but they' re not very credible either. The testimonies and investigations of paranormal tourism are just as offensive to me. These groups that arm themselves with a flashlight, with a little gadget, that makes pl plip and that go around saying if you' re here give us a sign. I don' t think it makes sense for them to do that, but those who have been there for years have lived horrible things. Some of the testimonies we could find of prisoners who were in the place late in the sixties and seventyes before it was closed in the ninety- one, claimed that the place was not only afraid. In this place, I was not only afraid of what would make you the hill, but of what I would do to you who no longer see the beast, who will roar at you and there is no one, when there was already electricity and you could see it. Suddenly you felt that there was someone next to you you threw yourself on the floor as there were always no beds, you didn' t need to cover yourself, just look for a way that it wasn' t so terrible to be there, that you didn' t get up the insects and then suddenly, in the middle of the night, you felt this strange cold that came to you in a place with forty degrees of ambient temperature.

45:00 Suddenly you felt a terrible cold and something that is next to you. And you realize there' s nobody next to you, but something stayed there. And then the voices for years, the returning prisoners must be in the labors of the countryside when it was already an agricultural colony and they were already returning to the axes. Now I' m telling you about it. Or they were going back to the disk area. If for some reason it was made at night in the middle of the bush, they were accompanied all the time. Sometimes the guards had already left, it didn' t matter. Go as you can, but no one is there at night because in these places. Suddenly someone' s talking to you, they' re talking to you, but there' s nobody there. Or suddenly someone comes pulling you, you feel clearly, like you, they' re pulling clothes and there ' s no one next to you. But when you get to the area where the different settlements are and then it was night, amid the loneliness of these dark places, the noises of the animals, suddenly stop completely, completely there is no animal noise for some reason. All the chicharras, the monkeys, the different bats in this place are silent. And that' s when you hear that cry a long deep lament, right next to you, when there' s no one in this place, when they' re not there.

46:28 Some lost their mind. Some lost their mind. It is said that some prisoners, after being locked in the famous iron, feeling the presence of these things, together with them, went mad. The iron was a special place, it was a punishment cell. It was like buried three small doors for three small cells. Completely closed everything. There' s no sun, no ventilation, no drainage, no bathroom, nothing. The temperature can go up incredibly. You' re in there in the heat, the sweat, and suddenly you won' t get sick. Someone opens a hatch that is above and throws lime fists that immediately begin to react with your own organic matter, with your urine, your excrement the remains of the food, generating unusual heat. For what was called the iron and you had a choice. You could go to the iron or the boat. The boat was for you to go and unload the ships that arrived the iron was your punishment. But with the passage of time, the iron was not only the iron and its punishment, but also what was there, the fact that being there suddenly felt like something pressed you against the wall as if there was a person pressing you like something that lifts you up, like something that strangles you, that pulls you out, that rips you out. But only you are there, wherever there is someone else, you can' t even lie down. One in ten came out alive. The others died there in septicemias, poisonings, dehydration,

48:05 insect bites and clear from there was also the other thing outside walking in the vegetation. Why do you want to escape you won' t get far if you try to cross to the east area, where there was a series of small bays you would end up clawed, because in this site there is holy grass everywhere and the herbs were incredibly urticant before. It causes from skin irritation to very high fevers. There are bugs, there are spiders, there are plants everywhere that can take your life in a little while. How many remained there. Good question. As much as we' ve asked, we haven ' t found a single piece of information to show us how many prisoners they really were. There is a precarious historical record that marks that in one year eighteen prisoners died, in another year three died. But even the person who discovered this in an archaeological investigation insists that this is not possible because of the conditions on the island and because of the testimonies there are, it is not possible, but they left a mark of pain, anguish, fear, all the conditioning for this site to be an enclosure with a terrible paranormal load.

49:21 The buildings that are there today are recent. The old chapel, in fact, was built in the thirties of the last century the area of command, also the dispensary equally the axes. The axes were built in the 1950s. If axes were nothing but houses, they were houses for free prisoners. Yes, as an agricultural community, there were people who could walk, go and come and have these spaces. They were the prisoners of trust. We' re going to call them still so they would pass ready at nine o' clock at night, the Guard would pass by and through a small opening in the door screamed axe, that is, the face would pop out to see you and write down. That' s why they were called the axes.

50:06 But the conditions there were no longer so terrible and do not lose sight that this continued to operate until a thousand nine hundred and ninety- one. Yes as an agricultural colony, like what you want to send. But the agricultural colony began in fifty- eight, that is, until well into the twentieth century. This place in a place of death and destruction. Now you understand why there are no records, because no one wants you to remember. For many the film The Isle of Men Alone, a Mexican film of nineteen hundred and seventy- something, was a fantasy. It was something they saw invented without knowing that it was based on the text of José León Sánchez, who was based on his own life. This man was in that jail for 30 years. If you have a chance to read that book, read it is exhilarating and now I would like some greetings, but first I want to ask you something. During the previous weeks, the number of requests for greetings has been enormous. We are very pleased that they honor us by asking us for a greeting, but it has become a little disorganized and, therefore, we have stopped attending to some requests. We' ve lost some important greetings, missed a few birthdays, and it' s become very complicated. We want

51:39 to ask you a favor. From this program, we ask that all greetings be requested through the Facebook page via invox message. For those who manage Facebook, they know what that is, that is, they send us a message to Facebook. That way we' re going to have a lot of control over the greetings and birthdays we' ve handled so far through four different platforms. It' s been very complicated because there are those who write to us in an email who send us a message through the chat in the program we ' re presenting, others put it in the chat of some other program someone else in the Facebook chat. That' s become very complex and we' re going bad. And we don' t like that. Therefore, we ask from this program any greetings, any birthdays, we gladly send it.

52:31 We don' t charge for that you don' t charge. You don ' t have to do anything, just tell us. But, please, through invox' s message on Facebook, we will greatly thank you so that we can do it correctly and offer in advance an apology for all those people who have been left with a bad look and who were waiting for a greeting, a birthday greeting and we have not been right to the point. A very heartfelt apology, and now you allow me. I would like to send a very special congratulations to a friend and colleague of this channel, Dr Atenea Vázquez of the Realistic Nutrition Channel. She' s a friend of the channel.

53:14 He' s been with us a long time. We' ve announced it many times because we believe in what' s on your channel. She ' s a professional. She is about to be a doctor of nutrition, a doctor of doctorate, to have studied a career, a master' s degree, a doctorate, that is to say, she is a person who knows a lot and is celebrating years. He' s doing years today. So we send him a huge congratulations. We want it to be a great year, Doctor, that it is a year of many successes, that this channel will grow a lot, but also that personal life will be magnificent, of great growth, that the projects will be made, that it will be a year of those in which many of the expectations that were put at the beginning have been fulfilled and exceeded, that there will be good news every day, that there will be novelty. It' s growing that every day we ' re surprised and remember it as a great year with a lot of affection, happy, birthday and of course, we have others here we have Lily Moore. She is celebrating years and we also want to make her a great happiness for the whole year, make it a great year and a strong hug Lily, for Carlos Enrique Garduño, Edna, his wife sends her a great congratulations. We love that the wife is congratulating the husband. That means they see us together and we love that We also want to congratulate Gustavo Macclan in León, Guanajuato, his dad sends him a great congratulations. Both accompany us and it is an honor to be able to congratulate you to the land of

54:45 Calzado in Mexico, León, Guanajuato, a very pleasant place that brings us very good memories for Alicia Enríquez. She' s in Bariloche, Argentina. Many congratulations, a big hug. Thank you for accompanying us from their special territories. For María Elena Leiva, who is always with us, to go Mamesa, who is also with us and has turned both years, for Guadalupe Hernández Vargas, who has also turned years and is always with us. And today, for Rosa María Lara, which birthday today, for Deunel who also birthday today, and for Francisco Jaime in Nuevo León, who also birthday today, and for Everardo or Campo, who also birthday today. For all of them a great hug, a loving parazo, a lot of gratitude for this time they have dedicated to us, for this honor that they have given us to accompany us and clearly we also want to send some other messages here.

55:44 We want to give a very special greeting to Delia in Mexico City Deia is in recovery, has had a contagion out there of something and has been ill, but is recovering well. It' s gonna be great. We want you to put on the number one bomb- resistant Sana' s fort and your sister, Guadalupe Pérez also wants it and sends you this loving hug from all the team that we wish you together to recover soon and how soon we see it well. Of course, we also want to send a strong hug to our friend Begoña of look. The creation is that they' re also a little bit mean out there at home, but we know that they' re going to be great soon and that, before they realize it, they ' re going to be spare parts and making again formidable creations, our best wishes. And for Carmen, Amelia, Carmen Amelia, congratulate Carmita Valera.

56:43 They' re in Ecuador and she' s birthday yesterday. Carmita is a follower of the Canal, which gives us a huge taste and we send her this strong hug, even if it is a little late. But, as we have always told you, it is not a day, it is a whole year. Happy birthday, and we still need to send a grain hug to Norma, who' s in Canada. Norma is a follower who wrote us a very nice, very pleasant email. We appreciate it. His words. It makes us feel great. Thank you very much and of course, speaking of thanks, we would like to thank you right now for some other thanks for Magdalena Martínez, for Lorena Aguilar Sacurraba, for Patrick Rosas, for Diana Trejo, Tania Padrón, Raúl Jiménez, Alex Morales, Sith Covian, Yanira Salinas, Víctor Escobedo, Dina Boudelar, José Marcos da Silva, Carlos Romero, Saúl Servín, Lucy amor Anne Rodríguez, Vilebalda, Alonso Tanatólogo, Liliana Palacios. Many thanks to all of you for your support of the Canal through your SUPERFENX donations. We very much appreciate this help for us to continue doing these programmes. Thank you for that privilege of letting us do this project very good night and that from nr in peace or r