Story from Mic

Mind the (Daríen) GapIt was 2014, and the golden age of Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Forum, so in a hostel somewhere in Honduras I put all my trust in the all-knowing website to find me a solution to getting across the Darien Gap. Would I regret doing this? Absolutely.A couple of months before, I had flown to Cancun with my now-husband Will and we had made our way South through Mexico and Central America. We were naïve, penniless and were having the time of our lives. The plan was to continue to South America but the closer we got, the more we learned about the lawless jungle at the end of Panama- strictly inadvisable to idiot tourists like us, full of a spectrum of perils and probably certain death. But how to get to Colombia?Three ways: You can book a boat tour from Panama City through the picture-perfect San Blas islands taking a leisurely week snorkelling and exploring before arriving in SA. Or you can catch a tiny plane that leaves every three days or so and fly right over the jungle and the ocean, onto Columbia. The third option was discovered from advice on Thorn Tree Forum- You can get a boat that will take you straight across from Panama City (or nearby) and bypassing the swimming adventures around the islands, you will be deposited to your destination. The problem with the first two more appealing options was the budget. Ours was a shoestring. We could only keep going until we ran out of money so spending as little was possible was the priority.Number three it was then. Thorn Tree gave us a mobile number. Just one number. I couldn’t find any websites with links to book the boat or any information on the journey. The post just said that if you called the number, you would be collected and taken to the boat. Alarm bells should have been clanging loudly but as I mentioned previously, we were care-free and stupid, so on we went and boarded a night bus to Panama City.On arrival, with stingy eyes, we called the number from a phone box in the bus station. No answer. Pinning everything on this, we kept trying and eventually a man told us to go to a nearby hostel and await pick up. We were excited and relieved to be saving hundreds of dollars, but the hours passed by and it dawned on me how this journey was no longer in my own hands. Somebody else was taking the reins. Did I trust this person? I didn’t even know who they were.We were eventually taken in a 4X4 to the edge of shallow water full of reeds, and into a small boat that after half an hour, dropped us off at the home of a man called Black Iguana. He lived with his family on a miniscule island, and we would stay with him until the next boat picked us up to take us onwards. Black Iguana’s place was a two-storey shack type structure with no electricity and no running water. There was a French man lolling in a hammock. He didn’t know how long he had been there or when the boat would come. I reassured myself that this was only a short pitstop.Three days later, we were still eating tinned sardines and looking searchingly for any boat. The sea was mesmerising but there was nothing to eat, our phones were long dead, and we went to the toilet directly into the water. We were suspended. You could walk to the end of the island and back in 5 minutes. Time solidified and I thought that I had gone mad, that I was going to live here forever and this was life now, with Black Iguana. I shrieked when I heard the rumble of a small boat and finally- onto Colombia! Or so we thought.Eight punishing hours we sat at the front of this tiny vessel in the open sea- stopping sometimes so the Captain could fill up the tank with another can of fuel. The swell felt enormous and I spent my time thinking of my family and how much I would miss them because we would not survive this voyage. Even Will who is always calm under pressure thought that this was it for us. Arriving at a military base in the bright sun actually felt like a miracle. Welcome to Colombia? No- this was still Panama. My second involuntary shriek of the longest day ever. After being harshly interviewed by soldiers we were let loose in that small concrete jungle and told we would be picked up the next day. The next day! There was still no food to buy and no shops but there were huge toads everywhere. What a strange mixture of truths. We managed to scrounge some bread and some tinned beans. There were two older Czechoslovakian guys that had joined us on our boat ride and one of them had a huge spider tattooed over his bald head. We spent the night with them and a few others in a big room in the only ‘hotel’ – the walls covered with Cuban graffiti writing about following the American dream.The next day we were taken to yet another island- this was one technically Colombian and full of locals coming to relax on the beautiful beaches. I found a poison dart frog- bright green and black and we felt our hopes rising. Another night and another boat trip with our Czechoslovakian and Cuban brethren and we finally arrived in Colombia. In South America! We had made it! It took us over a week, and we paid more money than the other options would have cost. We had a new terror of the open sea and an experience we would never, ever forget. We had skirted around the Darien Gap and got to our next destination in one piece. Just.