Crossing the Darien gap on foot

phuketrichard · Post by **phuketrichard** » Mon Apr 17, 2023 8:37 pm

On one of the world’s most dangerous migrant routes, a cartel makes millions off the American dream

Editor’s Note: “The Trek: A Migrant Trail to America” premiered on April 16 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CNN’s new Sunday primetime series, The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper.

Darién Gap, Colombia and Panama (CNN) — There is always a crowd, but it can feel very lonely.

To get closer to freedom, they have risked it all.

Masked robbers and rapists. Exhaustion, snakebites, broken ankles. Murder and hunger.

Having to choose who to help and who to leave behind.

The trek across the Darién Gap, a stretch of remote, roadless, mountainous rainforest connecting South and Central America, is one of the most popular and perilous walks on earth.

Almost 250,000 people made the crossing in 2022, fueled by economic and humanitarian disasters – nearly double the figures from the year before, and 20 times the annual average from 2010 to 2020. Early data for 2023 shows six times as many made the trek from January to March, 87,390 compared to 13,791 last year, a record, according to Panamanian authorities.

full story
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/15/amer ... index.html

John Bingham · Post by **John Bingham** » Tue Apr 18, 2023 12:03 am

There's a good reason why the Pan-American Highway doesn't pass through the Darien Gap. They should put more land mines in this area to stop all these dodgy people getting to California.

Bongmab69 · Post by **Bongmab69** » Tue Apr 18, 2023 1:06 am

I went there in a rental toyota in 2013, up to Yaviza, the last town on Panamanien side, there is everywhere military checkposts there, but only 1 paved road, and it stops in Yaviza, after you are on your own in the jungle. The official reason is the Embera-tribe who live overthere for centuries block the road because for them its "sagrado tierra".
Very nice peolple and when i get the chance i will visit them again, as (for me) 2013 was pre-smartphone time i hardly have fotos from it, a shame !!
Came back with one of the girls who worked in my hotel (her family lived there in Cucunati) and a whole bunch of children who never had seen the big city, all between 3 and 12 years old, i think about 10 of them, in a Hilux, i getted headache already when i saw them, but they where all very good girls and boys, never had such a good experience with children. If you do that in Europe probably after an hour you want to shoot them all !!

Dario · Post by **Dario** » Tue Apr 18, 2023 6:53 am

Damn, i thought you were live reporting.
I am close to the gap right now, desperado's trail.
Been hanging around south america for almost a year now. Never got robbed. But the northern countryside of Colombia... You needn't be drunk or some such to get ambushed.

Bluenose · Post by **Bluenose** » Tue Apr 18, 2023 7:53 am

The place that in a roundabout way led to the current UK