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

Changes in Altitude35footwear for theirs. Not only were their boots waterproof, but they haddecent grip, even in the mud. The FARC didn’t seem to be slip-slidingnearly as much as we were. Instead they just seemed to watch us as weslid all over the jungle. Marching was hard enough, but having to pickup your own sorry ass after you spilled into the brush of the jungle waseven more exhausting.Making matters worse was that a lot of our marching was in riversand runoff streams. The algae that clung to those rocks was evenslicker than the wet leaves of the jungle, and the water was fast-movingand cold. If any of us had fantasies about falling in and floating away,they were quickly shut down. We were so exhausted we would havedrowned. Even if we hadn’t been so tired, the streams were so chokedwith rubble, rocks, deadfall, and other vegetation that we wouldn’t havebeen able to get very far. At a few points, we could hear the sound ofwhat was either a waterfall or a series of rapids. We would not havebeen able to negotiate either of those. And even if we did manage toslip away from the FARC guerrillas guarding us, we had no idea wherewe were or what direction to go to find any friendlies—or even if anyexisted. For the three of us, just putting one foot in front of the otherwas about the best we could do.I’m not sure if knowing our destination and for how long we’d bemarching would have made things any easier, but we asked the FARCconstantly about when we were going to get “there” and where “there”was. Their typical responses were “un rato más,” and “we’re taking youto rest.” This pattern of vague responses infuriated us, but we werequickly learning that our FARC guards were little more than pack animalsor slaves to the FARC hierarchy. They were at the very bottom ofthe information food chain by design. If they couldn’t tell us how far orwhere we were going, it was because they didn’t know themselves. Evenafter a couple of days, we began to doubt that Sonia, the mobile-columnleader, was fully aware of where she was taking us. In a way, I guess Ishould have been flattered by that. As Americans, we were big fish that