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

¿Quién Sabe?73“The final details of the negotiation are being worked out.”Each helping of a lie was spiced with “Keep on moving.” “You needto hurry.” “We must go.”In so many ways, we were victims of our own hope. We wanted tobelieve what they were telling us so badly. It was as if those fishingpoles they made were used to dangle bait in front of us, and we desperatelywanted to take it. We’d analyze every little detail. They’re wearinghats today. Bosses must be around. Bosses have connections to thehigher-ups. The higher-ups would be involved in the negotiations. If aboss is around, maybe he’s here to take us to a release/exchange point.Everything became a sign or prediction for the future.I don’t know if any of us really believed what we were being told, butwe knew that at some point we had to stop allowing our hope to beused against us. It was there for us and we couldn’t let them use it fortheir ends.KEI THOne morning, a few days after we’d helped the young girl (who did returnmy jacket and thank us), Johnny told us to drink up. We were headingover another mountain pass and there would be no water. He wasn’t exactlyright, but close. We sipped a few drops from some bamboo shoots,and the FARC were able to extract water from some plants that grew inclusters. They had palmlike fronds that were so tightly intertwined thatthey formed little gutters that collected rainwater.Being the largest of the bunch was not easy when it came to clothes.What they’d given me barely fit. Worse, the boots they’d provided didn’tfit, either, but they insisted I wear them anyway. They knew we werebeing tracked, and these mountains were filled with what I was usedto calling goat trails—paths no wider than a single person that werealways muddy enough to leave clear footprints. If the army saw one setof footprints that wasn’t like the standard-issue track the rubber bootsmade, it would have been a big arrow pointing the way to the gringos.