大象传媒

On the last leg of their pan-American road trip, Dara and Ed travel south through the mountains of Costa Rica to Panama. In northern Costa Rica, the Pan-Am follows the exact same trail blazed by the Richardson expedition over 70 years ago. Here, Dara and Ed become sabaneros or Costa Rican cowboys for the day, learning to herd cattle on horseback and lasso calves at the El Cojito ranch.

When Costa Rica began constructing their section of the Pan-American Highway, no-one could have predicted the effect it would have on the wildlife. Dara and Ed visit the Centro de Rescate Las Pumas animal rehabilitation centre, where they meet orphaned anteaters and jaguars whose territories have been disrupted by the building of the road.

Travelling on south, Dara and Ed pass through the capital San Jose on election day, before driving over the famous Cerro de la Muerte - the Mountain of Death.

In the 1940s, when the Richardson expedition reached this area, no motor vehicle had ever driven over this soaring mountain range. For the first time, Sullivan, Ken and Arnold were forced to turn back and transport the Plymouth around the mountain by train. But as Dara and Ed discover, the 'pass of death' still lives up to its name, as they come across a serious accident along the road.

It takes almost 20 hours to get across the border from Costa Rica to Panama, as Dara and Ed get caught up in a tangle of bureaucracy. Once through, they drive on through former banana plantations to the capital Panama City, and the famous canal. The construction of the Panama Canal in 1914 was one of the biggest engineering feats in history, and on the centenary of its opening, Dara and Ed are invited on board a tug boat to help guide the massive tankers through the system of locks.

In the 1940s, the expedition could go no further in Panama. Their way was blocked by an area of dense jungle known as the Darien Gap. Forced to put the car on a boat, they sailed around the Darien Gap to Colombia before continuing on through South America. These days, although the modern Pan-Am Highway does extend south through Panama towards the Darien, there is still no road between Central America and South America. Dara and Ed decide to follow it as far as they can go and head for Yaviza, the last town on the map.