Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

Ruin and Recovery 235assisted river crossing, during which Keith had stepped on a spinytree and its nettles embedded themselves under the nail of his bigtoe. Instead of administering any kind of painkiller or even cleaningthe area, Guillermo took a scalpel and began hacking at Keith’s foot,essentially slashing and pulling up the nail to get at what was buriedbeneath it. While he was working on Keith he was muttering about howweak Americans were. Another FARC guard, Cereal Boy, was standingnearby watching. He knew that Guillermo was purposely makingthings more painful for Keith, and standing behind Guillermo so themedic couldn’t see him, he mouthed words of encouragement to Keith.For some reason, Guillermo didn’t like Keith and later insisted that hebe chained to another prisoner for a day’s march.We were truly at our breaking point on that march. When we wereoffered a few bites of box turtle feet, we ate them. When we finallyreached a resupply point, we were handed one pack of cigarettes apieceand a single block of panela. Our systems were so depleted that whenwe ate the raw sugar, it was like we had mainlined it directly to ouradrenal glands. After eating half the block one night and a good part ofwhat was left the next morning, for the first part of that day’s march Iwas supercharged.As the march progressed, the hundred or more FARC escortingus had whittled down their numbers as well as our original numberof thirty-eight hostages. The first to leave after about two weeks wereIngrid and Lucho and eight of the military prisoners along with manyFARC. Ten days later, four other prisoners along with Consuelo andGloria (who were both stalwarts throughout the march), Clara, Alan,Jorge, and Orlando were separated off. Finally, after another sevendays, ten others departed, leaving our group with the three of us andfive military prisoners—Javier Rodríguez, Jhon Jairo Durán, ErasmoRomero, Julian Guevera, and Julio Caesar Buitrago.As we had been learning all along, we all found a way to get througheach day. Our bodies were growing weaker, but we found some reserve