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This essay is based on more than eight months of ethnographic fieldwork at the entrance and exit of the Darién jungle, a natural area that forms the border between Colombia and Panama. Far from being just a dangerous no-man’s-land, in just a few years the Darién has become an essential passageway for thousands of migrants on their way to the United States. Through the stories of those who cross it, this essay explores how this border is experienced and imagined. The Darién reveals four faces: a border-jungle, where danger is both anticipated and experienced; a palpable border, marked by the exhaustion of bodies and the materialization of laws that supplant topography; a social border, which reorganizes resources and relations between migrants; and finally, a temporal border, where the Darién ordeal is part of a migratory journey marked by other ordeals. By focusing on the experiences, practices and temporalities of people in migration, this essay invites us to rethink the border beyond its geographical and administrative contours, in order to better grasp the human experiences that cross it.