Alright, so after a few weeks of searching for a way to cross/fly over the infamous Darien Gap - I'm going to ask the advice of my fellow Tpunks.
Darien, for those of you who aren't familiar, is a 200km long untouched, dangerous jungle that seperates Panama from Columbia. Narco-terrorists and drug cartel members retreat to this area to hid out and rest, which results in a decent amount of kidnappings, murders and dissappearances. Now, crossing the Darien Gap is basically insane, because there isn't a road. Darien is the end of the Pan-American Highway, the US stopped funding for the road many years ago because for three main reasons: the threat of the South American foot/mouth disease spread mainly by livestock, pressure from environmental groups and the dangers from terrorists.
Anywho, my question is have any of you guys heard of ways to get to either Columbia or Ecuador?? Ideally, we'd want to get to Quito, Ecuador but if it's cheaper to take a flight to a Columbian city and bus it to Ecuador that's fine. All the flights I've found are around the $400 from Panama City to Quito or Bogato. I found one to Bogato for $200 but it's via a shady Spanish-only airline site, and all I could understand was the $200 part.
Other options include taking a least five ferries (some may be transporting drugs though) to get to the first town in Columbia and then waiting for buses to the main Columbian cities. While that sounds like a great adventure to myself (and I'm sure a few other Tpunks) my boyfriend isn't fond of the idea.
Also, if anyone knows what city is best to catch a flight from South America to Australia/New Zealand (as far as price wise) let me know. We were hoping to catch a freighter from the Panama Canal (for roughly 1200$ each) but we'd have to back track quite a bit.
Darien Gap
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