My Ordeal

September 28th

Santa Cruz, Bolivia / El Tren de Muerte

We knew of an existing route through to Argentina from Sucre, a much more direct way through “The Grand Chaco”, one of the hottest places in South America, with its flood seasons alternating with drought.

The Chaco stretches through the southeastern corner of Bolivia, portions of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. Relatively uninhabited for the most part it is a vast (647,500 sq km or 250,000 sq ml) track of parched lowland plain supporting grasslands, thorny forests and cactus.

It being wet season and all, the prospect of making it through to Paraguay and Argentina was a remote and extremely hazardous possibility. We decided to go the long way through the lower jungles of eastern Bolivia, by way of the border at Puerto Suarez and Corumba, Brazil.

Duff and I left Sucre the next morning on an all-day journey by bus back to Oruro, where we caught a connecting bus northeast through to Coachabamba. It was late afternoon when our bus came across a checkpoint along the road and, being forced to stop, Bolivian soldiers mounted our vehicle and demanded that any Chileano passengers identify themselves immediately.

They then went through the bus requesting our passports and visas to verify that we were not illegal Chilean immigrants, and we both shivered as if we had just felt an icy cold spot in a room. Julio’s forebodings came back to haunt me, for he would have been taken into military custody if he had been traveling with us on this bus that day.

Finding no one of Chilean nationality aboard the bus the soldiers withdrew and allowed us to continue on our way, and turning to Duff puzzled by this intimidating intrusion, he explained that this was a centuries’ old animosity held over from the “War of the Pacific”.

This war ran from 1879-1883, and in it Chile captured, occupied, and consequentially claimed coastal territory previously held by Bolivia, rendering them a landlocked country ever afterward, something Bolivia will never forgive or forget.

Not long afterward we passed through a military marshalling grounds complete with artillery and cavalry practicing maneuvers, looking like something out of a Spanish-American war movie.

On we traveled throughout that night, and a gathering weariness of endless miles began to grow like a yoke about my shoulders, but we had no choice but to continue on and bear it, the more that the desolate windswept, high plains lay before our path to Brazil.

The next morning was the last leg of our journey southeastward to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Duff went on to educate me as to how this innocuous corner of the globe had become the little known cocaine drug capital of the world thus far along.

He elaborated on the “coke kitchens” in the isolated regions of the jungles of Santa Cruz. The anti-American guerilla militants of Bolivia produced, and maintained the world supply of cocaine. They hoped the degradation and enslavement of the free world would end the reign of their exploitation from capitalist countries everywhere.

He struck jagged fear into my heart as to how the Bolivian government was accepting huge financial gratuities by in large part playing the American influence against itself, in that it gave all the pretenses of waging a war against the drug lords of Bolivia, while making a fortune selling cocaine to the same enemy who kept them a have-not nation of the Third World.

He told me how the city was locked up by Interpol and the military, and how much suspicion its visitors and citizens were shrouded under. This kind of talk was filling me with horror and dread, and I just wanted to get through Santa Cruz and out of it again without incident.

We entered into the city shortly after midday, about 15 hours after leaving Sucre, and made our way with little exploration for the train terminal at El Carmen on the far eastern edge of the city limits.

We had already been over a vast amount of kilometers on a day-and- night-long ride by bus to get to this juncture and Duff was by this time getting more and more agitated, anticipating a long train ride through to the Brazilian Border.

The cheapest way to travel meant catching a ride encarga (freight) on the Red Oriental, the notorious “Tren Mixto”, “El Tren de la Muerte” (The Train of Death), on the cattle car where more than a hundred people were crammed into a flatbed boxcar, and transported en mass from Santa Cruz to the Bolivian border at Porto Suarez.

He suggested obtaining some sort of sedatives as we had gotten very little dreamtime in the last 24 hours due to the travel fatigue, and he was very much starting to show it. We purchased some cerveza and then some muscle relaxants at a nearby pharmacy to induce a sort of narcoleptic state, so as to sleep our way through the next 12-hour train ride.

I became quite apprehensive about his suggestions, but had also been deprived of any quality sleep that day and night before, and what should have been conceived as very bad judgment passed for what seemed a good idea at the time that afternoon.

Time seemed to drag on eternally after we purchased our tickets about 90 minutes beforehand to travel on the cattle car, and we shared one of the several quart bottles of Bolivian cerveza we had bought, as we waited to board the “Train of Death”.

Finally the time to board came and we, along with some hundred others with children and all manner of possessions, entered into a 50” long by 9.5” wide flatbed boxcar, devoid of seating of any kind but for the floor beneath our feet. We were, as the saying goes, “herded into the car like the cattle” that are normally transported in such conditions to marketplace for sale for slaughter.

As I looked about me there was little room, with the nearest person about a foot away in any direction at any given time. It should have dawned on me much earlier than that that I needn’t have suffered those intolerable conditions for the sake of a few Bolivian dollars, but as I said earlier, we were deprived of good reason due to fatigue.

The contents of the boxcar inhabitants searched out anywhere they could sit, along the sides of the car, and everywhere a body could sit between. About twenty-five minutes later the train shuttered and hissed jerking awkwardly into a slow forward momentum.

Duff and I were stationed to the immediate right of the boxcar entrance door, on the south side of the train, where we slumped up against the side of the car wall, with our packsacks and Duff’s new guitar. As the train cleared the station and gathered steam, we opened a second quart of beer as he talked about missing home in California, and his acute lack of George Benson music that he adored and pined to hear with great passion.

Once we were well underway we downed a few muscle relaxants in the hopes that sleep would soon overtake us as time wore on. It was deepening evening by now and as our journey was now in full flight we continued to drink the quarts we had brought on board with us.

To pass time I showed Duff some new chords on the guitar to try out and he conscientiously attempted to master then, as the crowd, seeing the new Di Giorgio classical guitar, wanted a demonstration of its capabilities.

One thing I always remember about the Latin Americans is their love of classical song and dance, so it was hard to contain the crowd’s desire for a musical performance at any one time. Finally caving in to the persistent pressure to ¡toque música! (touch music!) Duff passed me the guitar, and I kind of went into a guitar trance, losing myself in the moment of the performance.

The minutes grew into over an hour and I attempted to sing every tune in my repertoire to make the journey more palatable, and pass more quickly. As the occasion grew more intense we chewed some coca leaves to overcome our gathering weariness.

Spun out and emotionally spent I handed Duff his guitar with our audience caught up in the excitement of song, as they cried out for more music. Duff continued to go over the chord progressions I had laid out for him earlier, and I drifted off into a deepening sleep which was the only way my body could satisfy the state of my weariness.

When I awoke next it was to the sounds of calamity and confusion of Duff rousting me out of my sleep, saying they were trying to steal his guitar. This came as quite a shocking revelation as no one seemed to have been threatening or sinister in design, although he was visibly agitated to the point of hysterical unreasoning.

I attempted to calm him down, reassuring him that things were not as bad as they seemed, but he would have none of it reasserting those around him were out to take his new musical instrument from him.

He was thoroughly beyond reasoning with at this point and a sense of horror crept over me with a terrible shudder when he announced his intentions to exit the train immediately. I looked at him incredulously, as I could hardly believe the words he was uttering.

I implored him to listen to me, saying the train was in full flight, and it would mean certain death to jump from it at that point, it being the black of night and the train speeding at an excess of 330 kilometers an hour.

He said, “I don’t care”… “I’m leaving now”…“I won’t stay where they are trying to rob me”, and throwing open the boxcar door to the chill night wind that flooded into the compartment, steel wheels clacking out the furious pace to my attempts to constrain him, he exited, leaping out the door of “the train of death”.

September 29th

Roboré, Bolivia / Under Military Arrest

Several seconds after the train had come screaming to a violent halt most of the occupants of the cattle car continued pitching forward, falling on top of one another, sliding on for a half a dozen feet or more.

When everyone had gathered their selves and their things again, they flooded out of the boxcar door like water spilling out of storm drain, myself included.

Still not fully awakened, I tried to fight my way out, dragging my packsack along with the throngs of panicked travelers through the blackness alongside of the now idling train.

Running awkwardly on rubbery legs sixty yards back through the dark, I repeatedly called out “Duff! Where are you? Where are you?” Finally, in a distant, feeble voice, I heard him cry out to me, some thirty yards further down the tracks.

There he lay in a crumpled mess on the ground, a dim shadowy figure in the night, mumbling “Keith, I think it’s broken... it’s broken.” I could only partially make out his leg, which, given the sheen that came off it, seemed soaking wet with what I could only assume was volumes of his own blood, through which shards of bone could be seen protruding from the taters of his denim jeans.

By this time, excited voices could be heard barking out orders and flashlights were flitting about everywhere, dazzling my site. Before another word could be said, I felt hands seize my arms and shoulders, restraining me as I lashed out to fight off the attack.

A second later I received a blow to the head. When I caught a glimpse of a uniform in the flashing lights which darted around in the dark, I immediately realized these were not any of the occupants of the boxcar from which we had issued forth.

I felt myself being restrained again, and this time by many bodies in the night. I cried out, trying to draw attention to the fallen American who seemed to have been forgotten in their heat of my being apprehended. I was told to shut up and cease and desist, and that he would be taken to the nearest hospital.

It was at this point that I came to the realization that I was under arrest and detainment by the Bolivian military, which was traveling on the same train as a security detachment for reasons unbeknown to me.

I was taken by armed guard to one of the lighted sleeper cars where I was personally searched and questioned, and my and Duff’s packsack were scrutinized to the lengthiest degree. It was about half an hour later before the train began moving again. I was asked to explain what even the most benign of my possessions were, as well as Duff’s own effects about which I knew nothing.

When they had finished, one of the soldiers left the car and the other stayed with me, telling me I would sleep there for the night, sharing a cot with him. We lay head-to-foot, him pinning me in, as it were, to the wall of the car.

Uncomfortable – and unsurprisingly so – I got very little sleep the rest of that night before arriving in Roboré at dawn. Once there, I was transported to a military training facility about thirty minutes by road outside of town. I was led to what appeared to be a small outpost about 16’x12’ square, with a smaller desk and office space about 8’x8’ behind me to the left.

There I was sat on a wooden stool in the center of the room for the rest of the day, left unguarded to twist in the wind, apparently in order to ponder my own missteps and the looming consequences of the cost of association with the ill-fated American I had befriended.

The small room resembled a kitchen of sorts, with cupboards, counter, refrigerator and sink behind. I sat beside the main business counter to the right of me, where one of the two entrance doors was located, which looked like a site for routine clerical work.

The three windows which lay between the entrances were open but covered with screening, as were the doors, although they failed pitifully to hold back the swarm of hungry jungle mosquitoes that attacked me relentlessly the whole day long.

Directly in front of me out in the outer yard was what looked like a boot camp for new recruits, led by a hard-nosed drill sergeant, who was in this case the Comandante (Commander) of the training facility.

All morning long they endured their grueling regimen before they moved around to the left, out of the heat of the sun, after lunch and were drilled on for the rest of the afternoon. I was fed after the main recruits were attended to and treated well by the young military soldiers who were assigned to me.

I watched more out of boredom than interest as they went through their boot camp drills. If any one of the trainees were caught out of step, late to address, or the last men to fall in, the Commandant, eyes narrowing to black, would point an accusing finger and single them out one by one.

They were then obliged to present their backsides to him to receive a truncheon blow from his Billy club, and, with a scissor kick of his foot to their aft, they winced and were sent whimpering like curs running back double-quick time to fall in again.

This episode would repeat itself over and over until drills were completed by late afternoon. It would have been most amusing if I had felt in any way felt like laughing, but my incarceration weighed heavily upon me in the form of dread about how this would all play out. Shortly after training and drills had ended, and with dusk approaching, my two military assignees came to take me to their troop mess tent for the evening meal.

Chuno (a hearty chicken broth, the body of which consisted mainly of meat, rice, potatoes and/or sometimes quinoa) was served with flatbread, and you can be very certain indeed that I was most grateful to eat it amongst the same soldiers that held me in detention. After supper they escorted me to their barracks. On arriving there they assigned me a cot in the northernmost corner, where I would sleep the night amongst the soldiers.

A row of approximately 14 other cots lay stretched away down to the entrance to my left, and another 15 assembled in parallel across the floor on the other side of the barracks. Each cot was equipped with an apparatus to suspend full mosquito netting the length of each of the cots.

This achieved a two-fold purpose: the young men who had been drilled hard could obtain a good nights rest, without the pestilence of biting insect interrupting their sleep. More importantly, though, it was deployed as a safeguard to protect the soldiers from the ravages of malaria and yellow fever carried and transmitted by mosquito.

One of the young trainees whose cot was next to mine had just entered the barracks. Returning to his bed making preparations for lights out, he glanced up and, smiling at me, asked where I had learnt to speak Spanish. I replied Mexico, Central and South America. He said that I spoke quite well considering I was a foreigner.

When I asked him what he knew of the reason for my detention, he replied only that I was being held for questioning. When I asked when that would take place, he said he didn’t know, but it was likely to be conducted by the Jefe (Chief) who was out of the military training compound on previous business, but expected to return by the end of the week.

After settling into the barracks for the night, I watched by the glare of the bare light bulbs strung out along each of the cross members the entire length of the structure as the soldiers interacted between themselves laughing and joking, bantering back and forth in their native tongue, throwing towels and teasing at each other and such.

Although I was there in the room with the soldiers they carried on in their usual way as if I was one of them, or not there at all. They paid me no special attention, in that I was foreign to their barracks and a detainee held for interrogation.

Some were cleaning their riffles, other engaged in a few games of cards before curfew fell. I thought it very odd being a party to it all as if I was some innocuous fly on the wall watching, listening, trying to understand what would happen next, waiting for the unforeseen. This in particular baffled me especially, in that instead of isolating me in order to demoralize me before questioning, I was allowed the solace of their company to observe and enjoy.

All the while I was waiting, not knowing if or when the Jefe would get back to commence this whole sordid ordeal. It hung over me like the sword of Damocles, and all that I could do was anticipate in cruel apprehension while I twisted like a worm on a hook, suspended in time.

I ate from the same rations, used the same latrine and shower, slept on the same army issued cot and under the identical mosquito netting that protected the soldiers from the ravages of biting flies. I was in every way well taken care of, considering the fact that I was a detainee awaiting questioning concerning a possible international incident, and it bewildered me to try and reconcile the two realities.

There was something about the Comandante, however, that I could not put my finger on – the way he went about training his troops with a truncheon and his iron boot – that simply terrified me and filled me with an unmerciful dread.

When he regarded me it was in a terse and petulant manner, for he said nothing to me, but instead attempted to intimidate me with a look of most menacing fashion. It seemed to me as if he was smacking his lips at the thought of his chance to begin the interrogations. It seemed that he could not wait for the Jefe to arrive from other business so they could proceed immediately.

When curfew came and the lights were put out for the night I remember feeling how strange it was to be sleeping under mosquito netting in the middle of the jungle in a barracks, amongst the random coughs and snoring of the 44 soldiers I now slept with, inside a military training facility in southeastern Bolivia.

Unknown to us, the military authorities had been riding our train to insure no drug smuggling out of the country was allowed to take place under their watch, and this kind of train-stopping incident aroused great suspicion amongst the drug enforcement community.

For instance, the behavior might have been construed as the two gringos, having become aware of the military presence on the train, in their ensuing panic might have caused the emergency stop to rid themselves of illegal contraband before being caught in possession of it.

The Military working under the jurisdiction of the Chief of Bolivian International Police, had ordered me detained indefinitely until such time as he was available to review the account of the incident, and become aquatinted with the situation.

There would have to be an official investigation conducted as to why the train emergency arrest had been initiated, and since there was an accident that had occurred as a direct result of our actions, we would be held for further clarification as a consequence.

Duff and I were separated immediately and I was incarcerated and taken into detention for further questioning at a military training compound on the outskirts of Roboré. He on the other hand was evacuated by air, back the opposite direction to the general hospital, located in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

It boggled my mind as to how I had arrived at this most untenable set of circumstances, how I had become the only one left responsible in clearing up this whole sordid mess we had gotten ourselves into.

Now I was here, lying in a cot under military issue mosquito netting, being held under international law and bound to provide credible explanation, for reasons of an international incident occurring on, and involving the use of the property of the Bolivian government.

All the unheeded chastisements and recriminations I levied upon myself for winding up in this sticky wicket I cannot begin to recount, but I took solace in the fact that I was guilty of having done nothing illegal.

Although it was a most unenviable position to be cast in, and I would have to summon the courage to bear it alone, I felt that the weight of the body of evidence, when exposed, was in my corner, and truth would free me when all the counters had been carefully examined

There in the black stillness of the night with the rhythm of the dry wheezing of crickets rasping through the open screen window outside, I tried vainly to retrace the circumstances that had led up to my arrest and detention here in the limbo of uncertainty. Unanswerable questions burned at length within my mind, tormenting me into the night.

Why had I let Duff talk me into traveling in such a compromised fashion for the sake of saving a few pesos? Why had I not remained on the train to take my chances by not involving myself with his misfortunate act of folly?

Why had he felt it so imperative to leave the train under any circumstance? Why had he felt abjectly compelled to commit so dangerous an act that it could only lead to disaster? None of it made any sense to

me!

How long would I be interred here waiting to be questioned for an accident that wasn’t within my control to prevent? A fuse that led straight to the impact of direct consequences, for an incident I had been left to try to explain.

Moreover, I wondered what had ever possessed me to return to South America in the first place, knowing what a wild and dangerously unstable continent it was. Was it only to complete what Donald and I had been unable to achieve the first time we visited in 1973, or was it my own foolish willfulness?

I tossed and turned fitfully most of the night before, mercifully, mental exhaustion overtook me, and when next I remember the lights came on abruptly and there was the Comandante, standing in the middle of the barracks rousting his trainees with his grating, abrasive posturing, barking orders to all to get up and on their feet.

After all were washed up, dressed and fed, I was once again led to the little registrar’s office where I had been detained the day before, to take up the same position on the same little stool by the clerical desk to languish for the day.

Having done all this the day before, it being somewhat of a novel experience then, it had now become more mundane than ever before, and time passed like eons as I tried to keep myself from despairing by attempting to endure this sentence again for another eight hours.

I cursed myself for not having the foresight to have avoided this situation altogether, had I not decided to let myself be seduced into chasing rainbows in the light of the full moon at Iguaçu.

I bristled at the thought that I might be anywhere pleasantly overlooking a dazzling colonialist vista in Cuzco again, or in my little garden villa with the sound of the fountain babbling away at my old hotel, sipping a café con leche while comfortably enjoying my book in the central plaza.

All these things came back to me with a quiet rage, wracking my mind and twisting my thoughts. My fears raced on ahead of good reason as horror griped me, chilling me to the bone, and I realized that if I could not extricate myself from this seizure, I might never see my freedom again.

I tried to put all these doubts out of my mind and summoned all the courage I could to face what now lay ahead, but the waiting was like Japanese water torture, as there was way too much time to think and I squirmed like a worm on a hook, trying to get comfortable as my rear end was often numb on the hard wooden stool.

I got up to stretch my legs and get some circulation again and I paced like a cat in a cage in my office prison until my legs were weary and I was forced to sit back down again. This went on all day long until the tedium was broken briefly either by lunch, which was delivered to me by my guards or at the end of training maneuvers for the day.

It was incredible to think it but I looked forward all day to evening meal, and the freedom to trade my guarded office prison confines for the human exchange of the soldier’s camaraderie each night before curfew.

The soldiers were by now showing outright friendship to me, I having told them the circumstances how it was I wound up here in their midst. Many of them empathized with me saying the Jefe was expected back by week’s end, that he was a decent man and that they much respected their leader in authority, and not to despair too much.

On the third day of detention it all started again. I took up occupation in the guarded office on my wooden stool, in which this scenario was beginning to resemble a recurring nightmare in hell. Time seemed to stand still as I watched without much interest at the routine exercises the young recruits went through.

A great apprehension now was growing in my heart of what was sure to come, but never seemed to manifest itself, although I did not fully understand the implications of fear I was buckling under. This purgatorial cycle replayed itself out over and over for next three days without mercy, until I was sure I could stand no more that I would surely crack under the restriction and tedium of the relentless isolation.

It was around early mid-morning on the seventh day when presently and quite unexpectedly the Jefe arrived at camp at last, being escorted up to the office entrance to my right, where he sat waiting his acknowledgment.

He entered the office and glancing at me briefly said nothing, but proceeded to the desk in the smaller office to the left around behind me. Ordering refreshment from his escort and opening his briefcase, he preceded straight to his paperwork.

I said nothing keeping my eyes forward and trying to remain as motionless a distraction as possible, for it had finally dawned on me whose registrar’s office I had come to be a prisoner to, whose desk it belonged to that lay behind me.

His soldier escort and attendant brewed some tea using the facilities in the kitchen behind me, returned to his desk with his refreshment and then left as the Jefe busily attended meticulously to his paperwork for the following two hours or so, before leaving his office shortly before the recruits broke for lunch.

My attendant guard brought my usual lunch ration and, thanking him sincerely, it wasn’t until around early afternoon when to my surprise and sudden chagrin the Comandante entered the Jefe’s office menacingly, and beckoning me with his hand, he commanded, “Come with me!”

I jumped off my stool and followed him out the left hand entrance to the training grounds. Making a sharp left turn I proceeded after him between two more rows of barracks to the right and the jungle wall to the left. We walked about forty yards where the corridor came out into a clearing. Off to the right, about thirty feet of the last row of sleeping quarters, there was another small building about the same size as the Jefe’s office.

He entered this building and I after him where we found the Jefe standing beside a large desk in the center of the building between two large windows. The room was brightly lit but their mood was serious and somber, the atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife.

I stood at one end of the room, 12 feet from the two military officials who began their austere line of questioning with a chilling detachment. The Comandante began by asking what my relationship was to the American who had caused a train to halt its progress, and an international incident to happen, by exiting a train at top speed in the middle of the night.

I replied that we had met in Cuzco Peru, and that we had become friends in that we were both North American travelers in South America. That we had explored some of the Incan ruins together and that he was teaching me to speak better Spanish, and in return I was teaching him the play guitar as we traveled together to Iguaçu Falls for the full moon.

Then he asked about the events that gave rise to his jumping from the train that night, to which I clarified that I did not see what had happened at the time because I was sleeping, but I had awoken to his cries for help concerning what he described as the attempted robbery of his new guitar.

I went on to say that I had done everything in my power to prevent him from leaving the train, but that he had made up his mind and would not listen to my pleas to reconsider his ill-conceived notion that he could exit without serious injury to himself.

He asked me if I had pulled the emergency stop cord after he had jumped, to which I replied emphatically that I had not; that it had been one of the other passengers in the boxcar who did so. The Jefe remained silent all this time and keenly observed my reaction to each question carefully, as if weighing the credibility of my words, with the balance of the content of fear in my voice and body language to each.

It was at this juncture that the tone of the Comandante’s questioning got heated and accusatory, as he stated that the presence of coca leaves were found in both Duffs’ packsack as well as my own. For what reason were we in possession of these leaves?

I answered that these were used on our arduous climbs up to the mountainous summits where the temple ruins were explored. They were to provide additional strength and reduce the affects of altitude sickness, which was well known to occur in visitors to the Andes.

He then said others passengers on the train had reported us borraco (drunken) at the time of the incident. I confessed that we had obtained two quarts of beer each to help us to sleep in the very cramped quarters of the boxcar occupants, to speed up the tedium of the long journey ahead.

He then claimed that passengers had reported the smoking of marijuana, to which I told him I was asleep for over an hour and therefore could not account for all of Duff’s actions, but did not believe him to have been in possession of any drugs, as I would have known of it, and also the military would surely have evidence of it in Duff’s packsack, as they maintained possession all his personal effects.

He did not argue on any further with that line of accusation, but grinned broadly at the evident recoil and horror he had perpetrated on my psyche, that the fear that the accusations might be proven to be true.

Further toying with me, he then introduced into evidence an anti-venom snakebite kit they had discovered while going over the contents of Duff’s packsack, as he thrust it at me demanded an explanation.

I looked at him incredulously as much as to say “You can’t be serious?” He was actually trying to make a case to the Jefe that the kit was in some way a clandestine injection kit for illicit drugs.

It was at this point that I felt the stress of my inquisitor’s evil ploy to undermined the innocence of a first aid-survival kit, and turn it into the paraphernalia for the use of a depraved vice. He was attempting to turn the extractor pump into a syringe to make his case to the Jefe.

I retained serious concerns that he might yet be able to deceive the Jefe into believing that it was the evidence he needed to have me incarcerated perhaps forever. My fear of which was now so intense I could no longer contain my emotional control over the situation.

Tears welling in my eyes as I turned to the Jefe, imploring him to listen to me and I attempted to explain, stumbling in Spanish the purpose for this form of first aid. I showed him the picture of the serpent depicted on the outer packaging not really knowing if this sort of remedy had been seen in the remote and uneducated areas of the Bolivian jungle. Again, the Comandante could not hide his grin broadening into a sadistic smile of evil amusement.

Finally, the Jefe, seeing the emotional trauma I had been subjected to by his subordinate, decided he had seen enough, and reassuring me all was going to be fine spoke coarsely the Comandante in Spanish, telling him to cease and desist.

The questioning and detention was now over. The Jefe, who was an honorable man, asked me if I wished to return to Santa Cruz to take Duff’s personal effects back to him in hospital there.

I declined graciously, claiming that I was spent emotionally having been put through this whole ordeal, and it had taken a formidable toll on my mental health. I told him I wished only for my freedom to carry on to Iguaçu alone and unimpeded.

He nodded understandingly and handed me Duff’s passport and a pen and paper asking me to write Duff in hospital, explaining what had transpired after the horrendous incident he caused, and why I was moving on with my life and not returning to Santa Cruz to deliver his property in person.

I complied with gratitude tucking the message I had written into the inner flap of his passport container. The Jefe gave me his word he would see that it was delivered to him in Santa Cruz.

Then, handing me my passport, traveler’s cheques and my packsack, he personally drove me into the town of Roboré in his jeep. He took me to the railway station, where he allowed me to purchase a railway ticket to Puerto Suarez near the border of Brazil. My train didn’t leave until the following morning, so he found me accommodation nearby in a modest hotel for the night.

He showed where I could find a meal around the corner and halfway down the next block, and apologizing for the circumstances under which he was obligated to detain me, he wished me well and shaking my hand in a true bond of humanity, I closed the passenger door as he rode off in his jeep in the gathering dusk.

October 6th

Puerto Suarez, Bolivia

Near the corner where the Jefe had let me out there was a small restaurant where I ordered my first exotic meal since living on military camp rations and bread for my evening meal in the last seven days.

It was still a bit dreamlike having had my freedom taken from me so suddenly, and now most gratefully getting it all back again left me in surreal bewilderment.

There still lurked the foolish fear in my heart that my military masters would change their minds before dawn and come to take me back into custody, for the Jefe, having helped me to secure lodging for the night, knew just where to find me if such was his wish.

I squirmed uncomfortably at the thought of it, and intensely tried to suppress any such further unfounded terrors. I felt a chill pass through me realizing such indulgences might only be leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of this all turning out to be a ruse in the end.

After supper I found my way back to my hotel room and enjoyed the wonderful bliss of a long and luxurious warm shower, which I had so desperately missed while suspended in detention. I, of course, had the use of the soldier’s latrine, but shower time was narrowly limited and bathing was always in cold only.

I elected to turn in early as I had become accustomed to for the last week of curfew sleeping amongst the soldiers in their barracks, and the practice of an early-to-bed regimen had a curiously revitalizing effect on me, more so than I’d have ever previously imagined.

That night, before drifting off, I wondered if the young military recruits I felt honored to have had made the friendship of had noticed the cot in the northwestern corner of their quarters unoccupied that evening, and what the talk, if any, might have been concerning its new vacancy.

I had the fanciful wish that I had been given the chance to say goodbye to them, and express how much they had all been a part of my having had the courage of keeping my hopes of freedom alive, throughout my long ordeal.

Next morning I awoke to a courtesy call from the front desk, having asked them not to forget to do so the night before. I showered again and returned to the restaurant around the corner and down the next block for a quick breakfast before arriving at Roboré train station.

My train was scheduled to depart from Roboré to Puerto Suarez at 9:30 a.m. sharp that morning, and being eager to leave nothing to chance and somehow missing its departure, I rendered up my ticket to the conductor and boarded the coach fifteen minutes early.

Waiting for the train’s imminent departure, the irrational feelings of dread I had felt the night before seemed to press in and make themselves present again, threatening to snatch away reality at the last moment.

Again I psyched myself into suppressing the phantom fears and vestiges of a tortured mind out of equilibrium, with the relief of a nightmare passing into shadows.

I had found a comfortable seat near the window where I could view the Bolivian landscape going by and presently, as the train filled up with passengers, soon the train lurched forward and slowly chugged out of the boarding bay.

The old locomotive, slowly but steadily picking up steam, finally came to full speed about ten minutes out of station, and a sensation of indescribable happiness and serenity engulfed me like a warm and comforting blanket of peace I had never had the pleasure or experience of knowing.

A strange euphoric exhilaration spread over every part of my being as I felt the vestiges of a cruel and bitter nightmare fall away like the ragged sham it had perpetrated upon me.

It was only at this moment that I realized for the first time in my life that the precious concept of freedom is one that is really only known and truly understood when it has been stripped away from you.

You become acutely aware how crucial it truly is to the health of your soul, if you have been born into it and it being lost to you, and most wonderfully and blessedly rediscovered again.

I could not contain my mirth as its radiant new hope of a lasting peace filled me like a vessel of glad thankfulness, and I praised my lucky stars that I had been granted my life back, and I solemnly vowed that I would never allow myself to be compromised in such a fashion again.

The freedom was like the happiness of your first time in love. Like a divine intoxication, magic you never seem to be able to recover again until now, and in a way that you can never be made to understand.

This was the way of it and I loved every second of its wondrous newfound revelation, as the last leg of the Bolivian countryside loomed up in front of me. I was free again, and I could not tell if it was ecstasy or if I was entering into the New City of Jerusalem for the first and last time.

The train ride passed like dream and before I new it I was in the train station at Puerto Suarez presenting my passport to authorities, who, in their magnanimous discretion, passed over the two Interpol stamps, which outright branded me a definite cause of concern.

It was as though I had been granted a new life and all of the blessings that come with it. All I knew was that it was happening to me, and it was happening now.