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The Most Dangerous Jungle In The World Is Not Where You Expect
A spit of land so dangerous it is considered impassable the world-over
In 2013 a Swedish man by the name of Jan Philip Braunisch embarked on a journey to achieve his highest goal as a backpacker and adventurer: to hike into North America from Colombia. On its face, this does not seem like such a monumental task. Panama connects to Colombia via a land bridge and, from a map, it does not seem like the daunting task it is made out to be. Seasoned hikers, backpackers and adventurers have crossed far longer distances and more impressive spans.
In May of 2013, after trekking through Colombia, Braunisch would find an internet cafe in a small town in the north of the country. This town was the last speck of civilization before traveling into the jungle. He stopped in to send an email to his wife who was at home back in Sweden. This message is the last communication ever received from the explorer.
In the same internet cafe he also updated his travel blog with the following message:
“I’m in Ríosucio now. From here it’s not far to Panama. There are supposedly quite many paths. We’ll see how it goes.”
He had set out with a local guide down a river through the jungle with hopes of reaching Panama proper. However, he never made it. According to reports, his boat was stopped and seized by a local militia who took Braunisch, a tall white man, for a spy and killed him in the jungle.
His wife would not learn the truth of this until years after the fact. The Colombian officials chalked him up to just another person to vanish in the deep jungles, one of tens of thousands of similar cases. The place in which Jan Philip Braunisch vanished is known as the Darién Gap.
The Darién Gap is widely regarded as the most dangerous jungle in the world and the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere.
The geography
Continental borders are often defined by bodies of water. The ones that are not are usually well known…
