Panama represents a crossroads for many but consider the irony: you cannot cross between North and South America on land, yet ships can pass between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through land. How can this be?

The gap

Anyone completing an overland journey of the Americas faces one obstacle: a 100 kilometre gap in the road between Yaviza, Panama and Turbo, Colombia. In this day and age, it may be hard to believe that a major artery to connect North to South America remains incomplete, but political and engineering difficulties, along with environmental and social concerns, have stopped all efforts to complete the road.

Called the Darien Gap, overlanders must choose between flying over it and sailing around it. Both options put an equal and fairly serious dent in the trip budget. Our preference for the slow, scenic route directed us to the Stahlratte (Steel Rat), a two-mast German schooner, able to transport 19 motorcycles and their riders per sailing. The three night journey from Cartagena, Colombia to Cartí, Panama also included some downtime in the gorgeous San Blas islands.

At Cartí, the crew dropped us onto a tiny wharf in the middle of the nowhere. It was linked to the Interamericana Highway by a rollercoaster of a road through the jungle. Although the road was good asphalt, Matt considers it our hardest ride to date: the inclines and declines were the steepest we’ve come across. Having crossed the Andes seven times in South America, the difficulty of this road was unexpected.

This was the closest we would get to the Darien and the ride gave us a minuscule taste of the challenges of its terrain. Intrepid riders have attempted to cross the gap on motorbike – some have made it and others have given up, abandoning their motorcycle to continue on foot or by boat. Bob Webb’s written account of his four attempts to ride through in the 1970s shows photos of survey stakes marking where a highway would go, yet it remains unbuilt.

The ditch

It was a very different story when we went to visit the Panama Canal (aka the big ditch). Political and engineering difficulties, along with environmental and social concerns, did not stop the forging of this route across the continental divide, thus linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It seems that nothing is impossible once the operational needs of the U.S. Navy are considered (at least that’s what we heard!).

At first, the French attempted to build a sea-level canal but the project eventually went bankrupt due to the cost and difficulties of construction. Clearing and maintaining a path through the unstable mountains of the continental divide appeared impossible, plus tropical disease and accidents took a great toll on the workforce (an estimated 22,000 people died).

The Americans took over the project but abandoned the idea of a sea-level canal. Instead they chose a lock system that would raise and lower ships from a large inland lake, 26 metres above sea level. They still had to excavate a lot of earth during the construction – they say it would have been enough to build 60 Great Pyramids!

You also cannot fail to be impressed by the scale of the locks: each lock chamber is big enough to fit a ship the size of the Titanic and there are a total of 12 chambers in the canal. Yet the transit itself is a remarkably quiet and slick process. I guess when the average transit toll is US$54,000, time truly is money. Ships have been known to pay as much as US$375,000 to jump the transit queue. We can understand why alternative solutions, like Peru’s Interoceanic Highway or the proposed canal in Nicaragua, are being sought.

Thankfully two bridges have been built over the canal allowing vehicles to cross this unnatural gap in the road. For us, it was a thrill to ride over the Centennial Bridge and look down upon the section of the canal that was so difficult to construct.

Given the history of the Panama Canal, it seems that if the economic or political benefits were ever persuasive enough, a road would be built through the Darien Gap, regardless of the wider costs. Panama would then become a true crossroads, but I’m not certain that I want that day to come.

Posted by Fiona

In all, we spent three weeks in Panama and found it to be a huge cultural shift from South America! Learn more about what we saw through our photos here. More Panama photos are in our online gallery here.

Sailing into the sunset on the Stahlratte. Our motorbikes are wrapped up, on the left side of the deck. Although the ship can carry 19 motorbikes at a time, ours were the only two on this journey.

After crossing the open waters of the Caribbean, we dropped anchor in the calmer waters of the San Blas Islands (Panama) for two nights.

Woman overboard!

Pulling up to the wharf in the middle of nowhere. This was our stop – Cartí, Panama.

Beautiful asphalt road, but what a rollercoaster!!

It looks like an artist’s impression of a new development, but this IS Panama City.

The view of the new from the old in Panama City’s Casco Viejo (old quarter).

Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal. There are two lanes with ships passing through. In the front lane, you can see the gates between two lock chambers. One chamber has been filled with water to raise the ship to the right level to proceed into the next section of the canal. Another ship has entered the back lane and is yet to be raised.

Riding across Centennial Bridge with a view of the passage cut through the continental divide and a ship in the distance.

Our first sloth sighting, near the Panama Canal. This guy held this pose for the 20 minutes we stared at him. Very strong and very chilled!

It’s Christmas time! We spent Christmas in El Valle and New Year’s Eve in Boquete, Panama.

Panama City offered a few home treats just in time for Christmas and given that we’re no longer vegan, some White Castello was in order!

More critters. This one is a very cool dude – a horned marsupial frog.

And a Blue-Crowned Motmot. Gorgeous!

Time for a facial at El Valle’s warm springs.

The town of Boquete was preparing for a flower and coffee festival the following week.

In Boquete we spent many happy hours chatting to Marilyn and Doug from Homer, Alaska. Matt almost didn’t get his motorbike back!

We visited Finca Dracula near Volcan. The farm grows many different species of orchids, this one is from the dracula family of orchids. They are spectacular plants.