Pan-American Highway
A video–story how the description of a word “highway” can mislead us!
The video about the road in Central America is a great proof that sometimes the beaten paths, stereotypes and notion we have in our mind can totally lead us into … nowhere or can turn everything upside down.
We all, leaving here in Europe, imagine that the word “highway” means: at least 2 lanes, speed limits (in Germany) or about 120-140 km/h speed limits, wide side of the road, big sound absorbing screen panels around, a line of grass as a center line and of course perfect tarmac road with no speed bumpers. Sounds perfect and clear.
Okay! We will leave it like that for a while.
Traveling around the world many times we had some doubts if we are riding the right road shown on a map or in our GPS. Sometimes they surprised us in a positive way (when we realized that the small, tiny or thin line seems to be a perfect brand new road built few months ago) but unfortunately many times – we were disappointed and scared.
Let’s clash our imagined picture of a definition for “highway” with reality of Central American roads.
The length of the Pan – American Highway
Many different sources say that the Pan-American Highway is deemed as the world's longest "motorable road". What is important – motorable, however we need to take into consideration the fact - it is cut into two (or even sometimes more) shorter distances.
The road is specified as the total length about 30 000 kilometers, but first - we shouldn’t count it as a one section, second - the “real” road or line is rather hard to determine or define, so we can name that road as a Pan-American Highway only conventionally. And that is how it works - the symbolic road.
Even in the brochure we prepared for the American trip, we put the number of 35 000 kilometers as a plan, and after a talk with our friend – he was laughing and suggested to add maybe another 10 000 kilometers “just in case” not to hold fast to the plan.
45 000 kilometers put there we actually finished with 59 000 made in reality – but that is another story!
Darién Gap
However, because of the Darién Gap, it is not possible to cross between South America and Central America with conventional highway vehicles, the only way to safely navigate this stretch is by sea (or by plane of course). The question is: why we call the interrupted road a passable road?
Maybe the 106 km (70 mi) is not a huge distance to build to connect those two parts, but with many efforts till today it is not done. First of all officially - because of swamps, marshes, and rivers, construction would be very expensive, the second – we can imagine many different other difficulties, deals or agreements about which we shouldn’t even think or write now.. Not our case why, but that gap is a huge problem for travelers who want to ride ”the longest highway in the world” literally.
Our plan with Americas in 2017 was initially based on the symbolic Pan – American road, but considering the route we easily realized we won’t be able to ride exactly how it is given on the map, because we didn’t want to skip so many wonderful places which look far away at the map. It mainly doesn’t include Bolivia, which is almost a sin talking about the beauty of the area. In South America the plan was edited almost from the beginning, but today we would like to write about the central part of it which is also called Inter-American Highway, which is still called a higway.
The quality of the road and lovely speed - bumpers
Above as a description we put an information that mainly talking about highway we imagine the tar road with asphalt and almost totally smooth surface. Nothing more misleading! We found there any kind of the coat: sand, dirt roads, gravel roads, potholes, no side road at all, raptures and many unexpected surprised lying on it – including speed – bumpers without any signs or warnings. We jumped on them as kangaroos sometimes on full speed. Unforgettable feeling! We didn’t know if we should laugh or cry. Few times we felt the bike is totally destroyed after landing on the ground, but finally the suspension sacrifices us and our… let’s say - asses and spines as well.
Remember – highway doesn’t mean tar road.
The width of the road
In all central America countries the temperature reached over 30 degrees of Celsius. When you pull the throttle and speedy something like over 100 km/h the temperature is not a big deal, because the wind blows and you ride fully equipped not even feel it’s extremely hot. The issue in that area excluded speeding, because only one narrow line didn’t allowed to ride faster than 60 km/h. In addiction the line of cars in front of you and behind you, don’t let you to overtake anything. You ride one by one with no option to escape. Patience, that style of riding forms your behavior and dampen your rider’s temper drastically!
Remember – the highway not always has at least two lines.
Is Pan-American Highway a real highway?
That is really hard to say.
But wait! Let’s consider it in a different way!
Do we really like using highways for traveling?
We love the video of Central America with any kind of the road which surprised us. You can see all types of the surface which sometimes appeared and create a challenge for us. We have great memories from there, because any simple thing we establish – the reality was different and we had a great adventure.
Remember – the less you know, the more you will explore!
So we hardly recommend the Central American part of the Pan – American highway even if mostly that is not a highway at all!