the tree and cut off the top and you literally have six to eight ounces of water stored in the tree. it was like a tremendous relief. we hiked all afternoon, and that afternoon we arrived in paya. coming into paya was much different than pucuro because they were expecting us. we made it to the last stop before you cross the border into colombia. that evening, we attended this tribal meeting. i can remember there is a group of young men kind of dancing in circles, playing their music, enjoying themselves. we ate fish and then rice and some bush meat, iguana. you eat what is served. and it was good. it was good.
paya was our last village, and then beyond that, the really serious part began. hiking through the jungle is what you would expect. everything is sharp and pointy or trying to eat you. i had a compass, but you can t just pick a direction and walk east there is ravines and valleys. you could hike and bush whack and bleed all day a couple of miles and not really be any farther than where you started and there would be points where the guide would turn around and we would go back the same way we came, went off in another direction. you don t have any line of sight, and you re down under the canopy. and you really don t even have a sense what direction you re walking. what i notice more than anything
they wanted to see our maps. and they had some questions about paya and who was there and what was there. they decided that they were going into panama for themselves, but they needed a guide to retrace our steps. what did he say? he says they want to take victor with them to panama. there was a brief argument. tell them there is no reason to take him to panama. we were pretty emphatic about it. but victor didn t really say much of anything on his behalf. i think at that point he realized that things were beyond his control. [ speaking spanish ] i mean, we really pleaded
z and then one of them sort of showed where the third man had been shot, that they had killed him. and they continued back to paya, where our guides had just run off to. i was trying to delay panic. i figured there would be time later on. but at this point we needed to figure out what we were going to do. i remember being quiet. i remember not really saying much. i just kind of went back into myself. this wasn t really my game. robert was the one that suggested i think we keep going. toward the ambush. it will be safer than to turn back. what about victor? we stay together. mark, are you happy with that? i m scared. but this was something that i kind of hoped to encounter, a true, true, true test. okay. so we re all agreed. it was that important to me that i could deal with whatever it was down the trail. there was a lot of internal monologue.
agua. they would hack off part of the tree and cut off the top and you literally have six to eight ounces of water stored in the tree. it was like a tremendous relief. we hiked all afternoon, and that afternoon we arrived in paya. coming into paya was much different than pucuro because they were expecting us. we made it to the last stop before you cross the border into colombia. that evening, we attended this tribal meeting. i can remember there is a group of young men kind of dancing in circles, playing their music, enjoying themselves.