[Anarch157a]

Brazilian here. Most of the coffee production is in the south and south-east (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Paraná). To get the coffee in bulk to where it can cross the gap, it has to travel thru shitty roads that have more craters than the far side of the Moon and some that aren't paved at all.

Then it gets to the Amazonas river. It's so wide, some Portuguese navigator tought it was a fresh water Sea. There's only one bridge conencting the city os Manaus in the north bank to south and sone ferries scattered all over.

Then you have to cross half the Amazon jungle to get to a port in Colombia (Venezuela is not an option for obvious reasons).

Tl;dr, the Darian Gap is the least of your problems if you want to move coffee by land from here to the US.

[onecommentman]

Pipelines are cheaper than roads. A not-quite-totally-silly idea would be to send brewed coffee concentrate up a pipeline. After you stop laughing, you kinda want to run some numbers...

[cesarb]

Also Brazilian here, wouldn't an alternative path be to go even further southwest, leave the country, and only then move north more or less following the Pacific coast? That would both avoid all these shitty roads and remove the need to cross the Amazonas.

[oetnxkdrlgcexu]

Looking at google maps, it sort of looks like it goes from the jungle to the Andes to the Atacama dessert.

I'm genuinely surprised at how impassible this all seems. especially the Andes.

[nate_meurer]

The Andes rival the Himalayas in all respects.

Shipping freight by road to the Pacific means going through Argentina and Chile. I don't think Peru and Bolivia have the maintained roads to do it.

As far as I know, there are only four paved mountain passes between Argentina and Chile. Paso Paso de Jama is probably the most practical, and I think the one carrying the most freight currently.

The other three-- Cardenal Antonio Samoré, Paso Libertadores, and Pino Hachado-- are much farther south.

None of these routes would be cost effective for the international coffee trade at any scale. Take a look at some photos of Paso Libertadores to see what I mean.