Bering Strait vs Darien Gap

Had a recent discussion on ‘Which of the gaps proved most challenging?’ Bering straits or Darien Gap. I have had a number of these discussions over time and it’s always interesting. However, the comparison is derived from a personal perspective and it’s not to say it would be the same for the next guy. These are both little known regions of the planet and greatly misunderstood.  You can read more about these experiences on the website.

The Bering Strait was meant to be the greatest challenge of my life, and it failed in that regard. It was, however, critical to the journey and the crux of the whole endeavour. It cannot be overly exaggerated just how daunting it was to face. It meant I had to make history. That’s not a challenge you face every day. It had been preceded by many years of “It cannot be done!” and the more experts I spoke to, the more negative the predicted outcome. After a while you could start to believe these people, you could start to doubt yourself. To most the Bering Strait is an unknown. I have read travel forums where people talk about planning weekend trips with family and dog to walk to Russia across the Strait. Even though Dimitri and I managed to reach Russia, I still sometimes wonder if we really understood just how lucky we were. It was a hard fought battle, with all the drama and tension, but yet somehow I almost felt cheated, as if the Strait had not even had enough respect for us to bother rising to the challenge. This could not have been all it was, this was not what I had prepared for. There should have been more. But I would stop well short of saying it was a disappointment, it was a relief. The day Dimitri and I stepped onto the Straits foremost on my mind was; (A), How do we get off this thing when it all goes wrong, and (B), How the hell am I going to maintain the momentum of this expedition and pay for a second attempt, or a third, or a forth…After years of saying it was nigh impossible to even imagine the possible….. and then suddenly we were in Russia.  

Probably even less well known are the dense tropical jungles of the Darien Gap. This was not seen as a challenge on the same level as the Bering Strait largely because people did not appreciate the details from my perspective. The Darien was indeed the greater challenge when I look back over the two experiences. Prior to attempting the Darien I could not possibly have contemplated it being as difficult a challenge as the Bering Straits. However, between leaving Medellin and sitting in the British Embassy in Panama City lay a profoundly shocking two months. 

From the love of Catalina, to the fear of armed Colombian guerrillas. The overwhelming thick jungle, with sickness and exhaustion, a rapidly shifting, bewildering spectrum of sight, sound and experiences, that was often to much for one to absorb. As I sat in a chair, alone in a room at the Embassy, overlooking Panama city, I found myself numbed to the point of confusion. What had just happened? Later, I was driven to the old town where I was given a room in a hotel. It was not until I had dropped my equipment to the floor and finally lay on a bed, that I began to live the Darien Gap. As my eyes closed everything came back, sight, smell and sound. I saw it, truly saw it, for the first time. During the experience I had been too focused on ‘doing!’ Avoiding! Navigating! Finding food.  Now, replaying it like a movie, I saw it in a whole new light, I understood the Darien Gap.  Now finally allowed to rest, I could smell it, hear it…. feel it.

At times the Darien had felt impossible and I had been overwhelmed. Indeed in one instance I had been reduced to a blubbering child. I had been heart broken, scared witless, or too exhausted to care about anything or anyone. Starved, gravely ill, arrested and jailed and rarely feeling in control of anything. Everyday brought something new, and potentially lethal.

The Bering Strait had not shown its teeth fully. Yet it was far from a ‘cake walk’. We had been very lucky with the weather, but then again we had timed it well.  Being as patient as we needed to be. As with the Darien, where I had waited 2 months in Medellin until the dry season, I’m sure this made all the difference in the world. In both cases the plans were very fluid. Extensive preparation and research proved their worth in both cases. 

The second gap, or the Bering Strait, played out to an oddly familiar tune. It had that struggle, lack of being in control, elements of fear, even being detained by the authorities again. To cap it all, a heart breaking episode with Catalina that left me caring little about the 58 days of political drama and trials Dimitri and I faced on reaching Russia. I was crushed.  People stood around and talked, the judges mouth would move and lawyers respond and contest. Dimitri would rant on, but no sound came out of their mouths. I just did not care, and did not believe anything we said at the time was going to change a thing.  We did not need to be present at the first trial or neither the appeal trial, all the decisions had been made prior. It felt like a game. Catalina was not a game. Six years after meeting her, so little had changed. Today when I look back at that episode, those last 58 days in Russia stand out above most as perhaps my most difficult. As often throughout stage 5 of the journey, or even stage 4, Catalina dominated my thoughts. Everything else, I knew I could handle. 

At the end of the day there were a number of moments in the Darien Gap where I truly feared for my life. I can honestly say there were no such moments on the Straits. And that 14 day adventure, exhausting though it was at times, hardly compared to the two months in the Darien. But, the game is far from over, other surprises lie in wait I’m sure. This resent series of setbacks had definitely not been foreseen.