we thought if we were going to run into somebody, it would be the farc, but i remember victor was nervous from the beginning that he didn t really know who they were. when he left, he was really quiet. i m certain he feared for his life. it s possible he was thinking they were sworn enemy of the farc, paramilitaries. i knew that there were rumors about them using chainsaws on people. g new cars. you re smart. you already knew that. but it s also great for finding the perfect used car.
our own survival skills. then that evening another group of soldiers arrived. you recognize those men? they were the soldiers that went into panama. they had heavier mortars, russian squad machine guns. the commander that originally took victor reassures us that victor is going to be coming along any minute, and they demand all of our electronic equipment. they took our media, our passports, everything we had. the level of anxiety, it s gradually building. rapido. it was like grab your bag, get your stuff. we need to leave. as we are climbing out of this ridge line, robert and i began this conversation which was basically how do we really know these people are who they say they are.
so we need to go through all the details of your trip. they want to know everything. all the details that you can remember. at that point, the cracks are starting. i was starting to feel burn out. i want to know more about your guide. there were a lot of questions about victor. where did you meet him? there were questions about how we had met him, what he had done in certain situations. is he okay? you haven t heard what happened? it was then that we got the full story of what had happened after victor left with the paramilitaries. they got victor to lead them back into panama. and when they got to paille, there was kind of a celebration underway. for whatever reason, they didn t like the cooperation they were getting. the chief was killed by the paramilitaries. his son was left for dead. from there, they left paille and
they went even deeper into panama, all the way to pukuru. i m guessing if victor wasn t convinced before that he was a convinced now. so, victor escapes somewhere between paille and pukuru. this is like a 50-year-old man trying to outrun an entire squad of hardened trained paramilitary soldiers in the jungle. and he outruns them. warns the village. and by the time the paramilitary show up, the village is empty. they looted, burned a couple of the buildings to the ground and left. they burned a couple of buildings to the ground and left. they took what they wanted, burned a couple when i heard about what happened, i blamed myself. this was an act of terrorism. it was the first paramilitary inversion into panama.
by that time, things were moving along pretty well, and we were able to negotiate with the chief for guides. i couldn t believe where i was. i felt incredibly fortunate. i felt like i was doing what i set out to do. we were there for a couple of days. victor told us that it would be safer if we made contact with the farc now rather than later. he told us that a local commander with the farc would meet with us. we spent a whole day. we just hung out. but they never showed up. if the farc had showed up, that would have been a huge relief, but that didn t happen. and the following day, we left. leaving paya, i knew we were close to colombia. we were probably about a day or day and a half from the border.