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Simón Herrera, a member of a Guna commission on the Interconexión project, is a high school teacher and historian.

In February 2026, author Ben Ryder Howe flew to Panama City and met with Federico Rios, a photographer for The Times.

It is estimated that the road the Guna people are building with machetes between the communities of Mordí and Mulatupu would take 20 to 30 years to complete without outside help.

The Gunayala General Congress is the supreme political authority of the Guna people and appoints commissions.

In 2025, members of the Guna community were building a road through the jungle with machetes.

For more than a decade prior to 2026, the Guna people have blocked the Interconexión project multiple times.

The 2007 proposal for the Interconexión project included building a large road with dozens of bridges through the Gunayala territory to transport construction equipment.

In 2007, a Panamanian-Colombian commission proposed to the Guna people a project to build high-voltage transmission lines connecting the power grids of Panama and Colombia.

Historically, Panama, Colombia, and the United States have preferred to keep the Darién Gap undeveloped to deter the spread of disease and unchecked migration.

The frontier between Panama and Colombia is considered impassable due to the Darién Gap, a wilderness area that covers much of the boundary.

Since a brief war of independence in 1925, the Guna people have had virtual autonomy from the Republic of Panama, to which they have pledged nominal allegiance.

The border between North and South America, located at the Panama-Colombia border, is the only land connection between continents on Earth that does not have a road.

Within a year of his arrival in 1970, the author's father, James Howe, became fluent in the Guna language.

The Guna village of Digandiggi consisted of 200 thatched-roof homes built on a coral reef, located half a mile from the mainland jungle.

The author's father, James Howe, spent much of the 1970s regularly traveling to live with the Guna people, joined for months at a time by his wife, June, and the author.

The Serranía de San Blas mountain range in Panama is an extension of the Continental Divide.

In the late 1960s, the Guna people burned down a resort built by American businessman W.D. Barton on an island in Gunayala, and burned it down a second time when he attempted to rebuild it.

The Gunayala region of Panama has more than 350 uninhabited islands.

In 1970, the author's father, James Howe, a 25-year-old anthropology Ph.D. student, traveled with his wife to the Gunayala region of Panama to seek permission to study the Guna people.

A 1964 U.S. government report stated that the Guna people's chief characteristic was a persistent determination to preserve their cultural and racial structure against outside pressures.