Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

by Ingrid Betancourt

  Just then Clara arrived, breathless, and knelt down next to me, trying to hide herself from the guard’s view. We were concealed by palm leaves.

  “Did he see you?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Do you have everything?”

  “Yes.”

  I showed her the machete, which I quickly cleaned with some leaves. Her face screwed up in disgust.

  “I hadn’t realized,” she apologized with a nervous giggle.

  I took the cane that I’d hidden in some nearby shrubs and rushed into the bush, continuing straight ahead. The sound of the cicadas was deafening in the forest, flooding the brain to the point of dizziness. It was exactly 6:15. The cicadas knew better than we did—they were as punctual as a Swiss watch. I smiled. No one would ever hear the din we were making as we walked through the leaves, the dry branches snapping horribly under our feet. Once night fell completely, the noise of the cicadas would give way to the croaking of the toads. Our steps would then be audible, but by that point we would be far enough away. Through the bushes I could make out the light coming from the camp. I could see human shapes entering and leaving the caletas. Under the cover of the vegetation we were already in darkness. They would no longer be able to see us.

  Clara held on to my shoulder. An enormous tree trunk had fallen to the ground and was blocking our path. I climbed onto it in order to get by and turned to help her, and it was as if someone had just switched off the lights. All of a sudden, we were in the most intense darkness. From now on we would have to feel our way. I used the cane like a blind person to identify obstacles before us and cut a path for us between the trees.

  At a certain point, the trees started to thin out and eventually clear. This made the walk easier and encouraged us to talk. I had the impression the path was gradually sloping downward. If that was the case, we were better off moving back into the forest. A path was synonymous with guards, and I had no idea how many security rings had been set up around the camp. We risked walking straight into the arms of our captors.

  We’d been heading like this for almost an hour, in darkness and silence, when I suddenly sensed we were not alone. The feeling was immediate, and I stopped dead in my tracks. Someone was definitely moving around in the dark. I distinctly heard the rustle of leaves underneath his feet, and I almost thought I could hear his breath. Clara tried to whisper something in my ear, and I put my hand over her mouth to stop her. The silence was leaden. The cicadas had gone quiet, and the toads were late starting their chorus. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest and was convinced that whoever was out there would be able to hear it, too. We had to stay absolutely still—if he had a flashlight, we were doomed.

  He approached slowly. His footsteps glided noiselessly, as if he were walking on a carpet of moss. He seemed able to see in the dark, because there was no hesitation in his step. At just two paces away from us, he stopped. I had the feeling he knew. I felt him looking at us.

  A cold sweat ran down my spine, and a new surge of adrenaline chilled my veins. I was paralyzed, unable to make the slightest movement or produce the slightest sound. And yet we had to move, distance ourselves one step at a time, find a tree, try to get away from him before he could switch on his flashlight and grab us. That was impossible. The only part of my body I could move was my eyes, rotating them in their sockets. I strained to pick out even a shadow, but it was so dark that I thought I truly had gone blind.

  He came closer. I could feel the heat from his body. A dense steam clung around my legs, and his odor rose to my nostrils, feeding my panic. It was strong and rancid. But it was not what I was expecting. My brain was working at full speed, processing all the signals my senses were sending it. Out of instinct I looked down. What was near me was not a man.

  The creature growled at my feet. It came up as high as my knees and was close to brushing up against me. It was a wild animal; I was certain of that now. Minutes that lasted forever went by in the deathly silence. And then it moved off, just as it had come, in a ripple of wind and a rustle of leaves.

  “It was a jaguar,” I whispered in Clara’s ear.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s switch on the flashlight. We have to see what it was.”

  I hesitated. We could not be too far from the camp. They would be able to see the light and come after us. However, there was no noise, no voices, no lights.

  “We’ll switch it on for a second and then turn it off.”

  The animal disappeared in the undergrowth like a yellow spark. In front of us, a small trail wound its way downward. We took it instinctively in the hope that it would lead somewhere. A few feet below, it came out onto a small wooden bridge that crossed a dribble of water. On the other side, the terrain grew flatter and barer, the soil sandy and spotted with clusters of mangroves. I was no longer afraid. The light had given me back my faculties.

  But I was worried, because taking a path was not a good idea and using the light made us dependent on it. We decided to follow the riverbank. We walked quickly to gain as much ground as we could. Lightning flashed across the night sky, and the wind picked up, sweeping through the trees and crushing the leaves. With no time to lose, we set to work. We had to build a shelter as quickly as possible. A piece of string between two mangroves, the large plastic sheet over the top, and we would have ourselves a roof. We sat underneath, huddled up so we would both fit. I laid the machete I’d just used at my feet, and I slumped forward onto my knees, overcome by desperately needed sleep.

  I awoke shortly afterward with the unpleasant sensation of having my backside in water. We were being drenched. A long, eerie creaking sound followed by an explosion made sure I was completely awake—a heavy tree had just crashed to the ground a few yards from our shelter. It could have crushed us. I reached out for the machete and put my hand into two inches of water. The storm was raging. The water level was actually rising and flooding us. How long had we been asleep? Long enough for the stream to increase its volume tenfold and burst its banks.

  I was still crouched down, groping for the machete, when I felt the water around my feet gathering speed—we were in the middle of a current!

  I switched on the flashlight. No point continuing the search for the machete. It had been swept away. We had to gather our things together and get out as quickly as possible. That was when I remembered what the guerrillas had said. In winter the land on either side of the stream flooded, hence the wooden paths built on stilts, which I’d taken for randomly erected bridges. Winter had hit us in a matter of minutes, and we could not have picked a worse place to spend the night.

  Without the machete, and with our fingers swollen from the water and the cold, dismantling the shelter became an arduous task. I was still trying to undo the knots and retrieve the precious string when the water reached our knees. I looked up. The branches of the mangroves were woven into a tight mesh a few inches above our heads. Water was rising fast. If we didn’t find the way out, we were going to drown in the limbs of the mangrove trees. I quickly glanced around, the trail was engulfed with water.

  The pounding rain, water up to our waists, and the strength of the current were all conspiring against us. The flashlight stopped working. My companion was panicking and shouting, not knowing what to do in the dark, trying to go around me and putting me off balance in a current that was already extremely dangerous.

  “Listen,” I said, “we’re going to get out of here. Everything will be all right. The first thing we need to do is put new batteries in the flashlight. “We’ll do it together, slowly. Take the batteries out of the bag one by one and pass them to me, and make sure you put them securely in my hand. I have to find the right end. There. Give me the other one. That’s it, done.”

  The operation took many long minutes. I wedged myself between the branches of a small bush to stabilize myself against the current. I had just one fear: that the batteries would slip from my fingers and get lost in the water
. My hands were trembling, and I had trouble keeping a good grip on them. By the time I finally managed to push the switch, the water was up to our necks.

  At the first sweep of light, my companion forged straight ahead. “This way!” she shouted, going deeper into the water. It wasn’t worth arguing. I remained perched on my bush, scanning the area, trying to find an indication of which direction we should take.

  She returned defeated and looked at me in confusion.

  “Over there,” I told her.

  It was more than intuition. It was like a calling. I let myself be guided, and I walked. An angel! I thought, without finding it absurd. Now, looking back, I like to think that angel was Papa. He had just died, and I didn’t yet know.

  I went deeper into the water but continued in the same direction, stubbornly. Farther on, the terrain rose steeply. Three more strides and we were out of the water, looking over a huge swamp. The small bridge had disappeared, as had the stream. It was now a flowing, raging river, flooding everything in its path.

  We walked on, our backs hunched, soaked to the skin, shivering with every step and exhausted. The first glimmer of dawn was cutting through the thick vegetation. We had to take stock of our losses and wring out our clothes. Most of all we had to prepare our hideout for the day. They were surely on our tail already, and we had not made sufficient headway.

  The sun came out. Through the thick foliage, we could see patches of pale blue, evidence that the clouds were breaking up. Slanted rays of light pierced the vegetation, heating the ground with such intensity that the soil released fragrances that seemed to turn the place into an enchanted forest. The jungle had lost the sinister aspect of the previous night. We spoke in whispers, planning meticulously the tasks we would each be allocated during the day. We’d decided not to walk at night, given that there was no moon to light our path because it was hidden behind the heavy clouds of the rainy season. But we were afraid of walking during the day, since we knew that the guerrillas would be searching for us and were probably pretty close. I looked around for somewhere to hide and spied a hole left by a gigantic root that had been literally ripped out of the soil by the weight of the falling tree. The exposed earth was red and sandy—filled with small creatures crawling around. Nothing too nasty—no scorpions or “Indian beards,” the large, rainbow-colored venomous caterpillars. I thought we could spend the day camouflaged in this hollow. We needed to cut some young palm leaves to hide ourselves. The kitchen knife I had “borrowed” was a good substitute for the machete.

  We had finished fabricating a screen by crisscrossing branches and palm leaves when we heard Young Cesar’s loud voice bellowing out orders, followed by the sound of several men running a few yards to our right. One of them was cursing as he bolted past us. He moved farther and farther away before disappearing altogether. Instinctively we huddled together tightly and held our breath. Then calmness returned; the wind blew through the treetops, water could be heard babbling all around us as it found its way toward the river, the birds started to sing. Man was conspicuous by his absence. Had we been dreaming? We hadn’t seen them, but they’d been very close. It was a warning. We had to move. Our clothes had already dried on us. Our leather boots were full of water. Placed in the right spot under a powerful ray of sun, they produced a beautiful swirl of steam. The smell had attracted a swarm of bees that clung to them in clusters and took turns sucking them to relieve them of their salt. Covered in bees like that, they looked more like a hive than a pair of boots. After a while I noticed that the bees’ activity was having a beneficial effect: They were like a team of cleaners, replacing the rancid odor with the sweet smell of honey. Encouraged by this discovery, I had the unfortunate idea of drying my underwear on a branch in full sun. When I went to check on it, I burst out laughing. The ants had cut out and carried off circles of fabric, and what was left had been invaded by termites using it as material to build their tunnels.

  We decided to leave at dawn the next day. We would use the cut palm leaves as a mattress. One of the plastic sheets could go on top, and the other could be draped to serve as a roof. We were at the crest of a hill. If it started raining again, at least we would not be flooded. We broke off four branches and pushed one into each corner of our makeshift tent. We could thus enjoy the luxury of our mosquito net.

  We had just completed our first twenty-four hours of freedom! Outside the mosquito net, shiny hard beetles tried in vain to get through the mesh. I closed my eyes after making sure there were no gaps in the net; it was well secured by our body weight.

  When I woke up with a start, the sun was already high in the sky. We had slept too long. I hastily gathered our things, scattered the palm leaves so as not to leave any trace of our presence, and listened intently. Nothing. They had to be far away. They’d probably already struck camp. The realization that we were completely alone made me calm and anxious in equal measure. What if we went around in circles for weeks and got lost forever in this labyrinth of chlorophyll?

  I didn’t know which direction to take. I moved forward by instinct. Clara followed. She had insisted on bringing a host of small items—medicine, toilet paper, anti-inflammatory cream, Band-Aids, a change of clothes, and of course food. She had wanted to take my overnight bag, which was not only bursting at the seams but weighed a ton. I’d done everything I could to dissuade her. But I hadn’t wanted to push the argument too far, because I realized that in this small bag she was storing all the antidotes to her own fear. After an hour of walking, she was doing her best not to appear handicapped by the load and I was doing my best to appear not to notice.

  I tried to get my bearings from the sun, but large clouds had filled the sky with a layer of gray, turning the world beneath the trees into a flat space with no shadows and therefore no clues as to direction. We both kept our ears open for any sound that would alert us to the presence of another living soul, but this was an enchanted forest, suspended in time, absent from the memory of men. There was only us, and the sound of our footsteps on the carpet of dead leaves.

  Without warning, the forest changed. The light was different, the jungle sounds were less intense, the trees seemed farther apart, and we felt more exposed. We slowed our pace and proceeded with more caution. A couple of steps later and we were on a road, wide enough to accommodate a vehicle, a proper road in the middle of the jungle. I turned around immediately, taking my companion by the arm to hide in the vegetation, where we crouched among the enormous roots of a tree. A road! It was the way out! But it was also the greatest danger.

  We were fascinated by our find. Where could the road lead? Was it possible that by following it we would end up somewhere inhabited, in some corner of civilization? Was this the location of the guerrillas whom we’d heard the previous day? We talked this over in hushed tones, looking at the road like a forbidden fruit. Any road in the jungle was the work of the guerrillas.

  It was their domain, their territory. We decided to walk alongside it, albeit at a reasonable distance, and keep ourselves under cover at all times. We wanted to make as much headway as possible during the day, as cautiously as possible.

  For hours we followed our initial plan. The road climbed and fell steeply, wound its way around sharp bends and appeared to have no end. I hastened my step, to try to gain as much distance as possible during daylight hours. Little by little, my companion started to lag behind, biting her lip so as not to admit she was suffering from the weight of her load.

  “Give it to me, I’ll carry it.”

  “No, it’s okay. It’s not heavy.”

  The road became significantly narrower, and it was increasingly difficult to stay to the side of it. The landscape was insane. Ascents became climbs, and descents became toboggan rides. We stopped after three hours at a small wooden bridge over a creek. The water was crystal clear and babbled tunefully over a bed of small white and pink stones. I was dying of thirst, and I drank like a horse, kneeling on the riverbank. Then I filled my small water bottle. Clara did the same
. We laughed like children at the simple pleasure of drinking clean water. What we’d been ruminating over in the solitude of our individual thoughts now became the subject of discussion: We had walked all morning without encountering a soul. The guerrillas knew we were unaware that this road existed. If we took it, we could cover ten times the distance. We agreed to walk in strict silence so we could jump for cover at the slightest sound, and I kept my eyes focused well into the distance in an effort to discern any movement whatsoever. We became wrapped up in the mechanics of walking, and my mind gradually grew more absorbed in concentrating on the physical effort than in observing the vigilance we had promised each other.

  After turning a bend, we came to a fairly long bridge that crossed a dry river-bed. Our boots were encrusted with mud, and the latest rains made the wooden bridge look as if it had been washed down with soap and water. We decided to pass underneath to avoid leaving footprints. As I edged my way along the underside of the bridge, I noticed creeper tendrils hanging down in twists over the moss. I had already observed this bizarre form of vegetation on a few trees and thought it bore a strange resemblance to dreadlocks. I could have imagined any number of things, except that it was hornets’ nests. I spotted them clustered on one of the bridge’s beams and jumped back in fright. I warned Clara, who was a few steps behind me, pointing to a ball foaming with insects. Had it not been for an increasingly loud buzzing sound a second earlier, I would have slammed right into it. As it was, the noise alerted me to the fact that the wasps had taken flight and were about to punish us for having disturbed them.

  I saw the squadron in triangle formation rushing toward me. I shot like an arrow to the other end of the bridge and ran as fast as I could along the path until I thought I had distanced myself from the noise. I stopped, breathless, and turned around, only to be met with the most nightmarish vision: My companion was standing a few yards away from me, black with hornets. The insects, having noticed that I had stopped, abandoned their initial prey to come toward me like a fighter squadron. There was no way I could start running again and leave Clara at the mercy of the warring swarm. Before I could give it any further thought, I, too, became covered in raging insects; they latched onto me everywhere, curling up on themselves to drive their powerful stingers into me as deeply as they could. I remembered one of the guards talking about African wasps whose sting could kill livestock within seconds.