The Darien Gap is one of the most dangerous and forbidding stretches of jungle in the world, but every day thousands of attempt to cross the 100-mile gap in hope of crossing into Panama and then on to the . “It's dangerous if you’re crossing,” Michael Yon told podcaster . "It's dangerous if people don’t want you there. The Indians do a lot of killing, and there a lot of firefights …but that’s on the routes where you pay less money.” But, he adds: “Most of the people end up getting through without getting raped or robbed. When you're coming through thousands at a time because there's just not enough robbers and rapists.” Kidnappings by paramilitary groups such as the AUC or FARC only tend to make the news when Western tourists are involved, such as when
British flower experts Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder were snatched in 2000. However, the perilous crossing is about to become a great deal easier because of the construction of a massive bridge across the Rio Chuconaco – the separation point between Central and South America. Michael says the building project is massive: “You'll be able to get tanks over it” The greatest mystery about the bridge, Michael says, is that no-one is quite sure who is paying for it. “Nobody says who’s putting the money in it so it indicates to me it's – because
China has a way of doing this. But I keep asking government people who's actually paying for this, and nobody seems to know. One clue as to why China might be financing the massive building project is the shifting pattern of migration into the southern US. While the great human tide moving northward used to be mainly composed of impoverished Haitian and Venezuelan citizens hoping for a new life as Americans, in recent years the number of Chinese immigrants has soared. Over 15,000 Chinese migrants were counted by the authorities in Panama in 2023, almost eight times as many from the same period in 2022, and more than 40 times that of 2021. Between January and September 2023, the US Border Patrol detained 22,187 Chinese nationals attempting to enter the country from
Mexico. Michael spoke to a foreman building the bridge and asked why it was being built. He was told it was be used to ship yuca, a root vegetable that’s a staple of central
American cooking. “I said 'Yuca? More like a T-72 yuca because it's clearly going to be big enough for tanks. “I’m not saying that that's what they’re going to use it for,” he added. “I’m just saying it's going to be big enough to take those trees out of the jungle because those trees in the Darien Gap are probably worth billions.” He says that while the exotic hardwood trees are comparatively cheap, if you buy them direct for the loggers: “Ship them back to China or to the
Middle East where people can use these things for furniture those trees are worth a lot of money.”