Interesting info., I hope, concerning if you can drive from the north of the Americas to the south!
Answer, no you can't!
I had assumed the problem would be the Panama Canal, but you can take a ferry there, so that's technically O.K.
The real problem is this, I just found out about it a couple of hours ago!
Silent Darien: The gap in the world's longest road
By Carolyn McCarthy
Travel writer
Published14 August 2014
Stretching from Alaska to the pencil tip of Argentina, the 48,000km-long Pan-American Highway holds the record for the world's longest motorable road. But there is a gap - an expanse of wild tropical forest - that has defeated travellers for centuries.
Explorers have always been drawn to the Darien Gap, but the results have mostly been disastrous. The Spanish made their first settlement in the mainland Americas right here in 1510, only to have it torched by indigenous tribes 14 years later - and in many ways the area remains as wild today as it was during the days of the conquest.
"If history had followed its usual course, the Darien should be today one of the most populated regions in the Americas, but it isn't," says Rick Morales, a Panamian and owner of Jungle Treks, one of a few adventure tour companies operating in the region.
"That's remarkable if you consider that we live in the 21st Century, in a country that embraces technology and is notorious for connecting oceans, cultures, and world commerce."
The gap stretches from the north to the south coast of Panama - from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It's between 100km and 160km (60-100 miles) long, and there is no way round, except by sea.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28756378
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The people who CAN survive in that area are the Kuna people. Here are so many photos of these absolutely fascinating humans:
https://tinyurl.com/y388xo2b
Have no idea if there's any way one can acquire one to frame. It's such amazing folk art.
This group of people also has the highest ratio of albinism among them, far higher than anywhere else. They revere the abino Kuna people in their community.
"Children of the Moon" Kuna children.
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This guy spent 5 days exploring one of the world's most dangerous places — here's what it was like
Talia Lakritz Mar 23, 2017, 11:37 AM
There comes a time in every overlander's journey on the Pan-American Highway from Alaska to Argentina when they simply can't go on — not because they've become weary and can't fathom the road ahead, but because there simply is no road ahead.
The system of roads that connects North, Central, and South America continues uninterrupted for 30,000 miles — with one exception.
A dense patch of insurmountable rainforest called the Darien Gap breaks up the world's longest road. Upon reaching its entrance in Panama, travelers are forced to bypass it by loading their vehicles onto a ferry into Colombia.
Matthew Karsten has been traveling the world for six years as a blogger and photographer on Expert Vagabond, and he wasn't deterred by reports of drug gangs, kidnappings, poisonous animals, frequent flooding, and forests so thick that walking even a few feet requires a machete. He wanted to see it for himself.
Here's what his five days exploring the Darien Gap looked like.
More:
https://www.insider.com/darien-gap-2017-3#the-darien-gap-is-its-only-break-100-miles-of-remote-swampland-with-no-roads-and-no-rules-2
(Run away, run away!)
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The Hard Way Down: Army Vets Cross Dangerous Darien Gap on KLRs
Army paratroopers undertake transcontinental journey thru perilous jungle.
Here’s a bit of advice you rarely hear from someone who just completed a first-of-its kind adventure: Don’t. As in, don’t try this yourself.
That’s the advice of Wayne Mitchell, part of a 4-rider team of army paratroopers on a motorcycle expedition from the Arctic Circle to the tip of Argentina. Many others have made the trek, but virtually everyone that has undertaken the journey has one thing in common: they skipped the roadless expanse of dense jungle linking Panama and Colombia. It’s that 80-mile section of dangerous jungle known as the Darien Gap that prompts Mitchell’s warning.
“Unless you have a strong desire to take a bike through the jungle, don’t do it,” he said. “It’s costly in money, time and personal pain. There were not many fun moments in the jungle. If you are walking with a lightweight backpack, the jungle can be a magical place. If you are dragging a 500-pound bike through, it’s not much fun.”
The team of US Army Vets rode their motorcycles from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, crossing thru the infamous Darien Gap. The entire expedition was filmed and will be turned into a feature length documentary.
He got the same advice in the two years spent planning this 19,000-mile odyssey dubbed ‘Where the Road Ends.’ It’s not impossible to cross the Darien Gap with a vehicle; a few others have done it in four-wheel-drive trucks and on motorcycles. But the team of army vets pressed on despite the area’s reputation for drug smugglers, political violence, dangerous fauna and punishing terrain. Arguably setting a record, they rode the whole tip-to-tip transcontinental expedition continuously, including the Darien Gap, in just five months. Four started the expedition, three of them made it to where the road actually ends, in Ushuaia, Argentina.
Published on 09.07.2018
More:
https://www.advpulse.com/adv-rides/motorcycle-journey-thru-the-darien-gap/
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