Sanatorio Durán

High on the flanks of Irazú volcano, above Cartago, the ruined pavilions of the Sanatorio Durán stand among pastures and cloud forest. The sanatorium was the project of Dr Carlos Durán Cartín, a physician who had briefly served as president of Costa Rica, and a group of doctors determined to fight tuberculosis, then one of the country’s great killers. Construction began in 1915 and the first patients arrived in 1918; the site was chosen for its altitude, cool winds and clean air, then believed to be the best treatment for the disease.

At its height the sanatorium had around 300 beds in separate pavilions for men, women, adolescents and children, with its own bakery, shop, cinema, houses for the doctors and a residence for the Sisters of Charity of Saint Anne, who nursed the patients from 1925. Former staff remember strict nuns watching over everything – a nurse and a patient who fell in love there told La Nación in 2013 how they had to pass notes in secret. As antibiotics made long sanatorium stays unnecessary, it declined from the 1950s and closed in the early 1970s, after 55 years of service.

Abandoned, stripped and vandalised, the buildings became Costa Rica’s most famous haunted place. The best-known ghost is a nun – sometimes said to be a sister who cared for the children – seen walking the corridors or looking out of upper windows. Visitors also describe children’s voices and laughter in the children’s pavilion, footsteps, crying and figures in the doorways, and ghost-hunting groups and television crews have visited many times.

In 2014 the government declared the complex part of Costa Rica’s historic and architectural heritage, recognising its place in the country’s public-health history. It is administered by the farmers’ union UPA Nacional, which charges a small entry fee, offers camping and events, and in 2019 restored the old dining room and kitchen as a café; it estimated that 700 to 1,500 people visit each week.

The people who lived and died here were patients, many of them children and young adults, cared for by doctors, nurses and nuns in an era before effective drugs. Respect the ruins: they are fragile, and the ghost stories are a reminder of a real and painful chapter of Costa Rican history.

A nun in a habit seen in corridors and at windows; children’s voices, laughter and crying in the children’s pavilion; footsteps, whispers and figures in doorways; cold air in closed rooms. Reports come from visitors, ghost-hunting groups and TV crews and are anecdotal.

The children’s pavilion, the nuns’ quarters and the long corridors and stairways between pavilions; the former doctors’ and director’s houses. Most reports come from overcast afternoons and dusk, when cloud rolls over the site.

The sanatorium inspired the 2010 Costa Rican horror mockumentary El Sanatorio and appears in countless local TV reports and Halloween features. It is one of the most visited heritage sites in Cartago province.