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

The Swamp 367confident that we could do this. In all the time we’d been together—thesix months since we had been reunited—we’d never exchanged a harshword. Now, without Ingrid around to rile up his jealousy, I figured hewas the best person outside of Marc and Keith for me to be paired with.As predicted, the chains didn’t come off in the morning or the rest ofthe day. Even when we went to bathe, they stayed on us. We had a talkwith Asprilla and convinced him that the cheap Chinese locks on thechains would oxidize and seize up. Unexpectedly, he saw the wisdomin not ruining the locks and we were free to bathe without the dangerof the chains snagging on some underwater obstruction.If nothing else, the restraints helped us learn to be adaptable. Privacywas always an issue, but the chains were long enough to allowus at least sixteen feet of space. The orquetas or forked sticks came inhandy for draping them. On that very first morning in chains, I sawMarc and Keith walking on their separate steppers. Their chains hungdown from their necks to an orqueta strategically placed between them.They did the same with the pull-up bar. Marc put a good spin on thechains by saying, “The extra weight is going to help me get even morebuff than before.” He’d lost nearly fifty pounds in captivity and lookedto our eyes fit and healthy, though I imagine that anyone who didn’tsee the gradual transformation would have been shocked at his skeletalappearance.During the first few weeks with the chains, we all learned little tricksto make them more bearable. Sleeping with a chain around your necktakes some getting used to or at least some minor engineering marvel.I had held on to a piece of parachute cord that Jhon Jairo Durán gaveme way back on the forty-day march. I looped it around the links andaround my waist, putting enough tension on the chain so that it didn’trest on my neck.Fortunately, along with Keith and Marc, I had another being I couldrely on to get me through the savagery of the FARC. Just before we’darrived at the Reunion Camp, we’d been joined by a small, stout dog