Range Rover at 50
I walked green miles of jungle
I walked through yellow miles of pain
I crossed starvation’s desert
Watched dead rivers swell with rain
The song of insects filled the air
Nights and days of despair
where a killer’s son says “son beware”
Rollins Band, ‘Illumination’, 2000.
THE DARIEN GAP, it’s safe to say, is not up there on many people’s holiday-destination bucket list. This vast, godforsaken tract of jungle, swamp and mountains located between Panama and Colombia is most noteworthy for being the only real interruption to the circa-30,000km pan-American highway network linking Alaska to the southernmost tip of South America. It’s a stronghold of wilderness where the cloying air is thick with insects and vampire bats; the swampy ground riddled with deadly snakes; dense foliage concealing aggressive wild pigs. You’ll search in vain for a Contiki resort in the Darien.
It was the perfect place, then, back in 1972, to show the world the capabilities of the
