Brazilian parents have the best you-better-go-to-bed stories to tell. No threat sends a kid scurrying for the sack like a trip to Snake Island.
It sounds fake, but Snake Island is a very real place. Officially named Ilha da Queimada Grande, Snake Island, as its known, is about 55 miles from where I'm sitting right now. It's a tiny stack of land rising out of the Atlantic off the Brazilian coast.
The place is overridden with poisonous vipers. No humans live on Snake Island. How many snakes make a place "overridden"? In Queimada's case, it's approximately 1-5 vipers per square yard.
The ruling snake is the Golden Lancehead Viper. Ilha da Queimada is the only place on Earth where they live. The island is lush with jungle and is a stopping point for migratory birds. For many, a final stopping point. In addition to being poisonous, Lanceheads have the distinction of pumping in venom five times as deadly as typical vipers.
The Brazilian government does not allow visits to Queimada. Only special access is granted to scientists and jackasses with Animal Planet shows.
That doesn't mean humans haven't tried. A few Google searches consistently spit back two legends about the island. The first is of a fisherman who ignored posted warning signs and stopped on the island for a little banana picking.
He was reportedly found a few days later back in his boat, in a pool of his own blood.
The other, much more terrifying, tale is of a family that was living on the island. The story goes that the father was hired to look after the island's lone lighthouse. Apparently this was either before the Shining or the family didn't have a copy. The island's snakes infiltrated the lighthouse and drove the family running out into the jungle. And that was that.
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