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I'm John Bachelor, Michael Jan. Michael Jan at Patreon.com is in Panama City. For weeks now he's been reporting on his discovery that the migrants reaching the Mexican-American border do come from the Northern Triangle,

Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but they also come from the rest of the world, arriving in South America, Ecuador or Brazil, taking a bus to Colombia, and then they must cross the Darian gap, Darian province, where Michael has spent many days.

Has a jungle, a triple canopy jungle, the Panama highway does not go through it. It stops in Colombia and it starts again. In Panama, near where Michael has been staying.

Those 60 miles of jungle must be walked, walked by the migrants, who have no skills to my knowledge of triple canopy jungle. The dui is no shame, but they plunge into an environment, where there are swollen rivers,

flash floods, a lot of rain, animals and jungle animals, and human animals, human marauders who attack them and rob them. Michael has been reporting on the people who emerge from the Darian gap jungle and are cared for by the Panama authorities, chiefly the center front, the Panama Border Patrol.

Michael, a very good evening to you in Panama City. Panama City is a capital and I want to establish that the migrants you've met and talked to are in the Darian province are not in Panama City. Why not Michael, where do the migrants go after they leave Darian the Darian province?

After they get picked up in Darian province, near mostly near a village called Baja Chiquito, they go to a couple of reception centers as they're called down in Darian province, once called Las Blancas, the others called San Vicente, and from there they're bust up to the border of Costa Rica, where they're out processed from Panama, and then they go into Costa Rica, and then they continue to move north to Nicaragua, and finally eventually up to the United States.

They don't actually stop in Panama City, but they just keep right on going. Of course, that's after they survive the famous Darian gap. As you know, every bug in the world is out there. This is a very dangerous jungle, even as jungles go. In fact, that's why the British military moved their jungle training school from Belize over to Borneo, was because this is what they call a dirty school.

You get so many diseases from this jungle, a huge percentage of their soldiers that were going through the Belize war fair school.

They were no longer even allowed to stay on the British army. They were getting so sick. So they moved over to Borneo. That's where I went through the British army jungle or tracking school, combat tracking school, because it's a clear jungle.

The point is this jungle, when people talk about dangerous jungles, it's this jungle in Panama. They have in mind because of everything. I mean, the mud, the mud is severe here when the French were building the Panama canal when they would at times when they were using shovels, which would be daily.

They would stick the shovels into the mud and they could not even get the mud off of the shovels. They had to use another tool. So, you know, just one, one scoop with the shovel and then you had to shovel it off the shovel and one, one American survey team in 1870.

And that's the same today. They went out there about 100 men and they started on the Caribbean coast. They had 600 extra pairs of shoes for about 100 men. They used all the shoes. They ran out of shoes. In fact, they were leaving men behind because they didn't have any shoes.

And so, when I see so many migrants come out of the Darian gap into Baja Chiquito, the village, the Imbra Indian village, you know, I spent more than a month now down in the Darian province and the Darian gap, those migrants, a huge percentage are coming out with no shoes. Those shoes just get sucked right off your feet.

I mean, this place is famous for mules and horses getting stuck in the mud irretrievably. You know, it's just that it's very difficult out there for what suddenly you have no shoes. You might still have a week to walk. You got to deal scorpions. You got to deal with synopedes and snakes. Everything's out there.

Michael, the migrants you met at Baja Chiquito and are in the camps. Baja Chiquito is the Ambarra, the indigenous people's village where they first emerged from the jungle. And then they're transferred to two camps main pain maintained by the center front. The migrants you've met, Michael, were they prepared for the Darian gap? Do they speak about the jungle?

Oh, no, they, in fact, interestingly, when you read about expeditions from the 1870s, 80s, 90s, the words that you see in the books are the same that the migrants speak today because it's the same jungle. I mean, they say things like it's hell out there. They say, for instance, one American Navy expedition went out there and got lost. They were lost for 27 of them.

They were lost for 49 days. The commander came out weighing 75 pounds according to the doctor. Some of them went insane according to the doctor. Seven died. This is the sort of stuff that they go through out there. They get lost. Many of the migrants are never seen again. You know, our own Navy got lost, you know, for 49 days. This is just a date. They, the ones who survived this generally don't come out with a smile.

I will say even from the 1870s, 80s, 90s, there were reports of some of them that came through actually quite happy and they were spirited even back then, even though many others in their group will have died. But this is normal also that you see in war. Some people, you know, some percentage always come through with a smile on their face, no matter what happens.

And then there's, you know, then there's the other vast majority of people, many of whom just die out there. We talk so they don't want people to go. The migrants who make it. Warren people not to do this. Yes, but they're coming from all over the world to cross through this because their belief is that once they reach Panama, they can find their way north. And from your reporting, Michael, that's accurate. And the Panamanian authorities, the centerfront, bust them to Costa Rica.

And then do the Costa Rica authorities then bust them north as well? Is it the same? Is it a handoff to Costa Rica?

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