A person is curious, passionate and always ready to get where it is very difficult, and sometimes even impossible. However, there are places on Earth where you definitely do not want to go. And not because someone sacredly observes the inviolability of these places, although this also happens. The fact is that there are corners on the planet where an ordinary tourist who is not prepared for local surprises risks his health, and maybe even his life.
Keimada Grande, Brazil
Just 35 km from the Brazilian coast in the São Paulo area is the islet of Keimada Grande, or Serpentine. Its area is only 43 hectares, it is raised 200 meters above the water surface and is simply teeming with poisonous snakes.
It is inhabited by about 4 thousand two-meter vipers, the bite of which is fatal in 7% of cases. In the remaining 93% of cases, a person bitten by an island botrops viper receives acute renal failure and problems with the gastrointestinal tract.
The island of Keymada Grande was not always uninhabited - people periodically try to appropriate it for themselves:
- there is an old lighthouse on the island, where the caretakers lived at the beginning of the 20th century - however, they died one after another from snake bites;
- these days, the Brazilian military is watching the lighthouse and the island in general - they come here periodically to check if everything is in order;
- tourists are not allowed to the Snake Island, access is open only to scientists who consider Keimada-Granti a huge natural serpentarium.
Travelers can look at the Snake Island only from the side of the boat. Snakes twine around trees and bask in the sun on the beach.
North Sentinel Island, India
North Sentinel Island, a member of the Andaman Islands group, bypasses all tourist catamarans. The fact is that this piece of land is fiercely defended with bows in their hands by the natives, who do not want to communicate with anyone from the rest of the world. Without further ado, a hail of arrows falls on the aliens.
In 2018, aborigines on the North Sentinel Island killed a priest from the States, who decided to bring the Word of God to them and paid for it. The missionary was brought to the island by 2 fishermen on a boat. The fishermen after the incident, already at home, were taken into custody for violating the law, according to which no one has the right to set foot on North Sentinel.
The islet with an area of about 60 square kilometers, completely overgrown with jungle and having only a small strip of sand on the shore, is surrounded by a ring of coral reefs. The distance from the island to the reefs is about 1 km.
Near the coral reef near North Sentinel was another islet of Constance. In 2004, the Indian Ocean was hit by a large earthquake, which connected the island of Constance with the North Sentinel Island, and shallow lagoons formed inside the ring of reefs.
An unknown tribe has been living on North Sentinel Island for many thousands of years. Nobody knows for sure the number of the tribe. Indian authorities believe that the island is home to 50 to 400 people. After the devastating 2004 tsunami, the population of North Sentinel should have been reduced.
Poveglia, Italy
Poveglia Island is separated from the Venetian island of Lido by only 600 m. Nevertheless, no Venetian in his right mind will stick to Poveglia, and he will also discourage tourists from traveling to the cursed land.
Until 1379 people lived on Povelje. Then hostile Genoese ships approached Venice, and the inhabitants of Poveglia, remote from the mainland, were transported to Giudecca. They never returned to their homes, the island was empty. But the use of the derelict island was still found. In the 18th century, it was turned into an infirmary.
Everyone who contracted the plague was brought here and left to die here. And then, in the first half of the 20th century, a psychiatric hospital was opened on Poveglia Island, which worked until 1968. Among the inhabitants of Venice there are rumors that terrible experiments were carried out on the sick, more like torture than treatment of the mentally ill.
Most of those who die on Poveglia Island come to the world of the living in the form of ghosts. It is believed that among the ghosts there are those who have suffered from the torture of doctors. Local legend says that even while the mental hospital was working, one of the doctors jumped out of the window, seeing the ghosts of his tortured victims.
Since then, the island has been out of tourist routes, they try not to come here.
A dilapidated hospital building with rusty beds is still on the island. Now the authorities of Venice are rushing with the idea of turning this building into a good hotel. They themselves will not invest in Poveglia Island, but are simply looking for an investor who will agree to lease this piece of land for 99 years. True, there are still no people who want to live and work next to ghosts.
In the meantime, ghost hunters and lovers of all mysticism can get to Povela if they submit a special request to the city hall to visit the island.
