banged up abroad
colombia (4/4)

Concluding tonight is the drama-documentary series that tells the gripping real-life stories of travellers who find themselves detained overseas. In the last programme of the series, American martial-arts teacher and bike enthusiast Glen Heggstad recounts his experience of being kidnapped by rebels in the jungles of Colombia.

In October 2001, Glen Heggstad of Palm Springs, California, set out on a road trip he would never forget. Bored by the predictability of his life, he decided to seek adventure by riding a motorcycle to the tip of South America. Glen began by making steady progress through Central America, before catching a plane to the Colombian capital, Bogotá, to continue his journey.

Glen was aware that parts of Colombia – then regarded the “kidnap capital of the world” – were no-go areas under the control of rebels and drug smugglers. He sought advice from locals before undertaking a “road test” in the northwestern part of the country. Soon after leaving Bogotá, Glen was struck by the emptiness of his surroundings. “There’s no people, there’s no traffic, there’s really nothing out there and that starts to get spooky,” Glen says, recounting his story on camera.

Before long, Glen’s worst fears were realised when he encountered a minibus held at gunpoint by a gang. Soon the gang switched their attention to Glen, who at first thought he was being robbed, before the leader of the group ordered him to accompany them. “I just flat-out refused to go with them,” Glen explains. His resistance was met with a gun in his face. Glen hovered on the brink of death before his captors fired the weapon in the air and marched him off into the jungle.

With his limited Spanish, Glen discovered the identity of the gang. “I was already in about the worst situation I could imagine when they said ‘ELN’ – then I knew it was a rebel group,” he says. The Ejército de Liberación Nacional –or National Liberation Army –is a Marxist group inspired by the Cuban revolution and has waged war on the Colombian government since the 1960s.

The ELN commander interrogated Glen for details about his family, desperate to learn how much money his hostage could raise in a ransom. Glen, meanwhile, was equally determined to deny his value. “I didn’t want them to know I had a family,” he says. “I wanted to convince him I was worthless.” Glen was forced to make long daily marches through the jungle while the gang continued their barrage of questions. In a bid to convince them that he was of no value to their cause, Glen invented the story that he had prostate cancer and had little time to live.

After three weeks in captivity, Glen received a ray of hope when he befriended a new recruit named Anna, who insisted that the ELN movement was peaceful. “She seemed like she was so idealistic – she didn’t realise that this was war,” Glen recalls. At length Anna assured him that he would be released – only for the gang to turn against her. She disappeared and Glen never saw her again.

All the while, the soldiers continued to torment Glen by making him believe that he was about to be rescued by the Red Cross. When he saw that this was a cruel trick, he fell upon his last available option. “The only way to take control was to sabotage my own health,” he says. Glen – already in a parlous condition – began to refuse food and medicine. Finally, he resorted to making himself bleed to make it seem that his cancer was worsening. This radical move alarmed his captors – but would it be enough to secure his release?