Carpe Diem #1557 Departure ...

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My excuses for being late with publishing our first regular of December 2018. This month we will go on a journey again and maybe we can create a haibun with each other about this journey. This month we will travel along the Pan American Highway. This highway goes from Canada to Argentina, so we will travel through the American Continents from North to South. Why this choice? Well let me tell you why I have chosen this theme. Here in The Netherlands we have a TV show titled "World Trip On Wheels". In this TV show four groups are traveling along the Pan American Highway by car with their "tiny houses" (a kind of trailer). I love this show and I thought immediately as it started "this is a nice theme for CDHK". So this month ... the theme is "Haiku Along The Pan American Highway".

For this first regular episode the theme is "departure" and our journey departs from Calgary. Let me give you a small background about this Pan American Highway:

The Pan-American Highway is a network of roads stretching across the American continents and measuring about 30,000 kilometres (19,000 mi) in total length. Except for a rainforest break of approximately 160 km (100 mi), called the Darién Gap, the roads link almost all of the Pacific coastal countries of the Americas in a connected highway system. According to Guinness World Records, the Pan-American Highway is the world's longest "motorable road". However, because of the Darién Gap, it is not possible to cross between South America and Central America with conventional highway vehicles. Without an all-terrain vehicle, it is necessary to circumnavigate this terrestrial stretch by sea.

The Pan-American Highway passes through many diverse climates and ecological types, from dense jungles, to arid deserts, to barren tundra, some of which are passable only during the dry season, and in many regions driving is occasionally hazardous.

Calgary Panorama (2011)

Well ... are you ready? Come on let us go on a journey along the Pan American Highway and try to create haiku, tanka or other form of Japanese poetry. This will be an amazing trip ...

Here is my "departure" haiku:

rising sun
from a far away place
nightingale's song

© Chèvrefeuille

I hope you all will enjoy this wonderful journey. This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until December 9th at noon (CET). I will try to pubklish our new episode later on. For now ... have fun!

PS. This month we are using the MrLinky widget. The one we will use opens in a new screen / tab.