The months apart were not kind.

When we finally track down our motorcycle on the outskirts of Erbil, the capital of Iraq鈥檚 semiautonomous Kurdish region, the engine is dead and all three tires are flat. The sidecar has become a trash can, strewed with empty beer bottles, newspapers, and a splash of motor oil. 鈥淪orry, old girl,鈥� sighs Carmen Gentile, my traveling companion and the bike鈥檚 owner. He slumps in the saddle for a while, head bowed, a little heartbroken. 鈥淚鈥檓 sad, dude,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his bike deserves so much better.鈥�

In the summer of 2017, while reporting on a campaign by Iraqi forces to purge the Islamic State from the city of Mosul, Carmen had found the bike鈥攁 Russian-made Ural鈥攂uried under the rubble of a mortar strike, its gas tank crushed, its fenders shot through with bullet holes. An incurable moto enthusiast, he launched a salvage mission that involved jury-rigging parts and schmoozing his way through countless checkpoints on the 50-mile drive east to Erbil. The bike was then left with a friend of a friend, who apparently didn鈥檛 share Carmen鈥檚 affections.

Nearly a year later, with the jihadists on the run, we鈥檙e back to explore Iraqi Kurdistan鈥檚 potential as the Middle East鈥檚 next great adventure destination. Our plan is to dust off the Ural and ride with photographer Balazs Gardi, who鈥檒l rent a car, traveling from the sunbaked plains up to the mountains that flare along the Iranian border鈥攁n alpine wilderness that鈥檚 home to virgin peaks, raging whitewater, and the region鈥檚 first national park. It鈥檚 not far from where a group of American hikers were taken prisoner nine years ago by Iranian border guards, an incident that muted the media hype that Kurdistan was the next big thing. But I鈥檓 in contact with a guide who knows the terrain well, and several high-octane travel dispatches I鈥檝e seen online (鈥淭aking on Kurdistan鈥檚 Wildest Mountain River,鈥� 鈥淚raqi Kurdistan: Intrepid Skiers Break New Ground鈥�) suggest that a serious outdoor scene is emerging in the high country. We want to check it out.

The Ural won鈥檛 get us there, obviously, so we head to a bustling moto market in a different part of town. Rows of cheap Iranian 125cc four-speeds fail to rouse our spirits, but we have no choice. We settle on a pair of Honda knockoffs, slap on some stickers of Che Guevara for good luck, and ride down to the old city center to buy last-minute provisions.

I鈥檝e been here before. On my first visit to Kurdistan, in 2007, the Iraq War was raging full tilt. It was the deadliest year yet for U.S. troops. Sections of Baghdad and the southern cities were no-go zones, terrorized by suicide car bombs and sectarian death squads. In contrast, Erbil, a city of around one million, was a bastion of calm guarded by the fearsome Peshmerga (鈥渢hose who face death鈥�), the Kurds鈥� national fighting force.

Having a U.S. passport in Kurdistan was a bonus. Soon after the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. enforced a no-fly zone over the region that helped stop Saddam Hussein鈥檚 brutal counteroffensive against the Kurdish rebellion, and Kurds have never forgotten that. I was invited to a wedding, ate free meals, and celebrated the Muslim New Year with friends and fireworks beneath the towering walls of the ancient citadel of Erbil, one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements in the world. It鈥檚 hard to believe that two wars have happened since my last visit.

Carmen and I park next to a glitzy new plaza that fronts the citadel and hike up to the viewing platform. The skyline bristles with shopping malls, cranes, and half-built condominium complexes thrown up by developers from Turkey and Dubai. Swarms of package tourists from Baghdad shamelessly snap selfies around us, but I don鈥檛 see any Westerners.

Kurdish authorities have tried hard to promote Kurdistan as 鈥渢he other Iraq,鈥� but to most foreigners it鈥檚 still a land synonymous with the bloodshed and beheadings that have stigmatized the rest of the country. In September 2017, flush from victory in their three-year battle against Islamic State militants, Kurdish leaders made matters worse by holding an independence referendum, in defiance of Iraq鈥檚 central government. It backfired catastrophically. Iraqi forces retaliated by seizing swaths of oil-rich Kurdish lands and banning international flights to the region鈥檚 airports. We arrived just weeks after the embargo was lifted.

Following a stroll through another market for supplies, we return to our bikes. This time mine won鈥檛 fire up. I stomp the kick-starter again and again, issuing a flurry of f-bombs and drawing a small crowd.

鈥淓ngine too much gas,鈥� a mustached man says when I stop to catch my breath.

I grunt out a yes. Inevitably, he asks me where I鈥檓 from.

鈥淎h, Amreekah friend,鈥� he says when I tell him. 鈥淩ambo number one! Bush good also.鈥�

Another man squats down to my right and starts stripping the plastic off my ignition cable with his teeth. He pulls out a knife to finish the job, twists the bare copper threads into a braid, and taps the spark plug. On his cue, I give the bike a sharp kick, and it starts with a whimper, then revs to life. The group erupts into trilling, high-pitched ululations that send us off.

Kurdish hospitality is as robust as ever, but the early signals are clear. Nothing will come easy on this trip.

In the morning, we ride northeast up Hamilton Road, an old British-built highway that snakes some 110 miles from Erbil to the Iranian frontier. Near the city limits, a series of Peshmerga checkpoints give way to rolling hills dotted with farmhouses and stone fortresses dating back to the tenth century. Balazs is following us in a chase car, but it鈥檚 not long before we鈥檙e chasing him.

Just as the landscape opens up, my bike starts to flag. I pin the throttle, to no effect. A cling-clang of loose metal rattles around in my engine. 鈥淢an, this is not good!鈥� I shout to Carmen, who鈥檚 having gear problems of his own. The predicament is made worse by Kurdish motorists who seem hell-bent on running us off the road. We sputter on, past a billboard honoring the 鈥渋mmaculate precious bodies鈥� of all the Peshmerga martyrs who鈥檝e fought and died to defend this terrain.

Kurdish history is a catalog of tragedy. Blessed with natural beauty and cursed by location, the ancestral heartland straddles a tangle of ethnic, religious, and geopolitical fault lines where conflict has ebbed and flowed for centuries. During the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, when Allied powers divvied up the region, plans to create an independent Kurdish state never came to fruition. Today some 30 million stateless Kurds are spread across four countries鈥擳urkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. In Iraq, decades of ruthless government persecution have hardened the Kurds鈥� drive to carve out a homeland of their own.

Two hours, many stops, and maybe 35 miles up the road, we pause to rest at the edge of a sprawling farm valley outside the town of Shaqlawa. A pair of aging freedom fighters in traditional Kurdish costume鈥攂aggy pantaloons, vest, cummerbund, head wrap鈥攁re thumbing prayer beads in the dusky light. They say as-salaamu alaikum (peace be upon you) and touch their hearts. I introduce myself and say what a beautiful place it is.

鈥淵ou should have been here in 鈥�74,鈥� says Qasim Abdullah, the taller one, warming up to tell a story. 鈥淪addam鈥檚 fighters were up there and we were over there, firing artillery back and forth.鈥� He points across the valley to where he was. 鈥淎t night we sometimes had to cross minefields between us. Too many men died here.鈥�

In the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam tried to Arabize Iraq鈥檚 estimated six million Kurds. More than 4,000 Kurdish villages were razed and entire communities forcibly relocated. When Iraqi Kurdish fighters sided with Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988, Saddam launched a scorched-earth campaign of bombing and chemical attacks that claimed at least 50,000 lives. Ahmad Mustafa, the shorter, stouter man, says that 20 of his neighbors were rounded up and executed. An additional 120 were taken from the next village. 鈥淣o one knows what happened to them,鈥� he says.

Like most able-bodied Kurdish men, Qasim and Ahmad fought with the guerrillas for several years. But with families to look after, they eventually fled to Iran, part of the more than one million Kurds who left the country in waves that lasted into the early 1990s. A 1991 uprising ultimately evicted Iraqi forces from the north and led to de facto self-rule, thanks largely to the U.S.-enforced no-fly zone that targeted Iraqi jets flying over Kurdish airspace, but not before a bloody crackdown by Saddam. Rival Kurdish factions then turned against each other in a civil war that ended in 1998, splitting the government in two. The groups did not merge again until after Saddam鈥檚 ouster and the drafting of the 2005 constitution.

As Iraq plunged into chaos, Kurdistan became the paradigm of peace and prosperity that American leaders had envisioned for the entire country. Qasim and Ahmad came home to try and realize the dream of a free and independent state. But that dream is fading. Clashes with the Iraqi army following the hasty independence referendum saw the vaunted Peshmerga concede to Iraq a reported 40 percent of the disputed territory they had controlled since the 2014 fight against the Islamic State. This area includes the city of Kirkuk, whose oil fields drive the Kurdish economy and would be the lifeblood of a state. Turkey is launching cross-颅border attacks against Kurdish rebels and talking about a ground invasion, while Iran is targeting Iranian Kurdish opposition bases inside Kurdistan. 鈥淲e鈥檝e never been comfortable in our lives,鈥� says Qasim. 鈥淭his peace won鈥檛 last.鈥�

Back on the highway, the knocking in my engine seems to be amplified by the darkness, and the bike stalls out on a steep, potholed descent. My rear wheel slides, and I almost crash before skidding to a stop. Balazs is somewhere up ahead in the car, so I wait for Carmen. A half hour passes before I walk back down the road and find him talking with a Peshmerga officer at a checkpoint. Turns out his front tire went flat and I鈥檇 left him behind. 鈥淣early lost it,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hat happened to you?鈥� He bursts into lunatic laughter when I tell him I鈥檝e stalled.

The motorcycle trip is becoming a fiasco. Waiting for a flatbed trailer to haul our broken bikes back to Erbil, Carmen decides to fold and go home to Croatia early. He has just published a war memoir about getting shot in the face with a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan, and he needs to prepare for a book tour in the U.S. Balazs and I will head deeper into the backcountry in pursuit of wild mountains and rivers. But first we need to find our guide.

鈥淢an, we're gonna do some crazy shit together,鈥� Nabil Musa told me the first time we connected on the phone. Nabil was recommended by an American friend who used to live in Kurdistan, with the caveat that he鈥檚 an environmentalist, not a backcountry guide. I took his gonzo talk as just that: talk.

As Iraq鈥檚 lone representative for Waterkeeper Alliance, a global advocacy group based in New York City, Nabil is tasked with protecting waterways that flow through Kurdistan. This involves a mix of protest stunts and derring-do: multi-day swims across freshwater lakes that are being poisoned by industrial pollution, kayak trips to highlight the threat of multiplying Turkish dams, and so forth. More recently, an antidumping campaign had him doing headstands by the oil pools outside Sulaymaniyah, his birthplace and Kurdistan鈥檚 second-largest city. Balazs and I detour to meet him there.

Nabil is 41 but appears a decade older, with the road-worn look of a chain-smoker who鈥檚 spent his life on the move. Wearing sandals, shorts, and a tank top that reveals a strong build, he cooks us dinner at his apartment and riffs rapid-fire about his plans to raft and trek in the mountains around Choman, a gateway town near the Iran-Iraq border. He鈥檚 been stuck in Sulaymaniyah for more than a month, and his restlessness verges on manic. 鈥淚 just need to get out,鈥� he says in a faint British accent picked up abroad. 鈥淚 go mad if I don鈥檛 get outside enough.鈥�

In the morning, we load his pickup from a garage full of kayaking and rafting gear, and soon we鈥檙e back on the road, climbing past sawtooth ridges and burned limestone canyons, with 鈥淕uantanamera鈥� blasting out of his speakers. In a cloud of smoke, Nabil recalls how, back in the mid-1990s, during the civil war, the two main Kurdish political factions鈥攖he Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Masoud Barzani, and Jalal Talabani鈥檚 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)鈥攅xchanged mortar and artillery fire on the strategic heights above us. Thousands died in the fighting, and Kurdish hopes for self-determination nearly perished with them.

Like most Kurds of his generation, Nabil has seen violence. As a teenager during the 1991 uprising against Saddam, he witnessed the death of his two best friends during a battle for the Iraqi Intelligence Service鈥檚 Sulaymaniyah headquarters, a former torture chamber that鈥檚 now a bullet-pocked museum. In 1996, during the civil war, he fled overland to Turkey, then to Europe. He spent several years busking on the streets and joined a traveling theater group in the UK before returning home permanently in 2011 to take the Waterkeeper job.

In the time Nabil had been away, a population boom and rapid development had taken a toll. Trash and toxic runoff choked the river he grew up fishing. Nabil had dreamed of this river while in exile, and he was angry that no one seemed to care. 鈥淓veryone here is obsessed with security and making money,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he environment didn鈥檛 have many defenders.鈥� A friend told him about the Waterkeeper gig, and he decided to become 鈥渁 voice for the rivers.鈥� He has tattoos of the organization鈥檚 logo, a sturgeon mosaic, on his calf and shoulder.

About 20 miles past the resort town of Rawanduz, Nabil pulls over near a bridge spanning the Azadi River, one of Kurdistan鈥檚 fastest. Or so he says, and I鈥檓 taking his word for it. My online searches yield no details on the waterway, and there are no legitimate outfitters in the area for us to consult. Nabil figures that the stretch of rapids we鈥檙e sizing up are Class IV-plus, though he admits he can鈥檛 be sure. To his knowledge, no one has ever run them. He wants to be the first.

A stocky fire-brigade rescue swimmer named Khalil Mahmoud walks over and asks what we鈥檙e up to. When we tell him, he says, 鈥淵ou are not right in the head. It鈥檚 full of trash, and there are hidden currents鈥攖his is a death river.鈥� Every year, 15 to 20 people drown, he says, adding, 鈥淔our days ago I pulled out another man.鈥� A government placard behind him states the obvious: SWIMMING HERE IS DANGEROUS.

Nabil starts pacing back and forth, taking long pulls on his cigarette. 鈥淔uck it,鈥� he finally says. 鈥淟et鈥檚 do this.鈥�

I like Nabil's can-do attitude, but our combined experience running hardcore rapids is limited. On the drive up, he told us about the last time he paddled a portion of the Azadi, in 2014, as part of an anti-dam campaign. One of the men in his group had his hand cut open by underwater debris. My whitewater experience includes a few Class IV rafting trips in the Himalayas, all with internationally recognized outfitters.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e free to do whatever you want鈥擨 just have to warn you,鈥� Khalil says. But he鈥檚 also a little excited by the turn of events and offers to stand at the water鈥檚 edge to save us if we flip. He points to the opposite bank, where a nasty concrete shelf juts out beyond the crux of the whitewater, bristling with shafts of rebar. 鈥淚f you make it through, you must avoid that!鈥� he says.

Balazs hangs back with Khalil to photograph our passage through the crux. Nabil and I drive a few miles upriver, inflate a big raft, and don helmets and vests. 鈥淛ust follow my lead,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd when I say paddle, give it everything you got.鈥� We push off, me in the front, him driving at the rear, easy drifting. The cliff to our left soars more than 300 feet and, at intervals, hangs over the river like a roof, lined with tumbledown vines that glisten from the last rainfall. On a day like today, it鈥檚 hard to believe that there鈥檚 no one else out here.

Suddenly, Nabil shouts 鈥�Hard right!鈥� We鈥檙e too late. An eddy catches the edge of the boat and we whipsaw around, bouncing backward off the rocks. I turn to look at Nabil, alarmed.

鈥淥K, that was my bad,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 fucked that one up.鈥�

We shake it off and keep drifting. The next rapids are slippery smooth. Rounding a wide bend, the flow starts to surge, the roar of the water becomes more deafening. I thought I had a good read on the rapid from above, but at this level, the line through the boulders is invisible.鈥淲hich way?鈥� I shout back. 鈥淲hich way? Nabil?鈥�

The current has a grip on us, and all I hear is 鈥�笔补诲诲濒别!鈥� In an instant, we smash straight into a rock and spin sideways into an adjoining chute of whitewater that almost throws me from the raft.

As we slide deeper into the churn, I see Khalil, poised in a wrestler鈥檚 crouch, ready to jump in to save us. Balazs is right behind him, tracking us with his lens. At that moment we鈥檙e swept left and shot into the bank of broken concrete. The side of the raft shrieks against the metal spikes. Somehow it doesn鈥檛 burst. We spend the last leg of the trip gliding in silence, soaked and shaken.

鈥淚f this raft were Chinese, we鈥檇 be dead,鈥� Nabil says as we step onto the riverbank. My jaws are clenched.

With no footpath to speak of, Khalil and another man help us scrape the raft up the canyon face. Down the road, a flatbed truck is backing up to the river鈥檚 edge to dump a load of rubble. 鈥淟ook at this bastard,鈥� says Nabil. He jogs over and turns on his camera to shame the driver. The driver stares back at him, confused. Tons of rocks go crashing down the bank, adding new complications to the rapid we just passed through.

Night is falling聽when we pull into Choman. Erbil, around 100 miles west of here, seems a world away. The main street is empty and quiet, except for the patter of yellow and green political banners that flap in a crisp breeze. Up ahead, Mount Halgurd鈥攁t 11,831 feet, the highest peak situated entirely inside Iraq鈥攊s socked in by clouds.

During the drive, I asked Nabil if it would be possible for us to climb Halgurd. Ever the optimist, he said we鈥檇 have to speak to his friend Bakhtyar Bahjat, acting director of Halgurd-Sakran, the first national park in Iraqi Kurdistan. I鈥檇 been told that the roughly 460-square-mile park鈥攕et high in the border triangle of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey鈥攃ontains unclimbed peaks and dense forests prowled by bears, wolves, and Persian leopards. It鈥檚 also home to armed guerrillas whose presence both protects an extraordinary natural bounty and keeps part of the park off-limits.

The next morning, Bakhtyar meets us at the visitor center. He鈥檚 a hale man with a buzz cut and the earnest gusto of a schoolteacher (his day job). His crisp suit and upbeat attitude are at odds with the dereliction around us. The park鈥檚 carved entrance sign has been pulled from the ground and leans sideways against a wall. The courtyard fountain is dry, and the faux-log-cabin-style offices鈥攃rammed with topographical maps, pastoral nature paintings, and creepy taxidermy鈥攁re covered by a sheet of dust, remnants of a grand dream now forsaken. 鈥淯nfortunately, we are facing some challenges at the moment,鈥� Bakhtyar says.

Background information on the park is scarce, but some articles about it say that the vision for a national park came to Choman鈥檚 former mayor Abdulwahid Gwani after a 2010 trip to Austria. Gwani mobilized a team of international experts to draw up boundaries and a multiyear growth plan to transform one of the most land-mine-

ridden areas in the world into a nature reserve. Backed by a million-dollar grant from the Kurdish government, he expanded the park to include Mount Halgurd and other peaks, brought in teams of designers, and hired dozens of rangers, mostly Peshmerga veterans, to crack down on illicit hunting and tree felling. With time, Bakhtyar says, many locals began to 鈥渟ee tourism as a future.鈥�

And then came the Islamic State.

In June 2014, the jihadists stormed across the Nineveh Plains and eventually made it to within 20 miles of Erbil. Every one of the park鈥檚 rangers dashed to the front lines. Islamic State bombs and booby traps stymied their counteroffensive, and demining teams working around the park were called in to help. Globally, oil prices crashed, slashing the salaries of park employees. Bakhtyar went back to working full-time as a teacher. His codirector left for a job in Erbil. Poaching resumed, and locals hacked trees to replace winter fuel they could no longer afford. Worse, in mid-2015, a three-decade-old conflict reignited between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers鈥� Party (PKK), leftist militants whose territory overlaps with the park, bringing regular air strikes and artillery barrages that reportedly have killed civilians. A final blow came last year when Gwani died.

鈥淩ight now, Halgurd-Sakran is just a name on paper,鈥� says Bakhtyar.

With park visits down about 80 percent in 2018 compared with the year before, Bakhtyar is in an accommodating mood. No matter that we want to climb Iraq鈥檚 tallest mountain on a day鈥檚 notice and don鈥檛 have any gear. We stop by the local mountaineering club and enter a dank basement, where Bakhtyar starts digging through milk crates. In short order, I鈥檓 equipped with a yard sale鈥檚 worth of secondhand climbing gear from Eastern Europe: a neon snowsuit, trekking poles, gloves, and bent crampons. Balazs, who stands a brooding six foot five, is issued black pleather gaiters that rise to his knees and might have seen previous action in an S&M club.

Up on the mountain the next day, a drift of leaden clouds obscure the summit, dimming our chances of reaching it. But I鈥檓 more concerned about what鈥檚 underfoot. Mount Halgurd鈥檚 flanks are littered with land mines and unexploded munitions from conflicts that date back four decades. Kurdish fighters based in these mountains have alternately faced off against Iranian attackers, Iraqi jets armed with Saddam Hussein鈥檚 chemical weapons, Turkish commandos, and each other during civil war.

Scanning the wind-raked slope we鈥檙e crossing, I see bits of shrapnel, mortar shells blasted into rusty flower shapes, Soviet anti颅personnel mines, and the melted husks of American-made 鈥渢oe poppers.鈥�

鈥淒on鈥檛 worry, I鈥檝e been up here too many times,鈥� Bakhtyar says, reading our minds. He assures us that the route we鈥檙e on has been cleared by experts, though we don鈥檛 see any sign of a trail and demining efforts around here seem to be scattershot at best.

Earlier that morning, on the drive up the Iraqi-army-built supply road, we passed a government warning sign about land mines that had been bulldozed by locals. Bakhtyar explained that land appropriation is on the rise, but there鈥檚 nothing he can do since the park has no rangers left to enforce the rules. Farther along, red metal posts topped with white skull-and-bones symbols line the road. These indicate mines still to be removed. But it appears that rockslides have shifted the positions of some of the posts.

Less than 30 minutes into our trek, we see other posts higher up the slope, which we鈥檙e traversing single file. Several feet to my right, I spot a beige plastic disc in the gravel.

鈥淚s that what I think it is?鈥�

Bakhtyar is in front listening to music on his phone. He turns and squints at the mine, a bit confused.

鈥淗mm鈥� Someone must have thrown it,鈥� he says.

鈥淪o this is not a minefield, but there are mines everywhere,鈥� Balazs deadpans.

Bakhtyar is already walking again, lost in thought or pretending not to hear us. Nabil looks unsure.

Balazs and I exchange a glance. Both of us spent many years covering the war in Afghanistan, often hitched to U.S. combat units in the badlands of Helmand province, a Taliban hellscape. Firefights in 100-degree heat were bad, but nothing was worse than the improvised explosive devices that routinely took lives and limbs. After starting a family, Balazs had sworn off war zones. I鈥檇 done the same, but it took a couple of years before I could stroll through a park without reflexively appraising the ground.

Now I鈥檓 trying to walk in Bakhtyar鈥檚 footsteps, to minimize contact with uncertain terrain. My legs feel sluggish, the trekking poles an added liability.

I tell myself that I鈥檓 being melodramatic. But a familiar low-grade dread is setting in. As we pick our way through the final stretch of rocky dirt, heading for the snow line, Kurdistan is starting to feel a lot like Iraq.

It's well past noon when we reach the shoulder; clouds sheath the entire peak, which is under a fresh layer of snow. We pull out our crampons and lace up. Bakhtyar reckons that it will take at least another four hours to reach the summit, maybe more. Given our late start, we were kidding ourselves that we could reach the top and get down in a day.

I hand out energy bars, and Nabil shares a story about the last time he tried to climb Halgurd. A macho American guy in his group insisted that he knew a better route up the south side. Soon the climbers found themselves wandering lost through waist-deep snow, with mine posts sticking up now and then. After telling us this, Nabil says his foot hurts, so he鈥檚 going to head back to the truck, taking a roundabout route to avoid encounters with unexploded ordnance. 鈥淵ou guys enjoy,鈥� he says.

Balazs and I follow Bakhtyar up a steep bowl toward the base of the rock face. The going is slow. For the next hour we crunch and stumble, the warped crampons sliding off my feet. We eventually stop at the edge of a couloir scattered with ice fragments. The passage is technical; thick snowfall dims visibility. Go any farther and we鈥檙e pushing our luck for no good reason. It鈥檚 time to turn back.

鈥淲e have a saying,鈥� says Bakhtyar, trying to lighten the mood. 鈥淭ouching the top is not like touching the stone of Kaaba,鈥� a reference to a sacred shrine in Mecca. I catch my breath. Balazs tightens his gaiters while Bakhtyar takes selfies. Then we turn and start down.

The going is smooth until the ice runs out and we鈥檙e on rock and scree. Bakhtyar decides we鈥檒l follow a different route down, one that leads us through an alley of loose, rain-slicked rock. Clumsy steps send a jackrabbit scrambling up the opposite side of the ravine, giving me a jolt. To keep my mind occupied, I take a cue from Bakhtyar and look for wild mushrooms, which are plentiful this time of year.

And then I spot another mine. I warn Balazs to give it a wide berth. We shuffle down the scree with active feet, nervous and hyperalert, studying the ground obsessively. Bakhtyar is way ahead of us, singing along to folk songs about PKK martyrs. He has supreme confidence in his memory鈥攐r a cool fatalism I don鈥檛 share.

Nabil is sucking on a cigarette when we reach the truck. Butts dot the ground. Apparently he strayed from the 鈥渟afe route鈥� he intended to follow, an error he realized only when he looked up and saw skull-and-bones markers staring back at him. 鈥淢an, I nearly shit myself,鈥� he says. He swipes his phone to show us the highlights, including an unexploded 82-millimeter mortar round.

The sun dips behind us on our drive back to Choman, casting shadows on Mount Sakran, across the valley. Beyond it lies the Iranian frontier, where in 2009 three young American hikers were arrested by border guards and imprisoned鈥攐ne for 14 months, the others for more than two years. This foreboding stretch of land is seeded with land mines and the bones of countless Iranian troops who parachuted into paradise during the war. To this day, snipers stationed at the high army posts take potshots at Kurdish shepherds who wander too close. At night their floodlights glare down like menacing eyes.

Near the bottom of the mountain, we pass a scruffy Western backpacker on foot. Nabil throws the truck in reverse and we greet him. He says his name is Kaspars, that he鈥檚 from Latvia, and that he plans to climb Halgurd at dawn. 鈥淪ome locals are going to meet me at the top,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey told me it鈥檚 easy. Just follow the path.鈥�

鈥淲ho told you that?鈥� Bakhtyar says, scowling.

The kid can鈥檛 remember their names but assures us: 鈥淭hey are nice guys.鈥�

鈥淵ou know, there are mine fields up there,鈥� I say. 鈥淣o joke鈥攚e just walked out of one.鈥� Everyone chimes in, and the Latvian seems to reconsider. We wish him luck. For the rest of the drive, Bakhtyar grumbles about who Kaspars might have talked to, the dangerous ignorance of some people in Choman, and the general lack of order since the park project fell apart.

By definition, war is the enemy of development and tourism. Sometimes, though, it鈥檚 nature鈥檚 friend. According to Bakhtyar, the only part of Halgurd-Sakran National Park where poachers and tree cutters don鈥檛 operate with impunity is the roughly 20 percent under the control of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. 鈥淭hey are hardcore fighters, but they also care a lot about nature,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 at the heart of their philosophy.鈥�

I want to meet these conservationist rebels. Their stronghold is just a short drive from Choman, one valley over, in the Qan颅dil Mountains. Trouble is, since fighting resumed with Turkey three years ago, air strikes and shelling attacks there have escalated. And with the presidential elections coming up in Turkey, the military has been ratcheting up bombardments to please its Islamist nationalist base.

My first e-mail query to the PKK came back negative. Near the end of our stay in Choman, I follow up. We don鈥檛 need a formal reception, I write鈥攚e just want to make a quick stop at a martyrs鈥� museum and cemetery that Nabil visited several years earlier, to take pictures and learn more about how the PKK is protecting its homeland from pollution, poaching, and overdevelopment. This time the guerrillas鈥� contact, nom de guerre Zagros, agrees.

鈥淵ou can visit the Museum,鈥� he writes. 鈥淵ou can also visit the site of the Zargali massacre. As I told you, the guerrillas cannot accompany you. Better not to stay in the area for too long. Because both of the sites have been bombarded before.鈥�

Twenty minutes south of Choman, we reach the turn to the Qandil Mountains. The sign at the junction gives no indication of where we are, as though the valley road does not exist. Nabil gets out at the KDP checkpoint to register our names with local authorities, who tell us we鈥檙e on our own. We wrap around a ridge and a lush green vista unfurls in front of us. A couple of miles on, two PKK guerrillas emerge from the trees in traditional Kurdish shawls, Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, their vests sagging with the weight of hand grenades. They wave us on.

We鈥檙e waiting by a destroyed hillside portrait of Abdullah Ocalan, the group鈥檚 founder, when Zagros pulls up and extends a hand. 鈥淵ou are most welcome in Qandil,鈥� he says. I thank him and ask about the drones from Turkey. 鈥淭hey are not here at the moment, but when they see guerrilla clothes, armed men, they call in jets, which arrive in less than 15 minutes. The past few months have been especially bad鈥攖hey hit this road three days ago.鈥� Zagros suggests we head toward the museum. 鈥淎lso bombed,鈥� he adds with an apologetic smile.

I鈥檓 eager to move. Balazs and I join Zag颅ros in his truck, and it dawns on me that we鈥檙e going to be driving 30 miles on a road that is regularly targeted by air strikes. With Nabil trailing us, we鈥檙e in what amounts to a convoy. In his blunt, Hungarian manner, Balazs voices what I鈥檓 thinking: 鈥淭here are no other cars on the road.鈥� Farther along, the charred wreckage of a family vehicle destroyed by a Turkish strike offers a visual we would rather not see.

Zagros drives with the beatific expression of a man who has surrendered to his fate. Handsome, with a strong, dimpled chin and a brushy black mustache, he says he used to be a high school teacher in western Iran, living a comfortable middle-class life. But he was haunted by the persecution of his people. When Ocalan was captured during a joint U.S.-Turkish operation in Kenya in 1999 and placed in solitary confinement in Turkey, Zagros came to view him as something like a Kurdish Nelson Mandela.

鈥淭hrough him, I felt the isolation of the Kurds, that the Kurds have no friends in the world,鈥� he says. He left Iran for the mountains, later joined by five students鈥攖wo of whom have since been killed. 鈥淢y concern is not for myself but for my people,鈥� Zagros says. 鈥淧KK is not only a party, it鈥檚 a new way of life, a new world vision.鈥�

He ticks off the movement鈥檚 basic goals: the right to self-determination, the liberation of women, and the protection of the environment. He says that respect for the land and ethnic diversity were destroyed by modern nation-states like Turkey, the militants鈥� archnemesis, which has tried to erase the identity of its 15 million Kurds, in part by repressing the Kurdish language. 鈥淚f real democracy is achieved in these countries, the Kurdish question will be resolved,鈥� he says. 鈥淯ntil then we will fight, as long as it takes.鈥�

Women make up more than 45 percent of the PKK鈥檚 ranks, from foot soldiers to commanders. Cruising along, we pass giant billboards that show photographs of female guerrillas who were killed in battle against the Islamic State, draped in ammo belts and thick hair braids. Some are buried in the martyrs鈥� cemetery, where the rows of gravestones are lined with roses and grouped according to the battles they were in: Sinjar, Al Hasakah, Kobani. The museum that stood here at the time of Nabil鈥檚 last visit is now just a hole in the ground. An unexploded bomb rests in the adjacent crater.

Near the end of the valley, Zagros stops at a Kurdish nomad camp. We spread out on a tattered kilim in the shade of a tree, and a woman with facial tattoos brings us a pot of hot tea and sugar cubes. Her sons are out grazing their flocks on meadows that run up the valley鈥檚 ridges. Moving with the seasons, living off the land, they are the embodiment of an ideal Zagros is ready to die for. For now the air trills with birdsong, rent by the barks of fighting mastiffs. The mountains brim with life.

They also take it.

The explosion echoes across the valley late in the afternoon, when demining teams around Choman are no longer working. Bakhtyar, Nabil, Balazs, and I are on a ridge outside of town, photographing the mountains, and it鈥檚 close enough to startle us. Bakhtyar texts around and learns that a local man named Haidar Shwan accidentally set off a mine near the Grmandil Mountains, one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Iran-Iraq War. He was blown to pieces.

Under a full moon, we drive up to a cemetery overlooking town. A single streetlamp lights a backhoe digging Haidar鈥檚 grave, a reminder that nighttime burials are not uncommon. I meet the victim鈥檚 brother, who shows me a picture of Haidar: soldier, father of four, and the sixth member of his family killed by a land mine. He suspects Haidar was taking the mine apart for the gunpowder, which sells for $45 a pound on the black market. 鈥淚t was one of his hobbies,鈥� the brother says.

Packs of men file in from the darkness and gather around the grave, murmuring, until the crowd numbers more than 400. A few shed tears, but most remain stoic, partaking in a ritual of shared grief that has affected families in Choman as far back as they can remember. They鈥檝e all been here before, and they will be here again.

The casket is lowered and spades are handed out. Young men take turns furiously shoveling dirt into the hole, as though Haidar鈥檚 safe passage to heaven depended on their speed. Five hours after he was killed, he鈥檚 underground. The imam offers a prayer, and everyone goes home.

Our last day in the mountains is May Day, and for Kurds that means picnics. Nabil, Balazs, and I take the valley road out of Choman toward the Iranian border, until the pavement ends. We park by a stream too fast to ford, and a group of friends from Erbil wave us over to their fire for chicken skewers and fermented goat鈥檚 milk. We eat our fill and talk about why the U.S., staunch ally of the Kurds since the Saddam era, didn鈥檛 back last year鈥檚 ill-fated independence bid, considering all the social and economic progress and stability that Iraqi Kurdistan has achieved compared with the rest of Iraq. I don鈥檛 have a good answer.

As we get up to leave, one man warns half-jokingly: 鈥淒on鈥檛 walk too close to Iran.鈥� We hike across a moraine and crest a small ridge to find a potbellied man in pantaloons bent over, staring at the ground, an AK-47 strapped to his back. Kayvan Ezzat, a 37-year-old policeman, is mushroom hunting and invites us to tag along. 鈥淚鈥檓 fat, but I can climb the mountains all day,鈥� he says with a toothy grin. 鈥淲alking out here will make all your troubles go away.鈥� Though with wild animals around and hostile Iranian soldiers within firing range, he always brings the gun. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like having 50 men with you,鈥� he explains.

I ask how he knows where to step. 鈥淚 know because I鈥檝e been walking in these hills since I was a boy,鈥� he says. 鈥淗ere is OK, but there and there,鈥� he adds, tracing lines with his hand that I can鈥檛 begin to see, 鈥渁re not OK.鈥�

The mind starts to play its games. My time in Kurdistan has shown me that even confident, in-the-know locals have their blind spots, and missteps can be fatal. I鈥檝e also come to understand that the Kurds鈥� nature-loving ways are inseparable from the threats that seed and surround their homeland. Living at danger鈥檚 edge has a way of magnifying the essential. And in the moment, these haunted mountains sharpen my senses, quicken my pulse, and whisper vast possibilities to be explored. The old expression 鈥淜urds have no friends but the mountains鈥� has a new layer of meaning.

I take in the breeze and exhale. I鈥檒l just follow the policeman鈥檚 tracks. And try to think of mushrooms.

Jason Motlagh () wrote about the Afghan sport of buzkashi in November 2017.

The post My Crazy Kurdistan Road Trip appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

A dead black calf is dumped from the back seat of a Toyota Corolla. The game ball, in other words, has arrived. Deflated. All the intestines have been yanked out and the head and hooves sawed off, to avoid cutting the hands of the 40-odd horsemen warming up their stallions for a buzkashi battle, here on the bone-dry steppe of northwestern Afghanistan.聽

Jahangir is a 38-year-old champion from Shiberghan, a sprawling district of 160,000. He steps down from the grandstand into hard sun. Draped in a silk riding robe and clean-shaven but for a faint mustache, he walks with the bull-necked swagger of a man known to all by his first name. The arena floor鈥攖he size of three football fields, walled off to keep the horses from bolting鈥攊s beaten down from five months of play. Jahangir鈥檚 groom unfurls a blanket and helps him change into match attire: quilted gray jacket and pants, layers of wraparound padding, and high leather boots reinforced with wooden stakes, to keep his shins from snapping under the force of the one-ton beasts that will soon be crashing into him. He swaps his turban for a telbek, the fur-trimmed hat favored by his Turkic ancestors. An AK-47-wielding bodyguard, a war veteran on crutches, and several boys watch the ritual in rapt silence.聽

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Swinging onto his mount, Jahangir struts out to join the ragged mix of riders donning secondhand judo jackets and Russian tank helmets. They line up and pay their respects to local VIPs and fans (all male), then implode into a horse-powered meat grinder, fighting to get within arm鈥檚 reach of the calf. To win a cycle of buzkashi, a player, while remaining on horseback, must bend down into a maelstrom of thrashing legs and teeth and snatch the roughly 100-pound carcass from the ground, sprint around a flag at the far end of the arena, and drop it inside a chalked circle, all while opponents do everything they can to steal it from his grasp. Sometimes teams compete head-to-head, but usually it鈥檚 every man for himself. Matches last about two hours or until the supply of calves runs out. Deaths are rare, but fractured limbs and nasty cuts are inevitable.聽

During today鈥檚 match, one of the first players to score approaches the stands with blood seeping from his eye. The announcer shouts 鈥淟ong live Gholam!鈥� into a megaphone. The player nods, tucks a $20 cash prize into his jacket, and turns back toward the scrum. The game is rumbling again at midfield, folding into itself and spitting riders back out, only to see them whack their horses鈥� flanks, rear up on hind legs, and thrust once more into the chaos of flesh and bone.

This is Buzkashi, the national sport of Afghanistan. The word means 鈥済oat grabbing鈥� in Persian, but goats are seldom used anymore because of their tendency to tear apart. Though buzkashi is , easy analogies don鈥檛 fit. No mallets or sticks are involved, and there鈥檚 nothing remotely elegant or aristocratic about it.

Think of buzkashi鈥檚 place in Afghan culture this way: if America鈥檚 most beloved professional sport, football, offers viewers the spectacle of ritualized violence, buzkashi is closer to all-out combat, a contest stripped of excessive rules and play stoppages. Instead of billionaire owners, top riders and teams are often bankrolled by former warlords with a lot of blood on their hands. Some of these men still want to destroy each other鈥攁nd might try, were it not for political and financial incentives to maintain a veneer of stability. In lieu of direct conflict, mutual hostilities are sublimated into buzkashi, a wildly popular proxy contest where reputations are made and broken.聽

Jahangir鈥檚 renown as a chapandaz (buzkashi player) spans northern Afghanistan, thanks to a swashbuckling style that blends raw power and technique. On horseback, he maneuvers his 240-pound bulk with the ease of a man half his size, able to swivel and dive and pick up a calf with one hand. Several local aficionados鈥攎ost of them Uzbek鈥攖old me that he鈥檚 the best in all of Jowzjan province, and therefore, to them, the best聽in the land.

But on this warm March afternoon in Shiberghan, near the end of a tough five-month winter season, Jahangir hangs back from the action as his younger brother, Najibullah, and eldest son, Akbar, take turns winning play cycles that have the slack feel of a pickup game. Fans squat in the half-empty stands, the crack of sunflower seeds audible as the match grinds on.

The lone flash of Jahangir鈥檚 dominance comes when a Turkish diplomat arrives with a detail of gunmen. Turkey, a major investor in the region, helped pay for the upgrade of the local buzkashi grounds, as well as schools and a new mosque. Jahangir approaches the stands to greet the visitor. Then, flaunting his status, he barrels into the fray and seizes the calf. Whip clenched in his teeth, he charges through the circle to claim the highest prize of the day: $50 cash. For the rest of the match, though, he looks bored. Pocket money and coffee mugs stamped with the Turkish flag are hardly worth the effort.聽

鈥淲hen the general is around, the competition is much better,鈥� Akbar says near the end, lamenting the dull level of play. 鈥淩ight now we鈥檙e just keeping the game alive.鈥�

The general is Abdul Rashid Dostum, 63, the godfather of Afghanistan鈥檚 Uzbek minority, a leading buzkashi sponsor, and the nation鈥檚 current vice president. Once a street-brawling gas-field worker, he rose from obscurity to become Afghanistan鈥檚 most notorious warlord, through legendary feats of battlefield bravery, butchery, and opportunism. In the 1980s, as a militia commander under the Communist regime, he fought against the U.S.-backed mujahideen. He allied with Islamist radicals during the civil war, switching sides several times before joining the Northern Alliance and fighting alongside U.S. Special Forces on horseback to overthrow the Taliban government in 2001.

For a time, Dostum was America鈥檚 man in Afghanistan, a hard-charger who got things done. But in the early aughts, as the U.S. ramped up its nation-building efforts, American officials tried to sideline him for reckless behavior and alleged war crimes鈥攊ncluding the killing of several hundred surrendered Taliban prisoners who were suffocated and shot inside metal shipping crates in the desert. For his part, Dostum has bragged that he has a Ph.D. in killing militants.

If the general has a soft spot, it鈥檚 his love of horses. Once a chapandaz himself, he聽recruited riders to his first militia campaign and led epic cavalry charges against the Taliban on his favorite white mount, Sorkhan. War spoils enabled him to become one of the country鈥檚 top buzkashi sponsors, with his own team and stables stocked with stallions imported from Central Asia. His affection for the sport is so well-known that the Taliban once tried to assassinate him by sewing explosives into a saddle.

In the past, on most Friday afternoons in winter, Dostum could be found holding court on a sofa at the center of the grandstand in Shiberghan, handing out $500 prizes鈥攐r, if he was feeling especially generous, the keys to sport-utility vehicles. Not this season. For the past four months, the general has been holed up in one of his mansions, hundreds of miles away in Kabul, the Afghan capital, fighting for his political life.聽

In late November of 2016, Dostum鈥檚 lust for buzkashi and bullying . A surreal YouTube filmed before a match shows him sobbing in the snowfall as musicians sing a tribute to a pair of his bodyguards, killed three weeks earlier during a Taliban ambush of his convoy in a neighboring province. Emboldened by gains in the south and east, the militants had intensified their campaign across northern Afghanistan. It was the latest of many attempts on Dostum鈥檚 life, and he was angry about the lack of support from the technocrats in Kabul.

According to witnesses, buzkashi play began, and a rider sponsored by Ahmad Eschi, a former governor of Jowzjan and longtime Dostum rival, won the first round. The general may have been triggered by what he took as disrespect in his own backyard. Eschi, 63, was called over to Dostum and, according to Eschi and other witnesses, thrown to the ground and punched in the face. In front of a crowd numbering more than 2,000, Dostum聽stepped on Eschi鈥檚 chest and threatened to kill him. Eschi was then taken to one of Dostum鈥檚 properties, where he alleges that he was beaten, humiliated, and anally penetrated with the barrel of an AK-47. Eschi shared this story publicly, offering inconclusive medical evidence to support his claim.

Dostum鈥檚 camp, which didn鈥檛 respond to 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 request for an interview, has denied the charges. In late 2016, a Dostum spokesman named Bashir Ahmad Tayanj said the allegations were false. Dostum鈥檚 supporters have also claimed that Eschi had been arrested鈥攏ot abducted鈥攂ecause they believed he was aiding the Taliban.

Western officials and human rights groups urged Afghanistan鈥檚 president, Ashraf Ghani, a brainy former World Bank executive, to take swift action, calling the case a critical test of civilian rule. The attorney general opened a criminal case against Dostum and nine of his bodyguards that is still pending.聽

Sixteen years after the Taliban were evicted to set Afghanistan on a tentative path to democracy, Dostum鈥檚 alleged act of barbarism is emblematic of the power warlords still hold. That he would attack Eschi while serving as vice president exposed both the weakness of the government and the folly of Western countries that endorse men of his repute to build up a credible, functioning state. Such impunity is what gave rise to the Taliban in the first place, and their stubborn grip on every level of authority now poses as dire a threat to the country as the insurgency itself.聽

Yet it was no coincidence that the general鈥檚 outburst happened at a buzkashi arena.聽The sport may seem like nothing but brutish entertainment. In fact, it remains the best context for understanding a chronic颅ally unstable, strategically vital region where power is always in flux and symbolic challenges to authority can spill dangerously out of bounds.聽

The origins of buzkashi are a matter of dispute. Some historians believe it dates back more than 2,000 years, to the time when Alexander the Great marched through present-day Afghanistan. Others say it evolved as a training exercise for Genghis Khan鈥檚 Mongol raiding parties. Whatever the truth, the sport has endured for centuries across the vast and rugged Central Asian heartland, with slight variations.

In Kazakhstan they call it kokpar, and riders dump the calf into a raised earthen goal. In Kyrgyzstan, kokboru players carry the calf to opposing end zones, and matches are held in hippodromes. In parts of western China, they play with yak carcasses. Only in Afghanistan does the game rise above mere sport to become an arena for the political struggles that have convulsed the multi-ethnic, tribal nation throughout its history.

鈥淏uzkashi, like Afghan politics, features powerful individuals rather than fixed rules,鈥� says American anthropologist Whitney Azoy, author of , the definitive study of the national pastime. 鈥淣orms for both games exist in theory, but the incessant struggle for control鈥攆or a carcass or a country鈥攊s played with slight regard for the niceties of loyal teamwork or agreed-upon rules.鈥�

When Azoy began his fieldwork in the 1970s, Afghanistan was nearing the end of a peaceful interlude, after decades as a stomping ground in the Great Game between Russia and Great Britain. Buzkashi was still the domain of rural khans whose ability to sponsor days-long events鈥攋udged by the quality of the riders, guests attracted, and prizes鈥攚as a barometer of social standing. Successful chapandazan became folk heroes, known widely by their first names. The Afghan government seized on the sport to deepen its authority at the provincial level. The traditional one-against-all format, tudabarai, in which riders must break free of the pack and keep control of the calf, was phased out for a more organized form known as qarajai, with teams and flags. But the imposed order didn鈥檛 last.聽

In 1978, a Soviet-backed Communist party seized power in the capital, sparking an armed uprising in the countryside. Moscow dispatched advisers and troops to bolster the regime, while the U.S. and Saudi Arabia ramped up support for the rebels. The following year, according to a report in Newsweek, 50 Russian soldiers were massacred at a buzkashi event in Mazar-e-Sharif, the largest city in the north. A deadly attack at another event moved officials to ban the sport, declaring it 鈥渂ackward.鈥�

More than six million Afghans were uprooted by the Soviet-Afghan War, mostly to Pakistan, and buzkashi went with them. Though some of the best horses were conscripted to run guerrilla guns through the borderlands, top chapandazan competed in the refugee camps around Peshawar. These events were usually sponsored by ambitious mujahideen commanders flush with foreign money and weapons. When the Red Army retreated in 1989, the factions lost a common enemy and turned on each other. As Azoy notes, Afghanistan鈥檚 鈥渇igurative goat grab became ever more chaotic.鈥�

Over the next three years, Kabul was leveled and another 700,000 people fled across the border. This vacuum spawned the Taliban, a fundamentalist movement that pledged to restore order while forbidding almost everything: Western music, films, singing, dancing, kite flying, even marbles. (Buzkashi was tolerated in some parts of the country.) Then came the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban were blamed for sheltering Osama bin Laden, and America鈥檚 attention swung back to Central Asia. Dostum, exiled in Turkey at that time, returned to spearhead part of the CIA-backed Northern Alliance that ousted the militants.

Meanwhile, foreign money poured in. Better security and a windfall of reconstruction funds from the U.S. and its NATO partners helped fuel a buzkashi renaissance, led by commanders and agile businessmen who had thrived in the wartime economy. Buzkashi let Dostum indulge in his favorite hobby and burnish his name as the undisputed guardian of his ethnic kinsmen, on a stage where he was the star and director.

Ahmad Eschi had long defied Dostum鈥檚 power over the country鈥檚 two million ethnic Uzbeks. The two had been allies under the former Communist regime鈥攁nd had even started a political party together鈥攂ut they fell out when Eschi refused to support Dostum as head of a regional militia. Eschi went on to hold top government positions in Jowzjan, and his sons were rising stars on the regional political scene, which represented a challenge to the Dostum family dynasty. More recently, Eschi had started building up his own team, going so far as to host Tuesday matches ahead of the usual Friday competition sponsored by the general.

鈥淲hat better place to show who鈥檚 boss than at a buzkashi,鈥� Azoy told me in an e-mail when news first broke of Dostum鈥檚 alleged assault on Eschi. 鈥淎gain the question is: To what extent can the will of one individual dominate the buzkashi landscape? A real question, because it seems that even in this century, buzkashi remains the most public arena for displays of naked power.鈥�

Big brother鈥搒tyle billboards of the bearish Dostum are everywhere in Shiberghan: in a suit and tie next to President Ghani, praying in white robes opposite the main mosque, reading a book to children. The predominant images are versions of a poster mounted at the city gates. It shows the buzz-cut general in camo fatigues and a flak vest, on the front lines of a gunfight with the Taliban, black eyebrows arched in a wrathful scowl.

When I first visited the city, in August 2009, Dostum, then the army chief of staff, had just flown back from exile in Turkey. It was the day before national elections, and the general was invited home by then President Hamid Karzai to deliver Uzbek votes critical to Karzai鈥檚 eventual victory, despite public warnings from the U.S. ambassador that Dostum鈥檚 presence would 鈥渆ndanger much of the progress made in Afghanistan.鈥澛�

In the center of town I found Dostum鈥檚 palace, a square-block property ringed by flesh-colored walls and whimsical cupolas. Gunmen loitered in hundred-degree heat, slung with machine guns and grenade launchers. A group of men near the entrance confirmed that they鈥檇 vote for Karzai simply because the general said so. One man said he鈥檇 jump down a well if Dostum wished.

鈥淭he main reason I came back was concern about the fate of my people in our country,鈥� Dostum told me after I was called inside. 鈥淚 thought, if Dostum does not come back, my region, the most powerful in the country, will not take part, and this would be bad for the image of Afghanistan.鈥� He claimed that 20,000 people had come to see him over the past two days. 鈥淲hy did they come to meet me? Because they are afraid the Taliban are approaching. By having General Dostum in the northern provinces, the people will again feel like they are in the belly of their mothers.鈥�

Eight years later, in March of 2017, the Taliban were resurgent in the north and Dostum was AWOL again. Several weeks before I turned up in Shiberghan with photographer Balazs Gardi, at least ten people were reported kidnapped in the area, one of them murdered in captivity. Militants were moving freely in the suburbs. Although Dostum had dispatched 200 gunmen from Kabul to secure the streets, a menacing pall hung over the city.聽

At the palace, concrete walls now block the side entrance, but the pale pink paint is still here. Inside the courtyard, giant portraits of Dostum are complemented by posters of his eldest son and heir, 29-year-old Batur, who runs a charity and TV station, in large part to soften his father鈥檚 image. Short and pudgy cheeked, Batur needs some hardening. A picture of him posing next to his dad with a gun does not inspire confidence.

In the morning, we meet with Haji Gholam Sakhi, the 65-year-old Dostum-appointed head of the provincial buzkashi federation, and his son Asif at a crumbling mud compound that houses their extended family. With a yellow grin, Sakhi says he was never much of a player, but his three sons are all respected chapandazan. At the rear of the courtyard, past hay bales and dried sheepskins, I find a yard sale of gear: jackets, helmets, tactical elbow pads, and shin guards made from sections of PVC pipe.聽

Sakhi takes me to the stalls where his horses are boarded. He shows me a small brown stallion on the left: until two years ago, it was the only horse he could afford. One day in 2015, at a buzkashi, the general called Sakhi over and asked, 鈥淲hy do you ride such an un-noble horse?鈥� He told Jahangir to give Sakhi a white mare from his personal stables. It was the same horse I saw Sakhi riding at the buzkashi, shuttling between the scrum and grandstand, happy to be in the orbit of play.聽

When I ask Sakhi for his thoughts on Friday鈥檚 match, he flares up about the pitiful prizes. The season tanked after Dostum left town, and the government is doing nothing to help the struggling chapandazan. 鈥淲ithout Dostum, buzkashi is dead,鈥� he says.

I ask about the alleged violence against Eschi. He pauses and throws me a leery glance. 鈥淭hese are lies, lies created by enemies of the general,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he horses crashed into the stands, that鈥檚 why Eschi was hurt.鈥�

鈥淵ou know that Eschi is a Communist,鈥� he adds鈥攏ever mind that Dostum has been one himself. Then the final insult: 鈥淎nd none of his sons play buzkashi!鈥澛�

I鈥檓 trying to shift back to small talk when Asif, who is Sakhi鈥檚 middle son, interrupts. 鈥淗ow come the United States is not supporting Afghan buzkashi?鈥� he says. 鈥淲e are great sportsmen, playing the hardest game, and we get nothing!鈥� Considering how much the U.S. has squandered on half-baked goodwill initiatives, it鈥檚 a fair question. I reply that we have a chance to promote the sport in print, which sets up something I鈥檇 wanted to ask: Would he be willing to arrange a buzkashi lesson for me? I鈥檇 pay, of course.聽

Sakhi鈥檚 mood brightens鈥攅asy money is coming his way. 鈥淵es,鈥� he says, smiling, 鈥渂ut you have to be prepared to get hurt.鈥� We settle on a price that includes the cost of a buz, a slaughtered, sewn-up calf. Not too large, I tell him. And no need to invite anyone else.

The next morning, two cars full of men are parked in front of Sakhi鈥檚 house. I have unsettling visions of a crowd gathering as chapandazan from the far corners of the province mobilize to compete against a foolish American. I remind Sakhi that this is a training session. 鈥淏ut we must have guests!鈥� he insists, adding that he needs more money up front to buy gifts for them.

鈥淣o, no, this is not a real buzkashi,鈥� I say. 鈥淗alf the money now for the calf, the rest when it鈥檚 done, as we agreed.鈥� I hand him $100. He takes it and shrugs.

A fierce wind is licking sheets of dirt off the ground as our caravan pulls into the arena. It鈥檚 deserted, to my relief. I take cover in the grandstand and let Sakhi鈥檚 grandkids go to work fitting me with buzkashi garb. Asif has an exam this morning, so his grizzled older brother, Gholam, shows up to lead the lesson, sporting stitches on his face from a horse kick. He walks me over to a stallion named Brown. Scar tissue at the corners of his mouth attests to a lifetime of manhandling.

We鈥檙e joined by five young chapandazan and Commander Saifullah, a stocky provincial recruiter for the Afghan Army. He had participated in the Friday buzkashi and had fallen off his horse, and he didn鈥檛 want to miss a chance to show me up. I鈥檓 just winging it, as green as they come. The last time I was on a horse was more than a year before鈥攐n a slow joyride through a Cuban sugar plantation.聽

I climb onto Brown and try to guide him with my hips. He鈥檚 unresponsive. A gentle smack on the behind doesn鈥檛 help, either. Gholam grunts and shows me how it鈥檚 done. Jerking his reins hard right, then left, whipsawing his mount鈥檚 head, he tells me to steer 鈥渓ike driving a car.鈥�

The buz I paid for weighs no more than 50 pounds, half as much as the ones used in a normal match, but I can鈥檛 pick it up, even at a standstill. After some awkward groping, Gholam grabs my reins, allowing me to get a grip on the buz while trying not to fall off the horse. Instead of heading toward the flag, Brown trots straight into the corner of the arena. Then he lurches through an open gate slot to shave me off his back.聽

I swap for a shorter horse and snatch the buz without much trouble. Soon we鈥檙e bolting across the pitch. I turn around to see Gholam flogging my horse鈥檚 rump to make him go faster. I鈥檓 in a steady rhythm, head back, savoring the rush of flight鈥攗ntil Gholam鈥檚 mount, baring teeth and frothing pink from the harsh work, exacts revenge on my thigh, chomping down hard. The pain is electric, but adrenaline is surging and there鈥檚 no stopping us. We round the flag and charge another 80 yards toward the scoring circle, where I manage to accurately drop the calf.

Soon, back in the scrum again, flailing for a grip, heels over head, I feel the graze of a hoof against my beard. Any closer and I鈥檇 be missing teeth. The other riders are not so much competing as seeing how hard they can push my limits. After an hour of rough riding, I鈥檓 caked in dirt, crunching grit between my molars, aching all over, and totally exhilarated.聽

Gholam gives me a firm handshake and, in a bit of tip-seeking flattery, says that if I keep training I have promise. I pay out what鈥檚 owed to Sakhi. The filthy buz is thrown in the back of his station wagon for dinner. Sakhi聽is grinning again.

鈥淪o now what do you think of buzkashi?鈥� Jahangir asks afterward. We鈥檙e late for our lunch appointment at Dostum鈥檚 stables, but the champion is amused that I鈥檝e tried it, even more so by my limp.

鈥淚t鈥檚 much harder than it looks.鈥� He gives me a gap-toothed smile.聽

During our first meeting at the Friday buzkashi, Jahangir kept his distance. As a confidante of Dostum鈥檚, he was probably wary of foreign journalists using the sport as a way to dig up dirt about Eschi. A phone call from a former Dostum staffer seemed to ease his mind, and he was keen to show us hospitality as a pahlawan, the honorific title given to leading buzkashi players.聽

Now we鈥檙e his guests at Tolai Sawar, an equestrian fortress owned by Dostum,聽with a commanding view of the arena and surrounding plains. 国产吃瓜黑料, some 50 horses聽eat from adobe grain silos, watched by guards in crenellated turrets. We sit on rugs as servants arrive with trays of food: pulao with shards of carrot, freshly picked greens, home颅颅made yogurt, and baby lamb fried in onion, complete with the head. Jahangir cracks its skull open with his meaty hands and offers me a spoonful of brain. 鈥淪o long as you are with me,鈥� he assures us, 鈥測ou have nothing to worry about.鈥�

What about something to drink? Balazs and I look at each other鈥攚e鈥檙e in a strict Islamic country鈥攂ut it鈥檚 clear Jahangir expects company. A bottle of vodka appears and he pours out a round, filling his small tea glass to the brim and shooting it down. We obligingly sip ours. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not drinkers,鈥� he says with a hint of disappointment.聽

Heaping more pulao on our plates, Jahan颅gir says that the role of a pahlawan far exceeds playing the game. 鈥淲e must have good morals and be an example to the people.鈥� Sometimes he pays school tuition and medical costs for the poor. He also helps mediate disputes, like the time last year when two men were arrested in a nearby district on suspicion of being Taliban. Family members traveled to Shiberghan to plead with Jahangir, who relayed their message to Dostum. The general asked them to guarantee that their sons were not militants. They did, and the men were released. Jahangir was invited to a feast of thanks.聽

Jahangir was born in Khoja Doku, the same hardscrabble farming district Dostum comes from. His elder brother died while fighting for the general in the early 1990s, during the civil-war battle for Kabul. Jahangir started playing buzkashi as a teenager and, in his first year competing full-time, won an automobile at an event sponsored by Dostum. His skill attracted sponsors in Shiberghan, and later Mazar-e-Sharif, the epicenter of northern buzkashi, 50 miles to the east.

In the mid-nineties, when the Taliban ruled Kabul, Mazar was the seat of a Dostum mini state. He printed his own money, launched an airline, kept order, and championed women鈥檚 rights while cruising around in an armored Cadillac. But in 1995, a rival warlord took power and forced him into exile. He came back and briefly regained control of Mazar, until the Taliban drove him out. Three years later, he stormed back to liberate the city.

With the Taliban gone, Dostum and his arch-rival, Atta Mohammad Noor, a Tajik militia commander, fought each other for northern supremacy. Gun battles between their forces continued until a 2003 United Nations disarmament campaign kicked in. Dostum withdrew to his Shiberghan stronghold, and Noor became governor of Balkh in 2005鈥攁n ancient Silk Road town鈥攖rading fatigues and a long black beard for sleek suits and carefully groomed stubble.聽

Under Noor鈥檚 heel, Mazar has prospered relative to the rest of Afghanistan, with tight security, smooth roads, and a new rail link to other parts of Asia. Nothing happens without his knowledge. So when two Dostum portraits were removed last March from the city center, allegedly by men driving police vehicles, hundreds of Uzbek protesters raised hell in the streets. The portraits were soon restored, but renewed factional bloodshed seemed imminent.聽

In this volatile climate, the buzkashi arena has become a potential flash point for real violence. The Noor-Dostum feud barred top Uzbek players like Jahangir from competing in Mazar, while Tajiks stayed away from Shiberghan. And across the north, militant suicide bombers have been attacking buzkashi events with greater frequency, to sow fear among the public.聽

When Dostum asked Jahangir to lead his team in Shiberghan, Jahangir didn鈥檛 think twice. Along with horses from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Tolai Sawar boasts a clubhouse with a staff cook, fully equipped gym, pool table, and big-screen TV. Walls are plastered with pictures of Dostum and his favorite roughnecks, including Jahangir, Najib, and other top chapandazan.聽

Riding for Dostum earned Jahangir up to $50,000 in a good season, but his long-term outlook is iffy. His earnings during the 2015鈥�16 season were less than half what they were the year before. When I talked to him, Naw Ruz buzkashi, a big New Year鈥檚 event that usually promised the fattest prizes, was just a week away, but no sponsors had come forward. Now, four months after Dostum鈥檚 departure, it was not clear when the general would be back in Shiberghan. His prolonged absence had cut deeply into the riders鈥� livelihoods and left the door open to saboteurs and schemers who would exploit the slightest advantage鈥攁s Dostum himself had done throughout his career.

鈥淭hings are disorganized,鈥� Jahangir says. 鈥淚f there is not one strong man at the top, there will be chaos.鈥� He was referring to buzkashi, but he might as well have been talking about Afghanistan.

With competition in the cities debased by factional politics, the best buzkashi was to be found in the hinterlands. One afternoon we turned north off the highway that connects Mazar and Shiberghan and drove toward the outskirts of Balkh. Traveling through a craggy moonscape, we passed the remnants of towering fortress walls to reach a plateau where a match was under way. The air, thick with hash smoke, was charged by the announcer鈥檚 breathless commentary as riders swarmed over the calf, which was invisible in the dust. If not for the parked cars and Kalashnikovs, the scene could have been from a thousand years ago.聽

Idling on the fringe was Gulbuddin, a Pashtun regarded by many to be the best all-around chapandaz in Afghanistan. With wide, square shoulders and a short neck, he was unassuming except for the huge horse beneath him. He watched as the scrum crashed through a line of spectators and a breakaway pack chased the rider with the calf several hundred yards into an open field. The game drifted for a couple of minutes before the pack stormed back on the heels of two chapandaz, each pulling a calf leg so hard, it looked like the carcass might tear in half.

Finally, a rider managed to wrest away the calf, and Gulbuddin sprang into action. Bolting into a blind spot behind the man, he moved tight inside and deftly reached across his body to grip the calf鈥檚 hind leg, then pulled his mount hard right, wrenching the carcass free. The brazen theft, or chakkagir, had fans across the ethnic spectrum鈥擯ashtuns,聽Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras鈥攐n their feet. 鈥淕ulbuddin! Gulbuddin!鈥� they howled as he came around for an easy score.聽

At week鈥檚 end, back in Shiberghan, the final Friday buzkashi was abruptly canceled, a fitting conclusion to a disappointing season. Jahangir, Najib, and a handful of Dostum鈥檚 top riders were summoned to Kabul to have tea with the general before catching a morning flight back north and driving to a buzkashi near the Uzbek border.聽

Malik Tatar, an Uzbek militia commander and Dostum ally, had called for a two-day event in the northeastern province of Takhar to celebrate his marriage. The Taliban were active in the area, but with Dostum footing everyone鈥檚 travel costs, the chapandazan were willing to make the roundabout journey. In an effort to catch up with them, we booked a morning flight to Kabul, but the only connecting plane had left by the time we arrived.

The trip, we were later told, did not go well. On day one, about 200 competitors turned up, but Tatar provided only one horse for each Shiberghan guest, rather than the customary three or four, forcing them to borrow from locals. Jahangir still won three rounds, and Najib, his younger brother, took the last play cycle. That night the Taliban attacked the district administrative center.

鈥淭hey heard General Dostum鈥檚 chapandazan had come, so they wanted to kidnap us,鈥� a teammate of Jahangir鈥檚 told me. Taliban fighters struck again the next day, targeting the buzkashi with two long-range rocket-propelled grenades. There were no casualties, but the chapandazan fled under fire. Gun battles raged into the night between police and the militants, further damaging the host鈥檚 reputation.

With several days to spend in the capital before our flight home, we reached out to Dostum one last time, on the off chance that he might be in the mood to break his months-long silence. No go. The general was still holed up in his fortified compound, sleeping past noon and not speaking to reporters.

One man who did grant us an interview was Ahmad Eschi, his alleged victim. Eschi was staying in Kabul鈥檚 diplomatic quarter at his party headquarters, just a five-minute drive from Dostum鈥檚 place. Sandbags and an armored Humvee guarded the front gate. In the lobby, we passed a campaign poster for Eschi鈥檚 son Babaur, a member of the Jowzjan provincial council. Looking regal in an Uzbek turban and robe, his image was accompanied by a horse icon鈥攁 symbol used to identify him to illiterate voters at the polls.聽

Eschi entered with the cautious steps of a senior citizen recovering from illness. He told me he came from a family in Khoja Doku, where horses are at the core of existence and communal identity. 鈥淚f you have one day in your life, you must buy a horse,鈥� he explained. 鈥淚f you have two days, you must be armed. If you have three days, you get married. The horse is the priority鈥攖hey have been life partners of Turkmen since the beginning. It鈥檚 difficult to express how much I love them.鈥澛�

In recent years, Eschi conceded, he had invested in his own team to challenge Dostum鈥檚 reign. He was importing horses from Kyrgyzstan, and his chapandazan were getting better, competing head-on against the general鈥檚 riders.

The day of the attack, Eschi said, Dostum was already 鈥渁cting strangely,鈥� pacing around in the snow rather than taking his usual seat. When one of Eschi鈥檚 riders won the opening play cycle, Eschi called his team over and told them to lay off to avoid angering the general.

But it was too late. He recalls Dostum shouting at him: 鈥淚 know what you have been doing. What if I make you the calf and order the players to play with you?鈥�

After getting beaten up on the playing field, Eschi said, he was forced into a black armored vehicle and driven to one of the general鈥檚 homes, where Dostum roamed the courtyard, cursing and circling back to punch him more, before ordering him taken to a basement, where, allegedly, he was to be gang-raped. Eschi alleges that Dostum鈥檚 men, unwilling to perform the act, instead shoved part of an AK-47 barrel into his anus. He blacked out. For the next five days, he was locked in an empty room, bloodied and pantsless. On the third day, he was allowed to wash himself; he was unable to recognize his own swollen face in the mirror. He was handed over to local intelligence officers and held ten more days in a detention center.

Eschi suspected that this was done to allow his wounds to heal in private, with the hope that shame would shut him up later. It didn鈥檛. In December of 2016, he appeared on national TV to share his sordid account鈥攁 taboo-breaking move in a macho, conservative society. 鈥淎ccording to laws of the Afghan constitution, he should be punished,鈥� Eschi said of Dostum. 鈥淚f nothing happens here, I will not rest. I will take this to the international criminal court if I must.鈥�

For six months, efforts to bring Dostum to justice went nowhere. He bucked the attorney general鈥檚 requests to appear for questioning, and when police surrounded his Kabul mansion to arrest his guards, the general called in reinforcements and seized checkpoints on a strategic hill overlooking his property. Afghan officials dared not force a confrontation, fearing that Dostum would retaliate by unleashing violence in the north. But a well-placed source in Dostum鈥檚 camp told me that he would soon leave the country in a face-saving move, likely under the pretense of seeking medical treatment.聽

In late May, the general decamped for Turkey on a nighttime flight, ending the embarrassing standoff at a dire moment for Afghanistan. A month after we left, Taliban suicide bombers disguised as army personnel struck a base in Mazar and killed more than 140 soldiers, the deadliest attack against Afghan forces since 2001. Then, on May 31, a massive truck bomb went off during morning rush hour in Kabul鈥檚 heavily fortified diplomatic quarter. The blast claimed more than 170 lives and injured some 500, the worst strike yet on the capital.聽

Now under siege by the Taliban and Islamic State, roughly half the country is controlled by insurgents. After two previous administrations spent 16 years to fight the longest war in U.S. history鈥攁t a cost of $800 billion and some 2,400 American lives鈥擯resident Donald Trump recently pledged to send thousands more reinforcements to avert the collapse of a government widely viewed as illegitimate. He has vowed to 鈥渇ight to win,鈥� but Afghans know better. For many, the state鈥檚 failure to hold Dostum accountable for the Eschi assault is proof that warlords are as strong and corrupt as ever, the rule of law a farce.聽

Public distrust has been compounded by the immunity granted to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamist militia leader behind some of the worst atrocities of the civil war. Protesters fill the streets nearly every day in Kabul, and many politicians, including cabinet members, are calling for President Ghani and his security ministers to resign.聽

In an about-face that would be stunning anywhere but Afghanistan, Governor Noor and General Dostum, sworn enemies for decades, have since formed an opposition alliance of ethnic minorities. Calling themselves the Coalition for the Salvation of聽Afghanistan, they accuse Ghani and fellow Pashtuns of monopolizing power and have threatened to take control of northern ministries and airports to 鈥減aralyze鈥� the government if they are not heeded.聽

In July, Dostum tried to fly back home from Turkey to lead the insurrection. His private jet was denied permission to land in Mazar, on orders from the central government. But it鈥檚 just a matter of time before he returns.聽

The buzkashi is on again.

Jason Motlagh () wrote about traveling through Central America鈥檚 Dari茅n Gap in the August 2016 issue. He is an international reporting fellow at the Pulitzer Center. Balazs Gardi () is an 国产吃瓜黑料 contributing photographer.

The post It鈥檚 Like the NFL. But with Horses and a Headless Calf. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

鈥淗uelo chilingos,” the boatman shouts over the drone of an outboard motor. I smell migrants.

I turn around and see nothing but a wall of dark, unruly jungle, then I slump back into the bow of the canoe. Five days we鈥檝e been out here, waiting for a group of foreigners to appear on this godforsaken smuggler鈥檚 route in the Dari茅n Gap, and all we have to show for it is sunburn and trench foot. Our search is starting to feel futile.

For centuries the lure of the unknown has attracted explorers, scientists, criminals, and other dubious characters to the Gap, a 10,000-square-mile rectangle of swamp, mountains, and rainforest that spans both sides of the border between Colombia and Panama. Plenty of things here can kill you, from venomous snakes to murderous outlaws who want your money and equipment. We鈥檝e come to find the most improbable travelers imaginable: migrants who, by choice, are passing through the Dari茅n region from all over the world, in a round-about bid to reach the United States and secure refugee status.

As traditional pathways to the U.S. become more difficult, Cubans, Somalis, Syrians, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, and many more have been heading to South American countries and traveling north, moving overland up the Central American isthmus. The worst part of this journey is through the Gap. The entire expanse, a roadless maze that travelers usually negotiate on foot and in boats, is dominated by narco traffickers and Cuba-backed guerrillas who鈥檝e been waging war on the government of Colombia since 1964. Hundreds of migrants enter each year; many never emerge, killed or abandoned by coyotes (migrant smugglers) on ghost trails.

Our attempted trip is possible only because we鈥檙e traveling with the permission of (FARC), the Marxist rebels who control access to the most direct line through the Gap鈥攁n unmarked, 50-mile, south-to-north route that鈥檚 also used to move weapons and cocaine. Following months of negotiations, FARC commanders based in Havana have agreed to let us attempt the trek and visit a guerrilla camp, so long as we keep the main focus on migration, not politics. After five decades of fighting, at a cost of more than 220,000 lives on both sides, FARC and the Colombian government are in the final stages of a peace deal that would end Latin America鈥檚 longest-running insurgency. No more complications are needed.

Having spent the better part of a week idle in Bijao鈥攁 ramshackle hamlet on Colombia鈥檚 Cacarica River, which a group of migrants is said to be approaching鈥攚e鈥檙e restless. So today we traveled three hours by boat to visit FARC rebels on an adjoining waterway. An entire morning was spent hacking through spider-infested mangrove swamps to reach their camp, only to be told that our scheduled interview is off because they don鈥檛 have their uniforms with them.

We are on our way back to the village, cursing our bad luck, when the boatman repeats himself.

鈥淗uelo chilingos.鈥�

鈥淏ullshit,鈥� I sigh.

鈥淣o, man, he鈥檚 right鈥擨 think I saw an elbow,鈥� says , a Chilean photojournalist who鈥檚 traveling with me. Carlos, 50, has a knack for busting my balls at the worst moments, but he鈥檚 already standing up, camera in hand. Roger Arnold, a 48-year-old videographer I met in Afghanistan, who鈥檚 along to film our trip for a TV newsmagazine in Australia, is poised right beside him.

We round a bend and there they are: two Bangladeshis, bent over, sloshing forward in waterlogged rubber boots. They give us a nervous grin, thumbs up. Twenty yards ahead of them, a big, shirtless Colombian coyote is towing a canoe that contains another half-dozen migrants. Several Nepalis slog alongside.

I catch up to explain that we鈥檙e journalists, but none of the men speak much English. Nor do they believe what I鈥檓 telling them.

When I ask Arafat, a 20-year-old construction worker from the Noakhali district in southern Bangladesh, if his goal is to reach the United States, he shakes his head. 鈥淣o, no. Tourist,鈥� he says, patting his chest. 鈥淧roblem?鈥�

There鈥檚 no problem, I assure him as I approach the canoe, which is nearly scraping the bottom of the low-running river. Arafat鈥檚 friend Jafar leans back and laughs behind a pair of knockoff gold Ray-Bans. 鈥淵eah, man!鈥� he says. 鈥淧anama!鈥� More thumbs up.

This tourist charade soon falls apart. A pudgy Bangladeshi man named Momir, his face ghoulishly pale from fever, rejects the coyote鈥檚 order to get out of the boat when it runs aground. Arafat shows us a large gash on the bottom of his foot and refuses to walk any farther. The men are weak from days of traveling in muggy, 90-degree temperatures, subsisting on crackers and聽gulping river water. And they are scared. For all they know, we鈥檙e Colombian authorities about to arrest them, or bush thugs ready to strip them of their remaining cash, stitched inside the lining聽of their pants.

Jafar starts to cry, triggering an outburst of desperate pleas from the men. They flash scars on their wrists and stomachs; one is missing part of a finger. 鈥淏angladesh politics,鈥� a man named Nazrul says ruefully as he drags a hand across聽his neck.

During a three-month stint reporting in Bangladesh in 2013, I became familiar with its cutthroat political gangs and dismal working conditions. Activists, journalists, and opposition members are often hacked to death in public. Rising water levels are drowning farmlands. Rural laborers flock to hyper-crowded cities for work and find themselves locked in the bowels of unlicensed garment factories, toiling for 20 cents an hour.

It鈥檚 easy to understand why any sane person would leave such grim prospects behind. Harder to grasp is how these men ended up on the southern edge of the Dari茅n Gap, half a world away from home, without the faintest idea of the grueling trials ahead. Their willpower is amazing, but the Gap鈥檚 shadowy depths have swallowed travelers far more prepared. As聽we continue upriver together, it seems just as well that they are ignorant of the dangers.

is a remarkable feat of engineering that runs about 19,000 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, with just one break in the pavement: the Dari茅n Gap. Also known as El Tap贸n (鈥渢he plug鈥�), it can鈥檛 be bypassed on land. It鈥檚 roughly 100 miles wide, stretching all the way from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. It has long defied the advance of colonists, road builders, and would-be developers.

The Gap鈥檚 legend as a black zone is steeped in bloodshed and tragedy. After Spanish conquistadors discovered the region in 1501, they consolidated their first mainland colony in the Americas by slaughtering tens of thousands of natives, often by turning ravenous dogs loose on villages. The Spanish conquered the Amazon and the Andes but eventually gave up on taming the Gap, which became a bastion for pirates and runaway slaves. In 1699, more than 2,000 Scottish colonists perished from malaria and starvation, and in 1854 nine explorers died from disease and exposure on a U.S. Navy survey expedition, scuttling plans for a grand canal project through the isthmus. In more recent times, efforts to build a road link have foundered because of fears that foot-and-mouth disease could spread and devastate the U.S. beef industry, and because of resistance from the Kuna and Embera-Wounaan Indians who inhabit the rainforest.

The absence of any controlling authority in this wilderness has given free rein to armed groups. A military branch of FARC known as the 57th Front calls the shots around much of Colombia鈥檚 Choc贸 Department鈥攁 dirt-poor sliver of land in northwestern Colombia that overlaps the Gap and is one of the wettest places on earth鈥攁nd often moves freely back and forth across the porous border with Panama, a vital transit area for arms shipments and the cocaine exports that fund its war chests.

In the early years of Colombia鈥檚 civil conflict, adventurers could still move through the Gap by foot, motorbike, or four-wheeler. The first vehicular crossing was achieved in 1960 by a Jeep and Land Rover expedition, at an average speed of 220 yards per hour over 136 days. George Meegan of England went even farther, getting shot at in the Gap during an unbroken trek across the Western Hemisphere that he started in 1977. In the eighties, a British adventure travel company offered multiweek treks through the Gap. But by the mid-nineties, the prevalence of armed groups led to a plague of kidnappings, disappearances, and murders that put an end to such trips.

In 2000, two Brits, Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder, were taken hostage by FARC guerrillas while searching for rare orchids. They were held for nine months and threatened with execution before being released unharmed. In 2003, Robert Young Pelton, author of , and two backpackers were held for more than a week by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the formally demobilized right-wing militia that was once the largest paramilitary group in the country. In 2013, Jan Philip Braunisch, a Swedish traveler attempting to cross the Gap alone via the Cacarica River鈥攐ur planned route鈥攙anished in FARC territory. It later emerged that he was killed by a shot to the head.

Since the late aughts, U.S. authorities say, FARC has increasingly relied on the Dari茅n corridor to smuggle drugs north as traditional air and sea routes have been clipped. Fierce competition for massive drug profits has also fueled the rise of neo-paramilitary groups that terrorize the region with wanton killings and armed assaults. The most powerful is the Clan 脷suga, a.k.a. Los Urabe帽os, a vicious gang made up of ex-AUC members. Seizing control of lucrative routes along the Caribbean coast, Los Urabe帽os has used its links with Mexico鈥檚 Sinaloa cartel to expand its presence around the country and challenge FARC in parts of Choc贸.

When migrants began turning up near the border, both groups started using well-worn drug-smuggling routes to move human traffic for money. Over the past ten years, this flow has swelled to a steady stream as the standard maneuvers for reaching or rooting in the U.S., like overstaying a visa, have become tougher to execute. Cubans, lured by the promise of political asylum upon hitting American soil, account for most of the migrant flow, preferring the lesser known path through Central America to the familiar perils of the Florida Straits. But they are rivaled by a rising tide of Haitians, Somalis, West Africans, and South Asians.

Though it鈥檚 impossible to know the precise numbers, Panama saw 25,000 illegal arrivals last year, more than three times the number that came through in 2014. (Of these, about 20,300 were Cubans.) By late May of this year, another 8,000 migrants had passed through the Gap.

The fact that so many people would undertake such a long-shot journey caught my eye and Carlos鈥檚 well before we knew each other. Back in 2006, he was reading a newspaper in Bogot谩 when he saw a story buried in the back pages: a boatload of Chinese migrants had been captured in the Gap. During one of the half-dozen trips Carlos has since made in the region, he came upon the decomposing body of a Cuban migrant on a jungle trail. On another, he was stunned to pass a boat full of Somalis and Bangladeshis on the Cacarica. Smugglers ultimately turned him back, but the incongruous scene lingered in his head.

An had the same effect on me. It described how growing numbers of U.S.-bound migrants are flying or taking cargo vessels to Brazil and Ecuador, countries with lax visa and asylum requirements, then heading overland to Colombia on backcountry buses. Those with the means and a passport hire boats to bypass the jungle and reach Panama by sea; the rest take their chances running the Gap. In Panama they鈥檙e detained for background checks. So long as their names don鈥檛 turn up on international terror watch lists鈥攚hich I was told has never happened鈥攖hey are released to keep heading north.

These migrants are a fraction of the more than 65 million people that the United Nations estimates are now in flight because of war, persecution, and terror, the largest such displacement in human history. There are refugees in peril all over the world: Syrians seeking safe haven in Turkey, West Africans traversing the Sahara en route to Europe. But the Dari茅n Gap is the global migration story in extremis. What could possibly possess someone to enter it?

By land or sea, the main jumping-off point for crossings into Panama is Turbo, a dodgy Colombian port town on the Gulf of Urab谩 that has a bad reputation for violence. Once a FARC stronghold, Turbo became a battleground in the late 1980s when paramilitaries took over. We had been scheduled to travel there in early April, but we had to delay when Los Urabe帽os, excluded from peace talks with the government, called for a 24-hour strike to show that it still runs this part of the country. All public transport and shops shut down; streets emptied. Three policemen and an army captain were shot dead, presumably after the gang announced a reward for killing authorities. A group of traffic cops were injured by a grenade.

A month later, on May 6, we checked in at our residencia on a balmy morning. From a balcony overlooking a shaded plaza that has hosted many a drunken machete fight, I watched fishermen mend their nets while others played cards. Horse-drawn flatbed trailers bearing grains and bananas鈥攖he region鈥檚 chief legal cash crop鈥攚hipped by in a flurry of hooves. Turbo, the northern terminus of the Pan-American Highway in South America, is home primarily to darker-skinned Afro-Colombians, descendants of slaves brought to work in agriculture and mining in the 1500s. I didn鈥檛 see any migrants among them.

Lying in a hammock, with two German shepherds nestled at his feet, the motel鈥檚 manager, Juan Montero, explained that Urabe帽o smugglers usually charge between $500 and $700 to shuttle a migrant from here to Panama, a five-hour trip in a leaky boat. Alternatively, some migrants opt for a harder, cheaper inland route that starts at the coastal town of Capurgan谩 or Sapzurro and goes through a series of hamlets that聽dot Dari茅n National Park, which covers a large part of the central and west side of the Gap. Because there is no Colombian border facility nearby where captured migrants could be sent, Panamanian authorities have typically allowed them to pass.

One week before our arrival, however, the immigration office in Turbo began granting migrants exit papers to bring the traffic aboveground. Now they could openly buy boat tickets to Capurgan谩 and Sapzurro. From there it鈥檚 a short boat connection or hike to La Miel, in Panama. Those without documentation might still hire coyotes to take them up the longer jungle route, which is also a major Urabe帽o drug-trafficking path. The gang is known to forcibly conscript migrants as mules鈥攁nd sometimes dispose of them.

At a moss-cloaked graveyard on the edge of Turbo, several tombs were scrawled with 鈥淣.N.鈥� (no name), in drab contrast to the colorful encomiums locals left for loved ones. Montero told me that most of the dead were Somalis who had been robbed and tossed overboard by ruthless coyotes. On a 2014 trip to Acand铆, an Urabe帽o-dominated town across the gulf from Turbo, Carlos had photographed the tomb of Roberto Tremble, a 33-year-old Cuban murdered by smugglers.

Cubans still accounted for most of the migrants, Montero said. 鈥淢any doctors,鈥� he noted. Until recently, they flew to Ecuador, one of the few countries that have no visa requirement for tourist stays. But Ecuador had changed its policy, and Cubans were now coming in waves from Guyana, which was their last legal beachhead in South America.

In a video shot on Montero鈥檚 smartphone, Miguel, a ropy old Habanero, touted Cuba鈥檚 free health care and education but grumbled that his salary was not enough to buy shoes. 鈥淲e are a country bounded by water and we don鈥檛 have enough fish for the people,鈥� he fumed. 鈥淧opulist socialism is terrible.鈥�

Another Montero video showed a group of Nepalis hunched over paper plates in the same room we were now in. Authorities had caught them and brought them to Montero鈥檚 for a meal before deportation. 鈥淥f course, I never called customs on any of the ones who stayed here, because I don鈥檛 agree that those looking for a better life should be sent back,鈥� Montero said. 鈥淭heir motivation is incredible.鈥�

Montero鈥檚 place was currently empty of migrants, so he directed us to the Hotel Goodnight, a flophouse located several blocks away, past bars and pool halls full of guys who threw us bloodshot stares. In the second-floor lobby, I found two Haitian teenagers thumbing WhatsApp on their phones. I introduced myself. One immediately exited down the hallway; the other refused to look up.

A third man was smoking on the balcony. He told me his name was Jackson Wilner and that he was a mason from Cap Haitien looking for work in Turbo. When I pressed him on how he planned to get to Panama, he stuck to his script. On my way out, I noticed that the door to his room was ajar. Looking in, I saw four people lying on a single bed. Three more were asleep on the floor.

Before dawn the next morning, we headed down to the docks. A boat was leaving for Capurgan谩, and Montero was sure it would draw migrants into the open. He was right. In the dim light, I could see men milling around. They turned out to be Haitians, Nepalis, and Pakistanis.

Zia ul-Haq, who I talked to on the dock, was the lone Afghan in the group. Twenty-six and slender, with thick brows hanging over forlorn eyes, he told me in halting English that he learned the language by watching bootleg DVDs: the Fast and Furious series was a favorite. He hailed from Nuristan, a remote, beautiful, and violent pocket of mountain ridges plied by fierce tribesmen. Zia鈥檚 uncle worked as a translator for U.S. forces, and the family moved to Kabul when Taliban death threats intensified. His uncle was eventually relocated to the United States. Zia applied twice for a visa to follow him, without luck. 鈥淒ay by day it was getting worse, so I took this journey,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f someone鈥檚 life is in danger, they will do everything for themselves.鈥�

Dubai. S茫o Paulo and the Brazilian Amazon. Peru. Ecuador. Colombia. For the past two weeks, Zia had been dodging police shakedowns, riding back roads in chicken trucks, slipping across borders after dark. From here he would head by boat to Capurgan谩 and then Panama or walk through the jungle; he鈥檇 heard the hike was anywhere from two to four days. He confessed to having no idea how to navigate the minefield of gangs, authorities, and six borders that would still lie between him and the U.S.

His provisions: cookies, energy drinks, and $90 in cash. He鈥檇 spent more than $1,500, paying for one leg of the trip at a time, to get this far. For protection he carried a booklet of Koranic verse in his front pocket. Zia鈥檚 goal was to join his uncle in Las Vegas and one day enroll in medical school. 鈥淭he U.S. is a safe country,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey love peace, so we are trying to get there.鈥�

I reminded him that anti-immigrant sentiments were rising in the U.S. Was he worried he might not be welcome?

鈥淚t鈥檚 a long way still,鈥� he said after thinking it over. 鈥淢aybe the Americans have their limits. But there is no way of knowing.鈥� He paused. 鈥淚 just want a good life. No more feeling scared.鈥�

By 9 A.M., with the equatorial sun arcing overhead, there was a hum of fellow travelers and commerce. I spotted Jackson, the Haitian from the hotel, clutching a black trash bag that contained all his belongings. He was with the two teenagers, and they all avoided making eye contact with me. Hawkers were peddling ponchos and Chinese-made headlamps for $5 a pop beneath a sign from the municipal tourism board that read: Buen Viaje! Have a good trip!

A large motorboat arrived; names were called and life vests distributed. I gave Zia my card and shook his hand. 鈥淕et in touch when you make it to Vegas,鈥� I said. Squeezed in among the migrants were backpackers from England, Australia, Japan, and Brazil, who would soon be drinking coconut cocktails on the same beaches that some of these refugees would tramp across.

From the edge of the dock, I watched the boat rumble into the channel. Some of the travelers were snapping selfies. The Nepalis waved. Zia did not look up. He was holding his Islamic traveler鈥檚 booklet in his palms, head bowed, asking for protection.

The next day we met 鈥淎ngela,鈥� an emissary sent by the FARC bosses in Havana. She was in her mid-twenties and had heralded her arrival by texting suggestive pictures of herself. Sucking a lollipop, she told us we had to travel to a town a half-day up the Atrato to meet our primary rebel contact in the Choc贸鈥攈er father, Elber. We were assured the route was OK, though we would have to pass army checkpoints and Urabe帽o strongholds along the way.

Choppy seas on the open gulf sent our panga skipping and diving through sheets of salt spray. At the first of two military stops, Colombian soldiers questioned locals headed to inland villages and outbound Cubans with exit papers. We turned southwest and the water narrowed into the Atrato, whose vast wetlands comprise half of Los Kat铆os National Park, a Unesco World Heritage site. Birds-of-paradise tumbled down its banks and birds of prey soared above us. In the near distance, rain clouds bearded the jungle-clad hills that marked the frontier. While efforts by authorities to combat illegal logging and overfishing have removed the park from the UN鈥檚 list of endangered natural places, visitors are scarce. Choc贸 is Colombia鈥檚 poorest department, with a high-stakes drug trade that has FARC and the paras clashing over key routes that run off the river highway.

At the aptly named Riosucio (鈥渄irty river鈥�), we switched to a smaller canoe manned by tough-looking guys with facial tattoos. It was another hour to our destination, Domingodo, a dead-end village where we would spend the next three days making arrangements for our foray into the heart of the Dari茅n Gap. A mestizo woman was hacking open tortoises for stew; pigs rooted around for scraps in muddy alleyways. From end to end, shack-rattling salsa thumps blasted from bar speakers that never went silent, day or night.

Our host, 50-year-old Elber, wore athletic shorts and carried no weapons, but he was FARC to the core. Burly yet soft-spoken, Elber has served as a political operative for three decades in the dispossessed, largely black communities of the Choc贸. Early one morning, he invited us to a 鈥減olitical鈥� meeting at a derelict sawmill in the midst of banana palms and sugarcane fields. Industrial saws were rusting away, half-covered, on a rotted platform. The sawmill was opened in the early 2000s, with government funding, as an alternative to coca trafficking, but support ran dry. No one knew how to operate the machinery, a failure of top-down planning that Elber said was emblematic of government neglect in the Choc贸. He presented a case to those assembled for reviving the mill, but swarming mosquitoes made listening too difficult.

Later that afternoon, Elber announced that the commander of the 57th Front, Pablo Atrato, was ready to receive us at his hideout, another half-day up the river. With FARC slated to begin disarming in the coming months, this was a timely opportunity to discuss the tricky business of peace. In the 1990s, a nascent hard-left political party called the Patriotic Union was ravaged by paramilitary death squads allied with government security forces. More than 4,000 members and supporters were killed, including two presidential candidates. FARC鈥檚 command has repeatedly delayed the process to avoid the same fate.

Meanwhile, we had a new concern: on May 9, Panama abruptly closed its border with Colombia to stem the flow of migrants. We were hearing that people in transit to the U.S. were being turned back in droves聽along the Caribbean聽coast. The odds were that they would have to push deeper into the Gap and then turn north, making them difficult to find. We climbed into our canoe and set course for Bijao, a traditional junction for migrants on the Cacarica River.

A late start forced us to overnight in Puente America, where a bartender told us that no migrants had come through in weeks. But in a vacant schoolhouse by the water, we found a gallery of graffiti. Rahim from Pakistan had been here, along with Ahmed from Ethiopia and Yahya from Kenya. The walls were scrawled with national pride and nostalgia for home. 鈥淕hana 50 Cent and his group moving to USA.鈥� 鈥淕od help us, we are on the way to USA.鈥� 鈥淕od bless Sierra Leone.鈥� 鈥淓njoy the journey.鈥�

Turning up the Cacarica later that morning, the Atrato鈥檚 big sky was replaced by dense canopy that spotlighted a fetid marshland of gnarled roots and cativo trees. Rafts of rosewood timber attested to the illegal logging operations common to the rebel-held area. The water was just a foot deep in places, forcing us to get out and push. Farther along, a stash of fresh Aguila beer crates sat on a bank, unguarded. We glided past a sign for Los Kat铆os fronting an abandoned visitor鈥檚 bungalow. Everyone was on edge.

A Perilous Crossing

In September, the Australian newsmagazine 鈥溾�� will air an hour-long segment on Jason Motlagh鈥檚 expedition through the聽Dari茅n聽Gap, using footage shot by Motlagh and videographer Roger Arnold. Here鈥檚 a preview.

鈥淚鈥檓 not getting out of the fucking boat until I鈥檓 invited,鈥� Carlos intones as we glide into Bijao village, under the gaze of naked children. We all hang back as Elber strides up the bank and greets a handsome, middle-aged black man in a tank top. We鈥檙e waved over and introduced to John Jairo, the platoon leader of the FARC guerrillas patrolling this area. With Elber vouching for us, it doesn鈥檛 matter that they were unaware of our planned visit. Word from Havana about us had not trickled all the way down the command chain.

The guerrillas are overnighting in Bijao, which is unusual. They wear plain clothes, their assault rifles stashed inside the crooked wooden homes that line the village, but it鈥檚 not hard to single them out. Close-cropped haircuts for the men; high, tight hair buns for the women. They all steer clear of us.

After we鈥檙e taken to our lodging, a blue and white structure built by the UN鈥檚 refugee agency, with a No Armas sign posted at the entrance, Elices Ramirez, the smooth-talking village representative, tells me that the guerrillas are accepted by locals, who harbor a deep mistrust for a central government in Bogot谩 that exists for them only in name. 鈥淭hey have done nothing for us,鈥� he says. The local school sits shuttered, and with the nearest medical clinic in Turbo, a day鈥檚 journey by boat, people die of treatable illnesses like malaria and nonlethal injuries. Contraband smuggling鈥攄rugs, goods, chilingos鈥攊s rife in the area, he admits, but 鈥渨e do our best to maintain order.鈥�

Wandering around the warrens of raised shacks and dry-goods stalls that afternoon, I spot Elber standing at the center of a public gathering, calling for 鈥渏ustice without prejudice.鈥� Apparently, two men had gotten into a drunken fight, and one of them nearly took off the other鈥檚 arm with a blade. An impromptu tribunal has convened to decide the man鈥檚 fate, and most of Bijao is in attendance. The accused is ultimately expelled from town by majority vote, with a warning to never return.

After dinner we鈥檙e invited to sit down with Elber and the FARC officers. I pass out cigarettes and Carlos starts to chat them up, name-dropping the commanders he knows and explaining our goal of tracking migrants. Jairo and his light-skinned deputy, Haiber, listen, motionless. I can鈥檛 read their expressions in the darkness, but their intensity is palpable.

鈥淚 have a question for you,鈥� Haiber finally interjects, pausing for effect. 鈥淲hat is the meaning of chilingos?鈥�

Laughter. No one has a clue where this slang term for migrants came from. I seize the opening to ask how long they have been guerrillas and why. Jairo, 39, says he joined at age 11, after feeling powerless watching his father labor in the fields for years with nothing to show for it but an early death. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have a school in the community, and we couldn鈥檛 afford a pen and paper anyway,鈥� he tells me. 鈥淚 felt compelled to rise up against the corrupt state. They don鈥檛 respect you unless you fight them.鈥�

Jairo carries a sweat towel around his neck stitched with Comando de Muerte (鈥渄eath commando鈥�) under a skull and dagger. It belonged to a government soldier, he says, adding, 鈥淚t was not a gift.鈥�

By the end of our talk, Jairo says we鈥檙e free to travel through the Gap with FARC support. No escort or formal letter of approval will be given to us. It is simply understood that we are vouched for by the guerrillas, so we are not to be fucked with. In any case, by morning the fighters would leave Bijao to 鈥済o to work.鈥� The Urabe帽os were starting gun battles on another stretch of river in their latest bid to chisel their way into FARC territory.

In late February 1997, fighters with the 脡lmer C谩rdenas bloc, a hardcore right-wing unit, launched bombs into Bijao as part of a government-led operation that sent thousands running into the bush. Marino L贸pez Mena, a local man, was captured and decapitated, his head used as a ball in a soccer game. Another boy who was captured was tied to a tree and made to watch the gruesome spectacle; he still lives in Bijao, left incoherent by mental problems.

It鈥檚 a swelteringly hot morning, and Elices walks me to the homemade memorial by the river. He fled along with his neighbors, children in tow, traveling four days across the Gap to Panama, joining the 20,000 people that he estimates were displaced from other villages swept up in the violence. Most, he says, have returned to resettle acreage that is theirs under Law 70, a 1993 ruling that granted black Colombians collective ownership of ancestral lands. But they are still wary of the threat posed by the paras and a state with a record of abetting violence.

Has Bijao鈥檚 history of war and displacement made locals more sympathetic to the migrants coming through? 鈥淎bsolutely鈥攚e understand their situation, for we went through the same experience,鈥� Elices says. 鈥淲e do this as brothers, for we believe everyone has the right to live. We offer our support not because we want to make any money. It is a humanitarian action, our way to help them survive, the same way we were helped.鈥�

When the Bengalis and Nepalis we found on the river finally do pull into Bijao to join us, a band of young hustlers is waiting on the bank, ready for business. Ten bucks for a night in the barracks where we鈥檙e staying, mosquito net included. Plus another $5 for a plate of eggs, beans, and rice. The migrants claim that they have no money but soon give in. They are adding their own names to the graffiti-covered walls, buoyed by proof that so many countrymen have been here before them, when word comes in that there鈥檚 a mango tree nearby loaded with ripe fruit. The room empties; outside, rocks and sticks start to fly. Jafar picks up two mangos, triumphant. Arafat seems to have lost the limp that was ailing him on the river. 鈥淪ame like Bangladesh,鈥� he beams, juice dripping down his chin.

Arafat says his journey began when friends back home introduced him to a broker, who he paid more than $10,000. A Brazil visa and a flight to S茫o Paulo were arranged, with a stopover in Doha, Qatar. From there he made arrangements to travel through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, where he and a group he was traveling with got mugged by police.

Unknown to us, a second boat full of nine West Africans also departed from Puente America the previous night and has fallen in behind the Bengalis. When I return to the barracks after dark, five Cameroonians in alpaca-wool hats and two Togolese men are sprawled on the hardwood floor. A pair of Gambians, Ebrima Jobe and Morro Kanteh, are recovering on the porch.

鈥淔ucking hell,鈥� says Ebrima, the taller one, when I ask about the trip. He means the past 24 hours, when he had to cross the river at night and trudge on foot through the swamp. But his entire three-week journey has been a breathless flight from death.

For more than two decades, Gambia, a narrow country on the West African coast, has been ruled by a dictator who silences all dissent with brute force. In mid-April, a police crackdown on protesters demanding electoral reforms saw three men die in custody, including a leader of the main opposition party. This man was Ebrima鈥檚 mentor, and Ebrima, 38, heard that his name was on the hit list. With help from friends, he left his pregnant wife and two children for Dakar, then caught a flight to Madrid and from there flew to visa-free Ecuador, where he planned to apply for political asylum. On the go, he kept in touch with his family by e-mail. They were safely holed up with relatives, but he could never rest easy.

Bureaucratic snafus moved him to try for asylum again in Bogot谩, to no avail. So he turned his sights to the U.S. and bused to Turbo. 鈥淣ow I just want to get out of here,鈥� he tells me. 鈥淐olombia is no good.鈥� I ask if he鈥檚 heard of the Dari茅n Gap and he shakes his head. I describe it and he becomes somber for a moment, aware that the worst is still to come. 鈥淲e will cross together,鈥� I say, and Ebrima joins his fellows on the floor.

Our dawn departure is delayed by a dispute. The Africans roundly insist that they paid the coyotes in Turbo a flat fee to take them all the way to the Panama border; the Bijao hustlers counter that they are owed more. The migrants have no leverage out here, and the impasse ends when each migrant ponies up an extra $20. We aren鈥檛 spared, either. John and Alberto, the two porters we hired to help with our gear, are now demanding three times the agreed-upon sum鈥攔oughly $300 each.

鈥淭hese people are capitalists, they make money from our misery,鈥� Morro says later that day, as we head upriver in a sagging canoe. 鈥淚鈥檓 sick of this place.鈥� Like Ebrima, his role as a youth leader in the Gambian opposition compelled him to flee. He scans the jungle for a while, then catches me聽off guard.

鈥淲hy are you here?鈥� he asks.

I give him a boilerplate answer, but in the moment it feels hollow, even frivolous. For all my good intentions, I鈥檓 still a Western journalist getting paid to do this. What I don鈥檛 say is that my privilege was secured by the audacity of an Iran-born father who made his own long-shot gamble to reach the United States.

Back when I was a 25-year-old freelancer striking out for Africa, my father, Homayoun, drove me from Washington, D.C., to New York City to see me off at JFK. I鈥檇 always assumed he鈥檇 emigrated the way normal people do, but in the departure lounge he told me that he had been unable to secure a visa in London, where he was studying in 1973, despite having family members stateside, at a time when trouble was brewing back home in Iran. So he booked a flight to Toronto, with a brief stopover in New York. As the plane neared JFK, he feigned violent illness; flight attendants hauled him off the jet. As he was being transported to a nearby clinic, he jumped out of the vehicle and into a car聽his brothers had sent to pick him up. Five hours later, he was eating kabobs in Washington, D.C. He carved out a living selling used cars, and he still works long hours on cold back lots. His gamble bought me a youth free of the Islamic Revolution and mandatory army service. I attended good public schools, played baseball, and graduated from college debt-free. Now I could buy a one-way ticket to the Third World with a sure return. It was the start of a wide-ranging journey that ultimately led me to this remote river, into the void.

We disembark two hours later at the Wounaan village of Juimphuboor. I鈥檝e never found it on any map. Women pound laundry by the water, flanked by clutches of round, thatch-roofed huts that slope up the mountainside to slash-and-burn plots. Carlos tells us to keep our cameras off and our mouths shut: those same heights were likely the last place that the Swedish traveler Braunisch saw during his fatal 2013 attempt to cross the Gap.

In 2015, nearly two years after the 26-year-old went missing, the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered his skeletal remains to state investigators. FARC later took responsibility for his death, accusing him of having been a foreign spy, partly because he was carrying a GPS and had no prior approval to travel. His bad luck was compounded by bad timing: rebels and government forces were battling it out around聽the lower Atrato River, and a cease-fire with Los Urabe帽os had collapsed.

Three years on, peace talks between FARC and the government present us with an opening, but drug profits have a way of breeding spoilers in the Gap, and we are unusually fat targets. In addition to our expensive camera gear, battery packs, laptops, medical kit, and communications equipment, including a sat phone and GPS, we also have lots of cash. This is a pay-as-you-go venture, and the only way out is through.

One by one, our party鈥�20 migrants, four porter-guides鈥攕himmy under a barbed-wire fence and into the hissing maw of jungle toward our first objective: Palo de Letras, an unmanned crossing at the crest of a mountain, which will take at least ten hours of trekking to reach. The beaten path is lined with Red Bull cans, salt packets, and the first pieces of clothing discarded in the heat. I notice a long skein of leaf-cutter ants running fragments, parallel to our foot traffic. Their solidarity casts a sharp contrast to ours, which is starting to unravel.

It鈥檚 not yet noon when we stop to rest. Momir, the overweight Bangladeshi, is on the ground pleading with our guides to carry his bag for $10. 鈥淧lease take,鈥� he groans, doubling his offer to $20. But there are no volunteers, only indifferent looks. 鈥淭hrow your things away,鈥� one of the Nepalis says with a barbed edge. Reluctantly, Momir pulls out some tissues, then a T-shirt, then some socks and mittens. Morro grabs them and puts them on.

I have an urge to strip. My clothes are soaked through, my fancy knee-high, French-made boots freighted with water. The air is almost thick enough to chew. For a boost, I stuff a plug of dried coca leaves into my cheek with a chunk of quicklime. The concoction tastes vaguely of yerba mate and provides a jolt of energy and focus that will help me navigate the endless hills and switchbacks, mud-slick ravines, and root systems that obstruct our path. I can鈥檛 help but think of Steve McQueen in , a favorite of mine. When he is chased after escaping from a penal colony in French Guiana and starts falling behind, a timely wad of coca proffered by his native escort gives him the second wind he needs.

Cevedao, our Wounaan lead guide and porter, sets the pace of a mountain goat. We hired him and another man in Juimphuboor to help with our gear and see us through to the Paya River in Panama, since indigenous people can pass freely on both sides of the border. (Our porters from Bijao, John and Alberto, are taking a well-paid gamble crossing the border anywhere near migrants, because this carries a minimum five-year prison sentence.) Morro is close on his heels, followed by the Nepalis, who stick together and move at a steady clip. The Bengalis and Africans bring up the rear.

It鈥檚 not long before Evelyn Chantal, the only woman in our party, is flat on her back gasping for air. 鈥淭his is too much. But what can I do with a war going on in Cameroon and Boko Haram killing all of our brothers?鈥� she tells me once her breath calms. A hairdresser from a restive corner of northwest Cameroon, Evelyn left home as radical militants, expelled from Nigeria, threatened to overrun her village. With gold hoop earrings, lime spandex, and a backward courier cap, her flair has endured. But she is top-heavy, saddled with huge breasts, and wearing flimsy shoes, which she tosses aside.

鈥淚鈥檝e never moved in this type of forest, even in Africa,鈥� she says. 鈥淚鈥檓 very, very scared, but I have no choice. I have to struggle because I want to save my life.鈥�

Near dusk we learn that our native porter has vanished with Ebrima鈥檚 backpack, which contains his only change of clothes, money, and ID. After some tense discussion, Cevedao, with my encouragement, agrees to go back and find the bag. Only聽after he leaves does it dawn on me that in addition to our 30-pound backpacks, one of us would have to carry the 50-pound duffel stuffed with video gear and supplies. Because I鈥檓 the only man in my group without camera duties, this falls on me.

The trail by now is littered with more precious items: jeans, blazers, backpacks. I see a random discarded letter with runny scribbles and stuff it in my pocket. With each step, the muck is pulling harder on my boots. A gathering night riot of mosquitoes get their fill of blood, and the infernal heat sucks us dry. The jungle trail, I realize, is one big alimentary canal that breaks down everything that passes through. Thickets of thorns slice my arms; a series of fallen trees forces me to crawl on all fours. This is what you get for sticking your neck out, I think to myself. Head down, chin dug into the pack on my stomach, I stumble on.

鈥淒id you see the skull?鈥�

I鈥檓 lying in a shallow creek trying to cool my body temperature when Roger, our videographer, drops the news: in my stupor, I鈥檇 somehow walked right past a human head on a stake. Carlos missed it, too. We walk a quarter-mile back up the trail and it鈥檚 facing us鈥攁nd Panama鈥攑resumably as a warning to anyone who would dare enter FARC territory. The surface is rain-polished to a shine, the jawbone missing.

鈥淚 swear I鈥檝e seen this in a dream, man,鈥� Carlos says, creeping closer, wide-eyed. 鈥淭his is crazy.鈥� We snap pictures and catch up with the group, driven by energy that no coca or caffeine had previously mustered.

Three hours later, we stop to make camp. The Bangladeshis swarm around me for insect repellent. The Nepalis bathe in their underwear and complain that the Bangladeshis complain too much and don鈥檛 share. The West Africans collect banana leaves for makeshift mattresses by the fire, which they feed with moss to create as much of a smoke screen against the mosquitoes as possible. Fruit bats bank and dive around them. By morning one man is hiding up in a tree.

The hangover of a rough night is tempered by the border crossing. At 10 A.M. we reach the stone obelisk that marks Palo de Letras, on the boundary with Panama. Those with working cell phones take pictures to remember the moment. Ebrima and Morro sit down to collect themselves, grateful to be out of Colombia at last.

鈥淢y faith keeps me moving, that鈥檚 it,鈥� says Ebrima. 鈥淭here is no turning back for me. I can鈥檛 go back to where I鈥檓 from.鈥�

Meanwhile our shifty guides John and Alberto are anxious to head back home to Bijao. Although we had a deal to travel together to the Paya River, another half-day鈥檚 walk, they would face jail time if caught in the company of migrants by Senafront, the Panamanian forces that stalk the borderlands. They鈥檙e demanding to be paid in full, and more, to go all the way.

My temper flares. I never really trusted these men; paying them out would give up the last shred of leverage we have. But Carlos explains that we still need them to find our way, and we can鈥檛 afford to piss them off since they are skilled with machetes. FARC鈥檚 protection extends only so far.

I settle down, and a compromise is reached: the migrants will go ahead of us, on their own, to maintain a safe distance in the event that we鈥檙e intercepted. In English, then in French, I explain our predicament to the group and assure them that the route is easy to follow. Panama has a reputation for its humane treatment of illegals emerging from the jungle, complete with room and board. Everyone seems relieved at the prospect of imminent salvation.

But forward momentum is running down. During the next stretch, I spot a poured-concrete marker for the Carretera del Darien, a through-highway that was never built. Carlos sees a wheel from a Chevrolet Corvair, casualty of a 1961 expedition. Despite an hour鈥檚 head start, we catch up to the group. We sit and wait again. Same result. Somewhere in the skies above the canopy, rotor thumps from a Senafront helicopter聽are audible. Our panicked guides insist on moving ahead at double speed to drop the gear at the river, and I volunteer to go with them. We shoot up the trail, Cevedao in front, John right on my heels 鈥渇or motivation,鈥� until a merciful stop for water. I bend down to fill my canteen. They vanish.

I race to catch up but don鈥檛 see a trace. I call out their names. Nothing. At a fork in the path, I bear right and find an energy-drink can, but I鈥檓 starting to have doubts that I鈥檓 going the correct way. The Gap is veined with dozens of trails and detours to nowhere, and my GPS device lost its signal the day before. For all I know, I could be heading back to Colombia, a dreadful thought. I wonder, have the guides stolen our bags? Perhaps they are preparing an ambush. Did I go too far?

I arrive at a tepee-shaped structure that looks to be a marker and shout into the abyss for a while, with no reply. It鈥檚 then that I notice that the structure is a tripod-shaped root, not man-made. I can feel the veins pulsing in my forehead, the fury of being left behind cut by sudden alarm. I am retracing my steps to the junction I passed earlier, unsure of my judgment, when the rustle of leaves stops me in my tracks. One of the Togolese men appears down the trail in his brown winter coat. He mumbles something in French, and I can scarcely contain my relief.

When we finally catch up to the guides, I want to explode. But Cevedao is holding a finger to his mouth. Soldiers are on a hilltop聽not far down the trail, he says, and the Paya River is no more than 40 minutes away, tops. The guides dump our bags, collect the last of our pesos, and rush away as the rest of the group stagger in. One by one, they crumple to the ground; some are asleep within seconds. Evelyn is the worst off, her swollen toes protruding from socks torn to shreds, lips quivering in sweat. I try to get everyone鈥檚 full names and e-mail addresses in case they鈥檙e detained, but few can manage the pen. Roused for a final push, we wait as the migrants pick up what鈥檚 left of their things and vanish over the ridge.

Four hours later, Carlos, Roger, and I are still walking. The trail is relatively easy to follow, but the terrain is steeper. The heat and humidity are dehydrating our bodies, and our water supply is dwindling, with no fresh sources since the guides departed. Carlos struggles to keep up. The added burden of carrying all our gear is taking its toll, forcing us to stop at shorter intervals, until we finally run out of water. We have no idea where we are.

I go forward alone, clumsy and parched. Another hour or two passes, and the foliage around me becomes more lushly tropical. I鈥檓 barreling downhill through a tight chute of banana leaves that spit me out into a clearing where Senafront soldiers with M4 rifles are barking orders. Drop your bags and put your hands up! For the first time in my life, I鈥檓 relieved to face the barrel of a gun.

Our migrant friends are seated in rows on the ground, under armed guard, waiting. As I鈥檓 escorted into the soldiers鈥� camp with orders to not talk to them, a plaintive voice calls out. 鈥淒on鈥檛 forget about us, brother.鈥� It鈥檚 Ebrima. I turn back to catch his eye, and a soldier motions me away.

That was the last we ever saw of them. When Carlos and Roger eventually hobble into camp, a burly Panamanian officer informs us that President Juan Carlos Varela鈥檚 executive order is in force: no more migrants are being accepted. When I ask if this means the group will be sent back, he nods hesitantly. Retracing the route we just completed seems impossible at that moment. I cannot think straight, but emotions are welling up. We are fed pasta and coffee and escorted across the Paya to its namesake hamlet.

Sleepy and serene, Paya is a small Kuna Indian village with manicured grass and stilt homes, the last outpost inside Panama鈥檚 Dari茅n National Park. In January 2003, it was the scene of a massacre: paramilitaries disguised as guerrillas executed four local men as punishment for cooperating with FARC. The paras went on to steal livestock, slaughter dogs, and land-mine the hamlet鈥檚 periphery to prevent people from leaving. At the time, no Panamanian security forces were in the vicinity.

Today, Paya counts on the protection of Senafront. Though technically a police force鈥擯anama鈥檚 army was dissolved after the 1989 U.S. invasion鈥攖he unit has a broad mandate to safeguard the country鈥檚 southern border and carries out special-forces-style operations against drug smugglers and Colombian armed groups. In 2013, Panama鈥檚 government announced that FARC was no longer a threat in the country, removing restrictions against travelers with passports to the Gap, though coming this far inside was not recommended. A billboard at the Senafront base entrance features pictures of wanted FARC commanders and paras.

Major Hector de Sedas, the local Senafront authority, greets us under a tree that鈥檚 dropping mangos. A yellow placard is posted behind de Sedas that tallies the number of migrant arrivals between February 24 and March 24: 114, spread across 21 nationalities. When he deployed here six months ago, as many were recorded crossing daily, but on the day of our passage only six people were detained along the entire frontier. De Sedas says his men had been expecting us for a week鈥攚e鈥檇 informed them what we were doing ahead of time鈥攁nd feared that we may have lost our way, like the four Somalis who strayed from their group on reaching Panama and wandered the jungle for 15 days, only to end up back in Colombia.

We鈥檙e crushed when he confirms that the migrants we traveled with were being sent back. 鈥淭hey will be given some food and water and escorted 30 minutes back up the trail,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here is nothing we can do鈥攊t鈥檚 an order.鈥� I tell him this could be a death sentence for some. He winces in sympathy.

鈥淲e have an extraordinary humanitarian character. But Costa Rica and Nicaragua both sealed their borders, and this became a serious problem for us,鈥� he explains. With more than 4,000 Cubans and other migrants blocked from advancing north, he says, social pressures were mounting that forced the government to airlift scores of them to Mexico. Intelligence sources estimate that 5,000 more migrants are backed up between Ecuador and Colombia, he adds. 鈥淪ome people say President Varela should have made this decision [to close the border] six months ago.鈥�

Local tolerance was ebbing. When I ask Paya鈥檚 aging village chief, Enrique Martinez, how the community has fared since the paramilitary violence, he says that aside from some land-rights disputes with the state, the situation is peaceful. 鈥淣ow there is a problem with migrants coming from Africa, Bangladesh鈥攚e don鈥檛 have the capacity to feed all of them anymore,鈥� he huffs, a necklace of jaguar teeth jangling on his chest. 鈥淭hey arrive sick, and who knows what diseases they鈥檙e carrying, like Ebola. When the migrants get here and leave the next day, that鈥檚 one thing. But when they stay for 15 days or more it becomes a problem. I want the border closed once and for all, you hear me?鈥�

A hard rain comes down and we retire to our bungalow, where I notice that some of the boards are etched with migrant messages in Bengali and Arabic. As the downpour intensifies, I鈥檓 kept awake by a gnawing, familiar pang from my years of reporting: the guilt of leaving people in duress behind, made more acute in this case by my naive assurances that their lot would improve in Panama. The 20 of them were out in the bush somewhere, beyond tired, hungry, exposed. The Nepalis might find a way, I thought. I was less sure about the Bengalis and some of the Africans.

When I open the letter I found on the trail, there鈥檚 a draft note addressed to Ecuador immigration from one Mohammad Shariful of Bangladesh, with a world map sketched at the bottom. On the聽other side there鈥檚 a bank-account number and transfer amount, and, in English, the makings of a poem.

love is a river. love is an ocean. love聽is the earth. love is radha (hindu god). love is giridhar (hindu god). not being able to sleep, that is what love is. if there was no love there would be nothing. i would not be here.

It鈥檚 dated April 6, 2016, a month before the border closure. If all went well, Mohammad could be in the U.S. by now.

The Dari茅n Gap in Panama is such dense jungle that the only sensible way through is by boat, and in the morning we climb into a piragua for a ten-hour glide upriver. I lie back and watch the teeming forests drift by. Pucuro, Boca de Cupe, El Real, and then Yaviza, a rowdy town of bars and brothels on the Chucunaque River, where the Pan-American Highway resumes and the grid comes alive.

It鈥檚 now May 19. Since departing from Turbo on May 8, we covered more than 200 miles by boat and on foot, crisscrossing rivers and swamps and humping through unmarked trails up a mountain to a forgotten border plateau. Along ankle-busting ridges, we dipped and climbed higher into the wilderness, only to descend once more to water,聽the lifeblood of the Gap and anyone unfortunate enough to be mired there. I send e-mails to Zia, the Afghan from the Turbo docks, and Ebrima鈥攖he two legible contacts in my notebook. At least they don鈥檛 bounce back.

While we were in the jungle, Colombian authorities confiscated 8.8 tons of Urabe帽o cocaine in a raid on a banana-plantation stash house in Turbo, the 鈥渂iggest seizure of drugs in history,鈥� the president boasted. As we wait for breakfast at a cantina in the morning, another news report from Turbo flickers on the screen.

Since the Panamanian closure came into force, a bottleneck of several thousand migrants had overwhelmed the way station. Streets are thronged with stranded Cubans, Haitians, Africans, and South Asians. The tableau could easily be mistaken for New York City or Miami, the telltale difference found in the crunched facial expressions of thwarted desire.

Some ugly myths have taken root in the United States that these same people are predisposed to be criminals, a dormant threat to national security and gathering drag on our economy. In a country built by migrants, currents of nativism and xenophobia are on the rise, with bluster of walls going up and mass deportations. And somehow people of all stripes keep angling for our faraway borders with their dreams intact, risks and distances be damned.

Inevitably, through sheer force of will and a lot of good luck, some of the ones stranded in Turbo will make it to Panama and on to the United States. Maybe they鈥檒l be spared the onerous jungle crossing; maybe they will get a berth on an airlift; or maybe they are bushwhacking a new route through the Dari茅n Gap at this very moment, their feet and gazes in lockstep forward against the inertia of fear and cynicism, driven by visions of something better.

They are our past, present, and future. And they are worthy.

is a fellow with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.聽

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