It is unlikely that anyone will be surprised that South America, with its high mountains, stormy waters and impenetrable forests, is full of legends about terrible monsters. We have collected the most popular here:
Yakumama
Yakumama is an ancient water goddess who lives in the Amazon. It looks like a giant snake (about fifty meters long) with horns on its head. She sucks in a huge amount of water, and then stuns her victim with a powerful jet. Since not so long ago an anaconda with a length of almost 20 meters was discovered in South Africa, and given that the ancients could not measure the monster correctly, it is possible that Yakumama had a real prototype.
El Cuero
El Cuero translates as "cowhide". The Chilean monster with this name lives in the Andes, in the mountain lake Lacar and looks like the skin of an animal without a ridge. The legend could have arisen from observations of large freshwater electric rays, although, unlike rays, El Cuero has eyes on the "horns" and has claws.
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In the middle of the body, El Cuero has a face with a retractable mouth, with which the monster sucks the blood of its victims - to the last drop.
El Ombre Cayman
El Ombre Cayman (Crocodile Man) hunts on the shores of Colombia. According to legend, this monster was once a man in love with the daughter of a rice merchant. The girl's father did not approve of the relationship. Once El Ombre was sitting in a restaurant eating rice and suddenly saw from the window how his beloved was swimming in the sea. He hurried to her and (apparently for conspiracy purposes; approx. Mixstuff.ru) turned into a crocodile. After that, he began to turn into a crocodile and in this guise he met a girl every day. It ended with the lovers sailing away together in an unknown direction.
Encantado
Encantadu is a dolphin endowed with evil powers. The very word "encantado" in Portuguese means "bewitched". In appearance, he looks like an Amazonian dolphin bot, but he also knows how to take on a human form. In general, encantada is loved by human society and is often announced for large and noisy holidays - usually under the guise of musicians. They can remain in human form for several years. You can recognize this creature by looking under his hat - at the encantadu there is always a bald spot with a masked hole. These werewolves behave quite friendly, but seizing the moment, they kidnap young women and hide them in their underground city. And sometimes these unfortunate women return … with the cubs of the encantadu in their womb.
This is an instructive legend - it warns children to stay away from dangerous bodies of water, and young women to be careful with bald musicians.
Marikoxi
Marikoxi is an ape-like man, the South American counterpart of Bigfoot.
They were first described by the famous British archaeologist and traveler Colonel Percy Fawcett (before his mystical disappearance). According to Fossett, these were gigantic savages, completely covered in wool, who greeted his team with a barrage of arrows from their bows. They could not speak at all, and made sounds similar to grunting.
After that, several more types of marikoxy were described - some were as tall as dwarfs, others reached 3.5 meters.
Guallepen
Guallepen is a Chilean monster with a calf's head, a sheep's body, and oddly shaped long feet. He lives in rivers and lakes and mates with livestock, which is why the latter gives birth to ugly offspring. If this creature is seen by a pregnant woman, then her child can also be born a monster.
Madremont
The spirit of Madremonte (translated as Mother Horus) hails from Colombia. This is a huge woman with sparkling eyes who lives in the forest. Her clothes are composed of leaves and moss. Madremonte controls the weather and makes people wander in the forest. Locals claim that sometimes they hear her screaming and moaning, making her way through the forest on a dark night.
Sveta Gogol