The Magic Tracks Dino Chompera is an innovative and exciting toy that brings together the fun of remote-controlled cars and the fascination of dinosaurs. This toy combines creativity, imagination, and technology to provide children with hours of entertainment. The Magic Tracks Dino Chompera features a unique, flexible race track that can be manipulated into different shapes and configurations. This allows children to create their own customized tracks for their dinosaur cars to race on. The flexible nature of the track also means that it can be easily stored and transported, making it a convenient toy for families on the go. The highlight of the Magic Tracks Dino Chompera is, of course, the dinosaur car itself.

Women Who Travel Podcast: From Mexico to Denmark, Witches and Their Rituals

The nights in the northern hemisphere are drawing in, which means whispering stories of witches and spirits are top of mind for many of us. Lale chats with Mexico City-based author Brenda Lozano, whose new novel Witches looks at the lives of Mexican women who inherit gifts, and draws inspiration from the true story of a Mazatec Indigenous healer, or curandera, in Oaxaca who worked with psilocybin mushrooms in the 1950s and 60s. Plus, we revisit a recent conversation with author Dorthe Nors to learn more about the burnings of witch effigies along the rugged Danish coast.

For more from Women Who Travel, visit womenwhotravel.com or subscribe to our newsletter.

Lale Arikoglu: Hello. I'm Lale Arikoglu and welcome to Women Who Travel, a podcast for anyone who is curious about the world and excited to explore places both near and far from home.

This week as the nights in the northern hemisphere draw in and we think of firesides and candles and lights and bonfires, it's a time when you can't help but indulge in whispering stories about ghosts and witches.

A few weeks ago, I chatted with author Dorthe Nors about her decision to up sticks and move to the isolated and rugged Danish coast. We chatted about her respect for the ocean, solitude, cold weather surfing, and witches.

Dorthe Nors: It's—it's a crazy tradition. It's a- w- I mean, we have this bonfire, uh, and, uh, on the 23rd of June, uh, because of the, uh, the solstice, the shortest, uh, night of the year. And that's beautiful. We've had that since forever. Since, I mean, maybe for thousands of years we've done that. But then I think in the 1920s somebody came up with this ridiculous, stupid idea that we should put a witch on it because- and then burn the witch because that would be like burning all evil and darkness and stuff like that. And for some stupid reason, that caught on like, like, you know, lighting a Christmas tree, you know? [laughs] But that's it. At least that's positive.

I mean. And when I was a- a- a child, it was either witches or trolls. It could also be a male, uh, witch, a troll. Um, it's the- the idea was to- to burn evil. And- and it's very suspicion and heart breaking that we thought that that must be a woman. And every year, there are riots because of this. And there are big articles in newspaper about, stop burning women on the stake. Come on, and- and- and still you'll find, uh, witches on stakes. Uh, and bonfires all over the Silver Country.

I think the trend will disappear. That's my personal. I think the awareness, uh, of today and- and also younger generations of women speaking out about how ridiculous that is will just. it will fade out. But it's still there, and it's, uh, it's nutty. [laughs] It really is.

LA: I'll get more into that later. But the conversation has stayed with me. And more broadly, the idea of witchcraft in relation to a woman's choice to live outside of traditional or conventional systems. The word witchcraft is still often used as a derogatory term, but it's fascinating to me. It can be a celebration of secret ceremonies, spiritual insights, and intuitional power. Like so many of us, my imagination was captured by these sorts of women by a young age.

It's probably why I ended up being a bit of a gothy teenager, obsessing over '90s and 2000s icons like Winona Ryder, Stevie Nicks, Karen O, and Garbage's Shirley Manson. And stomping around London's Camden Lock, which, while a little past its prime these days, is famous for its legendary grimy music venues, street food, and vintage stories. I'd spend every weekend there in search of heavy eyeliner and studded belts.

Women like Shirley Manson, who once described herself as a Scottish witch, seemed so cool to me, so powerful, because they appeared to be living a life of their own making. It's women like this that populate Brenda Lozano's Witches, a new novel that looks at the lives of Mexican women who inherit gifts.

Brenda Lozano: All the things that we can think around being a- a witch or a [foreign language 00:04:19] have to do with not the rational, but the intuition. Not the medicine, as we know it in hospitals, and, like, from the medical tradition, but with traditional medicine from pre-Hispanic cultures.

[foreign language 00:04:39].

LA: The book was written in Spanish, and it's translated into English by Heather Clearly.

BL: [foreign language 00:05:12].

Heather Cleary: After I healed my own hip, people would bring me their sick. A relative would ask me to heal their sick ones, and I would heal them with herbs, and with seven candles of pure beeswax that my daughter made. I healed with prayers and herbs and also with my hands. With my hands and my prayers, I saw where the people's ills were, and I healed people according to their ills with herbs I had blessed from the hillside.

Paloma spread the word. She brought me an elder with fog over his eyes. At first, people brought me elders. Paloma would drink liquor and tell me, "Feliciana, love, God gave herbs and mushrooms to the poor to cure their ills, and those are so much more powerful than what they have in those city hospitals that only want to take people's coins." Paloma taught me how to talk with the herbs on the hillside. She went with me and with her smile and her humor, she taught me how the herbs were like men, and how the different kinds of mushrooms were like nights with men. It was Paloma who taught me to bless the herbs and the mushrooms.

LA: The story moves between Brenda's hometown of Mexico City and Oaxaca, weaving between the past and the present. It's inspired, in part, by the true story of a Mazatec Indigenous healer, or [foreign language 00:06:32], in Oaxaca, who worked with psilocybin mushrooms in the 1950s and '60s and because so famous that people would travel from far and wide to see her.

BL: There was a Mexican bruja back in the '50s that actually. Well, you're in New York. I'm Mexico. And there was a relationship between a bruja in Mexico and a super, like, high profile banker. Actually, one of the founders of the Chase JP Morgan Bank. So he was into mushrooms, and all, like, the world around mushrooms, and there was this- in this very small town in Oaxaca, there was this bruja called Maria Sabina. And he was fascinated about around what she could do with mushrooms.

So he wrote a piece for Time magazine back in the '50s, and it's an amazing piece. Of course, well, of course, it's an amazing character. The- the end of the '50s and beginning of the '60s and all the psychedelia and rock music. People started, like, being very interested about this Maria Sabina and what she was doing. And of course, so [inaudible 00:07:42]-

LA: Like Mick Jagger and-

BL: Yeah.

LA: . like, Keith Richards go to her?

BL: Absolutely. And it- it is said-

LA: [laughs].

BL . that the Beatles came here to- to see Maria Sabina. And Disney did Fantasia after, like, a mushroom trip. And actually, Aldous Huxley came to Mexico to see Maria Sabina. He wrote The Doors of Perception after that. So- so yeah, I think it is a very interesting, like, backstory, you know? Like, imagine a bruja in Oaxaca, in the '50s, a very small woman, with this super high profile banker from, you know, founding one of the biggest banks in the United States. So I found the contrast super interesting. And that's where the story, like, started making the first sparks.

LA: There is a quote that I have jotted down from you, where you say, "All women are born with a bit of bruja in-"

BL: Mm-hmm. [laughs]

LA: . or, "bruja in them for protection." Which translates to witch or some-

BL: Mm-hmm.

LA: . variation of the word witch.

BL: Mm-hmm.

LA: What do you mean by that?

BL: My mother. [laughs] Hello to my mother. I'm sure she will be. [laughs] Super proud and super happy to- to- to know that I'm here with you, Lale. My mother always says that all the things that we can think around being a- a witch or- or a bruja have to do with not the rationale, but the intuition. So it is a lot about the margins. But intuition is more length, let's say, to the female. And I really, really, really, really [laughs] like that also, like, and giving importance, for example, to emotions.

I think it's also. Not like saying. "I feel this," instead of, "I think this." I think it's amazing. Like, being able to- to write also, like, in a very, of course, male literary tradition, even though, I mean, the word tradition in terms of literature sounds horrible. But I mean, if historically, like, storytelling has been White, male, European, and whatever, thinking stories from narrators that say. that talk about intuition and that talk about feelings and talk about other things. I think that's very important.

LA: After the break, the rituals of dressing up in costume. And remember, to stay up to date on all things Women Who Travel, make sure you're subscribed to the Women Who Travel newsletter via the link in our show notes. And that you're following Women Who Travel on Instagram.

That's MariaChingona, a Mexican American band based in Los Angeles, fronted by singer and musician Rachel R. The song is called Sacude.

MariaChingona: [singing]

BL: [laughs]

LA: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about costumes and dressing up, because that is a huge cultural thing in America, and obviously, Halloween does exist in the UK, where I grew up, but it's not quite on the same scale as here.

BL: We have here the Day of Dead, or [foreign language 00:12:07], which is beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. I've been to very small towns in, for example, in Michoacán and Oaxaca, and it's really, like, something you have to see at least once in your lifetime. It's really, really amazing. And it- it has nothing to do with Halloween, I have to say. And it doesn't really have to do with dressing up. But it's more about visiting cemeteries and your beloved dead people and spending a nice night there, like, remembering them. And yeah, I- I guess I love thinking about Halloween and the Day of the Dead as- as two festivities that can communicate also.

LA: Yeah, it's about connecting with our past or our ghosts.

BL: Yeah.

LA: Um-

BL: Yeah. [laughs]

LA: In some way.

BL: Yeah, like, the dead are always, like, people who we loved and died.

LA: But moving away from dressing up and parties, accusations of witchcraft and violence are both a historical and a contemporary issue in many countries. Brenda's novel opens with the murder of an Indigenous [foreign language 00:13:11].

BL: [foreign language 00:13:13], it's a beautiful word that comes, like, centuries before queerness or queer. So she's a trans woman. And she gets killed because she's a trans woman in this very small town. So I also wanted to focus on that. And to write a story from that point of view also.

We live in patriarchal societies, right? So especially the one in Mexico is very violent again woman. So I was thinking, like, all the different, like, levels and layers that violence have against woman. I also work at a newspaper called El Pais, and I have written several pieces about gender.

But I was also. I really wanted to explore it from fiction. So I really wanted to bring these questions, like, in many different layers. And think about them from a fiction perspective. So of course, the worst of all, 11 women are daily killed in Mexico just because they're women.

LA: And now, over to a very different landscape. Denmark, Jutland, the North Sea. A wild coastline. During my chat with Dorthe Nors in a previous episode, I asked her to read from her essay about the burning of witch effigies up and down the coast.

DN: It's time of year where we burn a female doll. It's a tradition, an annual thing in Denmark, an act that has clicked into place. We dames are more or less in agreement. All of this is a game we play. Burning the evil has its roots in ancient rituals and 17 century witches at the stake. We can agree on that too.

But it's only in the past century that the ritual has come into fashion and whether it's a cozy costume or a problem is something to be discussed over strawberries picked for the celebration. She will be burned tonight, as legend tells. She will fly to Brocken and Hekla, this patch like sparks above a bonfire. She and her sister witches will celebrate their sabbath on the mountains there.

It's a midsummer's eve party. A celebration of cleansing and the solstice. The light is here, but the darkness is as well. And now the great wheel turns. We walk to the holy springs and wash our wounds, herbs in the woods, and wet meadows have drunk from the energies of the universe and drawn rich growth from all existence.

We pick the herbs at night, on our guard against the glowworm's bite. We read omens. We tuck flowers under our pillows. Our brown calves are wet with cuckoo spit while the bonfires burn down. It is the longest day, the magic's night. Everything has opened and yielded a rattling door unto the darkness. We burn a female doll in that opening, and I've never felt much like taking part.

When I was a child, a man caught fire at a midsummer's celebration my family was attending. It was the host. He'd built the witch himself the day before, out of a couple of brooms tied crosswise. He had doused the bonfire liberally with petrol that afternoon, but before the burning, he thought it could do with one more drop. I saw the thing myself, him running around in his nylon shirt with a jerry can, sloshing petrol onto the fire. We saw too the lighter, the spark, the catching, and how someone flung themselves on top of him to extinguish the flames. They rolled him around on the ground and crouched beside him on their haunches as the bonfire burned.

It was such a silent mild night. We could follow the sound of the ambulance all the way from the hospital in the city to far out in the countryside where we stood and where the party was over. The sun is sinking stoically now towards the Norway boat. The ferry on its way into the harbor, and his [inaudible 00:17:54] is balanced heavily on the horizon. They'll be on the deck watching the coast, the visitors, the home comers. It's the bonfires they can see. The flames and the lighthouse.

There are columns of smoke above the whole country, as though the Danes were busy sending signals communicating from hilltops, sport fields, and allotments. And if anyone aboard a ship in the Strait of Skagerrak, between Denmark and Norway, leans over the gunwale and listens hard, they'll hear folks singing. Yes, in this country, we sing in the dusk about peace, [foreign language 00:18:31].

I'm on high ground, listening to the voices rising from the beach. They've lit the bonfire and the sun has gone nuts too. I hum my own scraps of melody, as the bonfire burns out below. Now, the Norway boat has sighted the beacon and we light bonfires as we wait for the dark, [foreign language 00:18:55], sings the country.

Tonight we burn those whose instincts don't conform. But we're civilized now, and set fire only to symbols. Cover your child's eyes, for now the flames have called, and the passengers out on the ferry rest their arms on the railing, looking forward to the holiday or to seeing people back home. They watch the sparks fly, the lighthouse flash. This is the shortest night and amid the heavy, fertile crops, witches and beach marms creep around in the vegetation. They're gathering herbs for the winter. They're casting runes and searching for signs and counsel in the setting sun.

I draw the sun's rays down with me. To travel is to remember. Then the elder flowers light up, then the fox screams, then the wheel turns.

LA: I simply had to find out what happened to that man who got burned.

DN: The man who caught fire at my childhood bonfire, uh, came to the hospital. He had a third degree burn on his arm, I remember. And he recovered well, but, um, quite sure he didn't, uh, put that much, uh, petrol on- on the bonfire next year.

In Mexico, modern witches celebrate ancient rites of spring

The highlight of the Magic Tracks Dino Chompera is, of course, the dinosaur car itself. The car is designed to resemble a fierce and colorful dinosaur, complete with sharp teeth and a menacing expression. Children can control the dinosaur car using a remote control, allowing them to maneuver it through the track and perform exciting stunts.

Sorcerers, witches, healers and spiritual guides appeared the first Friday of March as they have for almost 50 years in this small town in southern Mexico.

A woman burns a piece of clothing in a flaming pentagram during a black mass on March 2, 2019, in Catemaco, Mexico. The action symbolized the closing of a cycle by destroying the garment. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

CATEMACO, Mexico (RNS) — On the first Friday of March, sorcerers, witches, sahumadores, healers, snake-handlers, herbalists and spiritual guides appeared as they have for almost 50 years in the streets of this small town in the southern Mexican state of Veracruz, heading for “La Punta,” the village’s ceremonial center on a spit of land that juts into the Catemaco Lagoon.

Although the history of witchcraft in Mexico goes back to pre-Hispanic times, the last half-century has seen a boom in the popularity of ancient rites as a practice and a spectacle. According to Catemacoan history, witches performed ceremonies and rituals on the first Friday of the third month of the year to renew their supernatural powers.

Black masses and other rites are held at Catemaco’s La Punta, or tip, on the Catemaco lagoon in Veracruz, Mexico. La Punta was chosen because it was the first human settlement in the town. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

Ricardo Macias says he began to have visions of the saints when he was only 7 years old, a gift he believes he inherited from his maternal grandmother. “I receive messages from them,” said Macias, now 52, who adds that people come from across Mexico and the world to consult with him. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres Ricardo Macias gives advice on health, financial and love problems. “All magic has the same purpose,” said the visionary, who says the key to helping people is keeping their energy in balance. “Foreigners are looking for help with their money problems, while Mexicans ask for help in love.” Unfortunately, he said, “for love … there is no spell and whoever says there is, is totally false.” RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

Sorcerers, witches, shamans and mystics parade through the streets of Catemaco ahead of “First Friday of March” ceremonies, on March 1, 2019. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

“Why do people say that the sorcerer is bad?” says Ricardo Macias during a black mass ceremony on March 1, 2019, in Catemaco, Mexico. “Because people are the ones who come and ask for bad things.” RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres Ricardo Macias, right, reads tarot cards for a man from Jalisco, which is on the western side of Mexico. The man came to Catemaco to receive an energy cleanse on March, 1, 2019, the first Friday in March. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

At La Punta, a black mass is led by a senior sorcerer, who gives thanks for the gift of “Mother Earth, water, fire and air,” according to a local herbalist who goes by the name of the goddess Pachamama. The mass aims to “get rid of all the dark negative energies and cleanse our souls,” she said, adding that it is said that in the hills surrounding Catemaco there are sorcerers who perform “a black mass to reaffirm their pact with the devil.”

Witches perform a black mass on March 2, 2019, in Catemaco, Mexico. They make a pentagram of fire symbolizing the closing of a portal. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

Sorcerers and witches use fragrances, candles, amulets and animals in their ceremonies. Here, a doll with its mouth sewn shut serves to prevent people from speaking evil or revealing secrets entrusted to them. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres Food offerings for Mother Earth at a black mass at La Punta in Catemaco, Mexico, on March 1, 2019, the first Friday in March. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres A giant stone sculpture is an artifact of the Olmec culture, which inhabited southern Mexico about 1500 B.C. The head guards the entrance to the La Punta site where sorcery ceremonies take place on the shores of the Laguna de Catemaco. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

The Olmec, an ethnic group that inhabited Veracruz 1,500 years before Christ, were astronomers, and the Catemaco rites are held in March to mark the alignment of the planets and to honor the beginning of the spring and the renewal of the harvest.

Pachamama, left, fans the fire during a ceremony on March 1, 2019. “I like to take care of nature. Today we are here to thank Mother Earth and her four elements.” RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres Pachamama, right, participates in an annual ceremony with fellow herbalists, sorcerers, witches and others on March 1, 2019, in Catemaco, Mexico. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

An herbalist known as Pachamama has participated in Catemaco’s ceremonies for the last 10 years. Pachamama believes she inherited the herbalist tradition from her grandfather. RNS photo by Irving Cabrera Torres

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Inside the black mass of Mexican sorcerer Enrique Marthen

One of the captivating features of the Magic Tracks Dino Chompera is the glowing eyes on the dinosaur car. These eyes light up as the car races around the track, enhancing the overall visual appeal of the toy. The glowing eyes add an element of magic and excitement to the play experience and capture the attention and imagination of children. Furthermore, the Magic Tracks Dino Chompera also includes sound effects that simulate the roars of a dinosaur. These sound effects create a realistic and immersive play environment, making children feel like they are in the midst of a prehistoric adventure. The combination of the glowing eyes and the sound effects adds an extra layer of excitement to the toy and enhances the overall play experience. In conclusion, the Magic Tracks Dino Chompera is a thrilling toy that combines the excitement of remote-controlled cars with the allure of dinosaurs. This toy provides children with the opportunity to unleash their creativity, imagination, and engineering skills as they design and race their customized tracks. With its glowing eyes and realistic sound effects, the Magic Tracks Dino Chompera creates an immersive and magical play experience that will captivate children of all ages..

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