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The Darien Gap, Fastboats and the Most Expensive Visa Run Ever
A trip to the Colombia/Panama border goes sideways
Capurgana, Colombia- After travelling overland for two days by bus, followed by two fast-boats up the Colombian coast I find myself in Capurgana, Colombia, in the infamous Darien Gap on the frontier with Panama.
Immigration officials had advised me three days before in Bogota that despite the information posted on their website, I would have to leave the country to obtain another visa. Mine had expired four days before.
And so I traveled over 800 kilometers by land and by sea to this small coastal town on the Panamanian border in an effort to comply.
Capurgana is a low-key tourist town a few kilometers from Panama in the Colombian state of Choco. It is only accessible by boat; on the edge of the dense jungle region that separates Colombia from Panama, named the Darien Gap.
The province of Darien is a road-less region famed for drug-trafficking and contraband that is notoriously difficult to cross.
There is only one official boat company operating in town and they want $70 USD to take me the few kilometers to Panama, but it didn’t take me long to find a fisherman that will do it for 7. I’m just waiting for the immigration office…
