We close our week with an item that may not be entirely cartophilic but actually mentions the Pan-American Highway, and I could find nothing else that did.
This set contained two hundred and eighty eight pogs but they were not all of one subject, nor one series.The one we show today comes from series two, which was numbered from 265 to 288, but contained subsets of Sailing Adventures (265-269) Pan-American Highway (270-279), and American Highways (280-288). All of these were available with two different backs, but both are the same colour, off white with a mauvey purple text, the only alteration being the fact that this text either says "Slammer Whammers" or "Slammer Jammers". For some reason the ones that say "Slammer Jammers" are much rarer, and I have no idea why.
Out of all the Pan-American Highway ones, this got selected because it shows a Gaucho, and they are, for the most part, from Argentina. And Argentina brings our journey to a close, right down in Ushuaia, in the province of Tierra del Fuego, which is a noted jump off point for travellers to Antarctica.
However the road conditions do vary, quite dramatically, and some places are very remote indeed. But if you started your trip in Alaska, by now you are used to that. It is estimated that this leg of the journey takes two weeks in good weather with no mechanical failures - and up to a month in bad weather. Some people actually stop in Chile, especially if their are running very late on their schedules, and take a ferry across the Strait of Magellan, which definitely cuts the road journey down, but perhaps is a bit of a cop-out.
There have been plans, for some time, to take the Pan-American Highway yet further, to the West Indies. However it would never be able to be done by a single road, or even on land, it would require lots of stops and trips on ferry boats. It would also mean a new road would have to be carved across the country to Florida, from where you would have to sail to Cuba. But once you got to Cuba the road would take in the island of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rica. Another possible route could be easier, and involve the current road, with a ferry from Yucatan, Mexico, across to Cuba, and this was well researched in 1947, but has not happened yet.