Surviving the Darien Gap

Starting in the north of Canada and running for around 19,000 miles (30,000 km) is the Pan-American Highway. This giant network of roads is considered by the Guinness Book of Records to be the longest motorable road on earth, but it does have a gap of just over 60 miles between the countries of Panama and Colombia.

There is no infrastructure at all between the two countries. Not a single road or train track exists, and there is no way of getting any kind of land vehicle through the area. When people wish to make the trip between the two countries, they must book a place on one of the ferries or other boats capable of making the 60+ mile journey.

Why are there no roads between Colombia and Panama?

On the border between the countries of Colombia and Panama lies the Darien Gap, which spans between 60 and 70 miles depending on where you cross. On the Colombian side of the border is a huge marshland at least 50 miles wide, and on the Panama side is a mountain range covered in thick rainforest.

The terrain in the Gap ranges from 60 meters on the lowest valley floors to the highest peak of Cerro Tacarcuna, standing at 1,845 meters. There is a large river system and thousands of smaller streams and rivers passing through the area, making it impossible to build a road. The longest tunnel on earth you can drive through is called the Laerdal tunnel in western Norway which is just over 15 miles long (24.5 km).

To make a road through the Darien Gap, you would not only have to build a tunnel over twice as long as the world’s current longest but it would be broken up by hundreds of bridges as it passed through the steep and rocky valleys. The cost alone would be in the 10s of billions and the trade route through the country isn’t worth the cost of building one. It seems there will never be a road through the Darien Gap, at least not for several decades.

Why is the Darien Gap famous?

It is classed as the single most difficult part of the journey for anyone traveling on foot from South America to the central northern areas. Not only is the gap filled with criminal groups, but the terrain alone is more than enough to kill someone. It’s similar to thick Amazon jungle but with very steep mountainous terrain and countless places to slip and fall. There is no phone reception and even if there was, not a single emergency service will come out to help you, mostly because they couldn’t get to you in time anyway.

(A family of Migrants resting after a difficult section of the route)

The journey on foot normally takes between 5 days and a full week, leaving plenty of time to have an accident. An organization called the Missing Migrant Project reported that in 2023 there were 141 known deaths that happened in the Gap, but this number is much lower than the actual figure. Many of the people trying to pass through don’t have documents, and most of the time no one knows they even tried to make it through in the first place. This has led to thousands of deaths over the years within the Gap, with most of the known ones being caused by drowning in the many rivers running through the valley floors.

Surviving the Darien Gap journey

Even though the passage is very dangerous, the majority of people who attempt it seem to survive. Many of these pay guides to help them through but most try and make the journey on their own. Since the Gap is crossed every year by so many people, there are now several paths through the trees, but these quickly overgrow and none of them are paved. In 2019, an estimated 24,000 people tried to make the journey, which increased to 250,000 in 2022.

Last year the number of people who tried to pass through the Gap was estimated to be 520,000 people, and the number is expected to be much higher in 2024. The various routes through the jungle are all littered with dead bodies that no one can remove because the journey on its own is deadly enough, making it impossible to carry bodies on foot. There is no way to extract the dead from the Gap and because of the tropical conditions, they quickly rot into nothing but bones.

(A tiny fraction of the thousands of people who make the journey each year)

The tropical conditions also make it very dangerous to make the journey without the ability to cure an infection, one of the biggest killers in rainforests. An injury like a sprained or broken ankle or anything that means you end up needing to be carried often turns into a death sentence. Because of the climate, animals and insects, criminal groups, and the amount of supplies someone can carry, there is only a certain amount of time that people can stay within the Gap, which often forces people to leave behind those who can’t make it on their own.

Darien Gap criminal groups

It is well known that the authorities of both countries do nothing to deal with crime in the Gap, and this has led to various criminal groups taking up permanent residence in the area. The two main groups are made up of the Farc, and the Gulf Clan, but due to the Gaps’ size, there are many smaller criminal groups hiding in the region. The Farc are known to people outside the country as the Revolutionary armed forces of Colombia and have controlled large areas in the south of the country for years, but take the opportunity to spread into areas they won’t be bothered by the authorities.

(A photo of a group of FARC troops taken in 1998, the same group now covers large areas of the Darien Gap)

The Gulf Clan is a collection of smaller smuggling and cartel-related groups that either take product across the Gap on foot or take it from the south coast to the north coast to be loaded onto boats bound for Mexico. Both of these groups often kidnap, extort, and assault the people crossing the Gap, knowing full well there is nothing the travelers can do to stop them.

Tribes of the Darien Gap

The last major survey of the Darien Gap was conducted in 1995 and recorded around 8,000 tribal people living among 5 tribes. The Embera-Wounaan and the Guna people make up most of the tribal populations in the Gap, with their capital called La Palma, and had 4,200 residents living there in 1995. They normally leave the people passing through the Gap alone, unless they come too close to their territories.

The Indigenous people living in the area just want to be left alone, but with the increase of people passing through the area, combined with the activities of the criminal groups who have no concern over the well-being of the land, they are in constant fear of their homes and hunting grounds being destroyed.

Will the Darien Gap stay open?

Realistically it would take decades before someone would even attempt to make a proper road through the Gap. Doing so would mean constantly switching between digging tunnels through solid rock, and building bridges in between them to pass over the steep valley floors. The cost, dangers, and amount of time it would take to do so are not worth the return from any benefits gained from allowing ground vehicles to pass through.

As for the authorities trying to stop people, this is also impossible. The border between the two countries is 339 kilometers long (211 mi) and mostly covered in thick jungle and steep terrain. Whenever the authorities find a path and close it, people just move a few hundred meters along. There is also the problem of holding so many people, and with the number now reaching over half a million each year, a detention center of this size wouldn’t be possible. It has also not been a priority for the country of Panama to dedicate too many resources to trying to stop people coming through, as the vast majority of them continue to travel north with the intention of making it to the US or Canada.