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

74 OUT OF CAPTIVITYTo accommodate my big feet, Johnny cut the toes off of a pair of bootsfor me so I could march and not be a human locator beacon. It suitedtheir needs but did little for mine. If you’ve ever done any hiking, youknow that having your toes flapping in the breeze out ahead of you isan open invitation for bad stuff to happen. I’m not just talking aboutstubbing a toe, I’m talking about real bad stuff.As the days went by I started getting a better idea of what some ofthose possible bad things were. One night the FARC macheted a smallclearing for us to lie down on, and when it was time to sleep, the threeof us quickly nodded off. A few seconds later, we heard a woman’sscream followed by the sound of boots striking the ground. A youngguard named Martín rushed past us with his machete drawn and apanicked, bug-eyed look on his face. For the next thirty seconds or so,we couldn’t see a thing, we could only hear the crisp sound of Martín’sblade as it rose and fell quickly and without hesitation. He came back,retrieved a long pole, and returned to where he’d been. Using the pole,he jabbed at something on the ground and raised up a snake so big thathe struggled to lift the whole thing off the ground. It was about sevenfeet long and as thick around as my forearm. He carried it all aroundthe camp, showing it off to everyone.The three of us simply stared in amazement.“What is it?” Tom asked.“Riaca” was the reply.I was thinking it was some kind of constrictor, but when we did theinternational sign for squeezing, they shook their heads and made bitinggestures. I looked down at my already ground-up toes and thoughtthat was all I needed, to have my bloodied toes out there like we werechumming for sharks like they had done in Jaws. “I think I’m going toneed bigger boots,” I said.If huge poisonous snakes weren’t enough, we also had to contendwith the nasty invisibles infiltrating our bodies. We consumed a lot