The company offers a 10-day trek through the jungle, calling it “a place you should see in your lifetime before you get too old.”
“Are you ready for the craziest adventure of your life? Come along if you dare,” writes the company, which charges just over £3,000 for the tour.
Wandermut does not mention the humanitarian crisis, but explains that they will avoid the east of the Darién and the border with Colombia because “anything else would be reckless.”
The organizer also boasted that his main guide “had no problems with smugglers or other criminals due to his contacts and experience over the last 20 years.”
Meanwhile, Bristol-based Secret Compass hosted a £3,500, 14-day “epic jungle trekking expedition” through the Darién Gap, billed as a chance to “cross the final frontier.”
“Join this groundbreaking jungle expedition to be one of the few explorers to cross the Darién Gap on foot,” said a page advertising an April 2024 tour (which has since been removed).
One of the “highlights” of the trip was the opportunity to “test your courage and endurance in a unforgiving environment.”
The website made no mention of the refugee crisis, but said that if local activities affected the planned route, “the team would undertake a challenging and equally adventurous jungle expedition to another part of the Panamanian jungle.”
Mr Conejo said he had to help a woman who suffered a miscarriage in the jungle last year. He has seen children arriving alone and families “broken” by death.
“Do you think this adrenaline rush is a reason for you to celebrate?”
Mr Cornejo said the fees charged by tourism companies were “insulting” and that such an amount could provide humanitarian aid to 300 people.
Prof. Krebs said she had spoken to some companies that offer tours in the area and they said they were “deliberately not mentioning the humanitarian crisis because that would mean pointing the finger at them morally and ethically.”
“I think I see something, but I don’t know, but it’s more like the appeal of dark tourism: there are bad things happening, there’s a humanitarian crisis and then there’s the commercialization of it, and I think that’s what some of these people are doing,” she said.
The Panamanian government had already announced plans to make Darién National Park the “most important ecotourism destination in Central America.”
Earlier this year, Panama’s President-elect José Raúl Mulino vowed to close the Darién Gap and deport anyone who tries to cross it.
Tom Bodkin, CEO of Secret Compass, said the company is no longer conducting expeditions to the Darién Gap.
He said the company operates the trips “in a completely different area from the refugee routes,” about 150 kilometers away, and the company also offers trips to areas such as North Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We hope that traveling to this region will raise people’s awareness of the trauma, exploitation and suffering that migrants face on these journeys. They may want to seek out more information, talk to local people and better understand what motivates migrants to make this journey, how they are received by Panamanians and what challenges they face,” he said.
A source close to Ms. Pferrer said influencers and content creators have no responsibility to educate people and that they bear no “responsibility” for humanitarian crises.
They said Ms Pferrer chose to draw attention to the crisis and focused a significant portion of her content on this issue, thereby reaching different audiences than the traditional media.
They also said Ms Pferrer had decided not to “participate in the luxury travel industry” but wanted to show the “dark side” and that this “extreme travel” would benefit the local economy.
They said that social creators like Ms Pferrer have to earn a living through product placement and that “as long as there are no subsidies or other mechanisms for this, nothing will change.”
The Telegraph has contacted Wandermut and Mr Brandt, as well as the Panama Tourism Authority, for comment.
