Photo: Snakes on a Trail

You’ve heard of snakes on a plane, but snakes on a trail? It seems like any hiking trail could potentially have a snake, so why the official sign? My mind started to wander when I saw this I concluded that a) the Argentine National Parks Department were a group of jokers (doesn’t the snake appear to be smiling?)or b) likely there were a lot of snakes on this trail. We were in Iguazu National Park, a subtropical jungle, so more than likely they weren’t joking and it was option B. There are in fact 41 types of snakes in the park, many of which are poisonous.

Fortunately our paths only crossed with large lizards, birds and coati’s, a relative of North America’s raccoon. They are apparently aggressive, but sort of cute and unlikely to create the same sort of panic as a large snake on the trail. I like snakes only from a distance, a far distance. We’ve encountered them before hiking, but mostly in areas where there aren’t any poisonous snakes. I don’t think my inlaws, who explored the park with us, would have been pleased with the canyon-bouncing shriek I would have let out at seeing one on the path.

This photo was taken on the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls.  We have a collection of funny signs from our trip on our flickr page.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

We put together a mini-guide to Argentina.  Right now it’s a great place to go if you’re looking for bargain holidays, lots of incredible natural sites like Iguazu and the Valdez Peninsula and great hiking in the South.  If you’re planning a holiday to the area, we  hope our mini-guide is helpful!