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

72 OUT OF CAPTIVITYas humanly possible. That was our challenge to ourselves and to oneanother.After our three nights of rest at the finca, on what I calculated to bethe second day of the appropriately named month of March, we setout down the slope and across one of the many mountain streams. Wewalked for a few hours before making camp for the night. The next daythe FARC provided horses for us. We didn’t complain about being ableto mount up instead of walking. Our route took us upstream. Sometimesthe FARC led our horses along the water’s edge and sometimeswithin the stream itself. The streambed was rock-strewn and angledsteeply upward. I marveled at the agility of the horses. I was behind ayoung colt that was following his mother upstream over and aroundboulders. At several points we moved off the stream unexpectedly, andthrough the foliage of the banana trees and other vegetation, we couldcatch glimpses of tumbling and frothing water from sets of rapids.The path through the mountains was a narrow single track, with asteep drop-off on the downhill side. A number of times, the groundbeneath the horses’ hooves gave way, causing the horses to lurch to theside or rear up and sending us crashing to the ground. More often thannot, the horses regained their balance, but once, my horse fell with mestill on it. It happened quickly. One second I was riding along, and thenext I was on the ground, with Keith’s voice in my ear shouting at meto move. I rolled over just as the horse’s massive body collapsed ontothe patch of ground where I’d just been.I probably should have been more concerned about my safety than Iwas, but I was so grateful not to be on foot that I didn’t really care. Notwalking gave us more time to heal. Still, each fall from the horses, andwe all took more than one, aggravated our injuries and brought back amore intense level of suffering. We weren’t eating much, but the FARCwere still feeding us a steady diet of hope:“Negotiations for your release are going on right now.”“You’re going to be set free very soon.”