There is a long, continuous road that links North and South America, and it's called

the Pan American Highway, and it runs from Alaska all the way down to the southern

most tip of Argentina, over 18,000 miles. And on that road, there is a single, infamous

break, one place where the road does not connect. It's called the Darian Gap. The Darian Gap

has been in and out of the news for over a hundred years, and for a long time it was seen

at least in the western news as this kind of untaimable wilderness. One place that would

not bend to the whims of modern life, a little bit of uncrossable jungle. That was in fact

crossed over and over again. First, by thousands of years of indigenous inhabitants, then by colonists,

and starting in the 1920s, by western adventurers on motorcycles and in jeeps. This kind of last

great Victorian quest. These days, the Darian Gap is the location of a different kind of quest,

because for the last decade or so, many tens of thousands of migrants have made their way across

what was once considered a nearly impossible journey, crossing the Darian Gap on their path North.

The Darian Gap was always seen as a test of survival skills, but these days for migrants from

Haiti to Venezuela, the Gap is very truly a matter of life and death.

I'm Dylan Thoris, and this is Atlas Obscura, and today we're heading into the Gap.

The story goes that the idea of connecting the Americas by land was hatched in the 1860s by an

American diplomat who was traveling from Buenos Aires to New York. He was making the trip by boat

and was absolutely wretchedly seasick. Nearly a hundred years later, that idea became a reality

in the form of the Pan American Highway. That highway is the longest drivable road in the world,

and for those 18,640 miles, the road crosses mountain ranges, rivers, deserts,

through all of it across two continents, the road remains unbroken, except for this one 60-mile

stretch that connects Panama and Colombia, the Darian Gap.

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