It all started with a blurry photo taken by a Swedish backpacker. Sitting on a branch of a ceiba tree was a tiny reddish owl, no more than a few inches in height, with bright blue eyes and ears nearly as long as its body.
The photo went unnoticed for several months until an American ornithologist stumbled upon it. He realized that the photo, taken in the Darién Gap, a remote region that straddled the Colombia-Panama border, likely depicted an unknown species of owl.
A nature magazine reached out and asked if I was interested in searching for the owl.
$10,000 if I found it, $1,000 if I didn’t. Plus expenses. Not a ton of money, but I accepted. Finding an undiscovered species had always been my dream.
The Darién Gap likely harbored hundreds of undiscovered species, as little fieldwork had been done there. It was one of the most remote regions in South America. Getting to the Colombian fishing village of Sapzurro, the only town of note in the region, required a 14-hour bus ride from Cartagena to the port of Necoclí, followed by a 3-hour voyage across choppy seas. Besides a treacherous hike, that was the only way to get there. It had no airstrip and no roads connected it to the rest of the country.
It wasn’t only the region’s remoteness that deterred scientists. It was one of the most dangerous places on earth. And not because of its wildlife, although there were dozens of species of poisonous snakes, spiders, scorpions, and dart frogs that could easily kill you. It was the people who were the most dangerous. The Gap was an important smuggling route, and its jungles were full of bandits, drug runners, human traffickers, and even Marxist rebels. Only a few intrepid adventures dared venture into its jungle, and many of them never came back.
Before I embarked on my 2-week expedition, I reviewed the scarce scientific literature about the avian life of the region. I found no mention of the diminutive owl, but a British missionary wrote in his 1834 journal that the indigenous Emberá people “consider the race of blue-eyed owls to be benevolent spirits.” I was convinced that the photo was real and was determined to find the owl, different enough from other species that it would probably be in its own genus.
I made my way to Sapzurro in December of 2014, during the dry season. It was truly remote. Electricity was sporadic and phone service non-existent. Once a week, a cargo ship arrived at the village, carrying supplies and a few passengers.
The village consisted of a few dozen shacks, a church, an outdoor market, and a single boarding house with an attached bar. Its inhabitants were predominantly Afro-Colombians who made their living fishing. Emberá tribesmen often came down from the jungle to trade plantains and other goods for fish and mosquito nets at the market.
To my surprise, I wasn’t the only Westerner in the village. There was a community of about twenty expats: mainly Americans, along with a few Brits and other Europeans. Most hung out at the bar every night. They seemed friendly, but were clearly on the run from something—from exes, from debt collectors, from the law. I knew enough not to ask.
The strangest of these expats was a man named Heinrich, although everyone just referred to him as “el alemán” or “The German.” He looked to be about 50 and had a tattoo of a knife on his right forearm. He sat by himself in a corner booth, wearing the same stained clothes every night, drinking the local moonshine that was distilled from sugar cane. He never talked, but instead grunted whenever he wanted more.
It appeared he didn’t speak English, for the other expats talked about him openly. Some said he was wanted for a string of bank robberies back in Europe, others claimed that he was an arms trafficker. One even claimed that he was a former bomb maker for a far-right terrorist group. None of them, even with their overactive imaginations, could have imagined the truth about Heinrich.
I asked around the bar, inquiring if anyone had seen a blue-eyed owl. None had. They did tell me that a French backpacker had disappeared in the jungle three weeks ago. Some thought that he had been kidnapped by Marxist rebels, others thought he had been murdered by drug smugglers, still others thought that he had just gotten lost.
At the market, I hired a young Emberá man named Bernicio to be my guide. He had never seen the owl I had described, but he took me to his village, about three miles from Sapzurro. In a small clearing were ten houses on stilts, with thatched roofs made from palm fronds. The villagers had killed a large tapir, which was roasting over a fire. As I enjoyed the tender meat, using cassava flatbread to absorb the juices, I talked to the elderly chief. With Bernicio interpreting, the chief said that the blue-eyed owls were common when he was a boy, but in recent years sightings were rare.
Before I left, he warned me to avoid a swampy area, about five miles south of Sapzurro, as he claimed that the area was haunted by evil spirits, and that on some nights, the wind would carry the sounds of screams through the jungle to his village. He said that a young hunter from the tribe had vanished there five weeks ago.
As Bernicio and I returned to Sapzurro, we came across a coyote leading four migrants through the jungle. One of them was bent over by a muddy creek. He was shoeless, his feet swollen and covered in leeches and sores.
“Get moving,” the coyote ordered in English.
The migrant just shook his head. The coyote raised his revolver and shot him between the eyes. Then he turned and looked at us. “I did him a favor. He would have died anyways, a slow, slow death,” He laughed and led the three surviving migrants deeper into the jungle.
Over the next two weeks, I spent my days exploring the jungle with Bernicio. I saw many rare birds, including the Green-naped Tanager, the Violet-capped Hummingbird, and the Tacarcuna Warbler. I saw jaguars and three-toed sloths. I even photographed a large, white-headed ground dove with pink flecks on its wings, something I was sure was a new species. But no signs of the owl. We never went to the swampy area the chief warned us about. I wondered if the owl could be hiding there, but I wasn’t going to pressure Bernicio to take me there, nor was I going to venture there alone.
On my last night, I was leaving the bar when Heinrich stopped me. “I heard you are looking for the owl,” he said in a thick accent.
I nodded, surprised that he could speak English, surprised that he was sober enough to form a coherent sentence.
“I will show you where they are. For $20.”
I agreed. I was pretty sure that Heinrich was going to scam me, but it was only $20, and it would make my article more interesting.
As the sun was setting, I followed him deep into the jungle. We were headed south, where we were warned not to go. About two hours later, Heinrich pointed to a ceiba tree. “Look,” he cried. “It is hiding on a top branch.”
As I was peering through my binoculars, searching in vain for the owl, I felt something prick the back of my neck. At first, I thought it was just a mosquito, but then I started feeling faint. The last thing I remember was the German’s laughter.
***
I woke up in a windowless concrete cell, about ten feet by ten feet. The only light came from a crack in the ceiling, about twenty feet above me. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that there were two other men, covered in grime, sleeping on the dirt floor. One was white and looked to be about twenty. The other was a South Asian man, probably about 50.
Otherwise, the cell was empty except for a large bucket in a corner and a few scattered animal bones. I struggled to my feet, my body bruised and achy, and ran my hands around the walls, trying to find some door, some way out. There was none.
The young guy started to stir and looked up at me groggily. “Welcome,” he said, his accent French.
“You’re the backpacker who disappeared about a month ago?”
“I’m famous now, I see. Were you sent to look for me?”
I shook my head. “What does Heinrich want with us? Does he hold us for ransom?” I doubted that. The backpacker and I could fetch a good price, but the migrant wouldn’t.
“No one knows why, but it’s not for ransom. He takes one of us, the order is random, every few days or weeks, it’s hard to keep track of time down here, and leads us away. Then, you hear screams, awful screams.”
“Where’s the entrance to this place? Through the ceiling?”
The backpacker nodded. “There’s a hatch up there. Every few days, he’ll open it, throw in some rotten meat and a jug of brown water, and lock it back up.”
“Have you tried forcing it open? If we all stood—”
“We’ve tried everything. It won’t budge.”
“How about when he comes we rush him? He’s not that big.”
“He tranquilizes us. Shoots us with darts. Completely immobilizes you.”
“We could set a trap for him when he comes with food.”
“It’s no use. He checks. As I said, we tried everything.”
“Well someone will find us soon. I was supposed to head back tomorrow. Someone will have seen me talking to Heinrich—“
“You think so? I do not. We are going to die.”
I sighed. The backpacker may have given up hope, but I wasn’t. After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I searched the cell, trying to find a weak spot or something I could use as a tool. Nothing save for the bones and a wooden bucket full of shit.
“Have you tried digging out,” I asked the backpacker. “Or tried fashioning a chisel out of the bones to cut through the walls?”
“I said, we have tried everything.”
I wasn’t deterred. I picked up a bone and started scraping at the dirt. I must have dug for hours, but under the dirt there was just concrete. I started filing the bone against the wall, attempting to make some sort of spear to throw at Heinrich. It was slow going, but I was making progress.
The other captive had awoken and was staring at me.
“Don’t bother talking to him,” the backpacker said. “I don’t know where he’s from, but he doesn’t speak either English or French. In fact, you are the only person who I could communicate with since I got here.”
I ignored him and kept trying to sharpen the bone. A few hours later, the hatch opened and Heinrich’s head appeared. “Hello my beautiful kittens,” he said. “How are you today?”
The point of the bone was still dull, but out of desperation I threw it at his head. He easily dodged it and started chuckling. “A feisty kitten. But you will learn soon enough. There is no escape from Heinrich.” He threw down the flank of a tapir, its flesh putrid, covered in maggots, and a plastic jug full of brown liquid.
“Till next time my darlings,” Heinrich said, before locking the hatch.
I started trying to chisel away at the cement wall, but it was no use. The backpacker was right. I was going to die here. I leaned against the wall, watching the other two divvy up the rotting meat.
“Why are you even eating that?” I asked. “You said it yourself, you’re going to die.”
He chuckled. “Well, to be honest, I have taken a fancy to the taste of it.”
The rest of the day passed in silence. I listened to the jungle sounds—the birds calling, the insects buzzing, the frogs croaking—as I tried to calm myself down, as I tried to think of a plan. It was no use, nothing came to me.
As the light from the ceiling was growing dimmer, I heard the hoot of an owl, one that I had never heard before. Was this the mysterious blue-eyed owl, the owl that would cost me my life?
I neither ate nor drank over the next few days. I looked at the jug and saw little worms swimming in it. If Heinrich didn’t kill me, drinking the water surely would. But on the fourth day, my thirst got so bad that I took a sip. And then another. And another. I was sick for hours, squatting over the bucket, but it was the sweetest water I had ever tasted.
On the fifth day, Heinrich returned. He opened the hatch, grinning madly. “Hello my kitties,” he said. “Today is a very special day. One of you will be chosen. But who will be the lucky kitty? Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, Catch a tiger by the toe…” He landed on me.
Heinrich produced a blowpipe and shot darts at us. I didn’t even try to dodge the dart, which landed on my neck. It didn’t knock me out, my senses were still functioning, but I was almost completely paralyzed. I could move my eyes, but nothing else.
The German dropped a rope ladder through the hatch and climbed down, carrying a long length of rope. He tied my legs together and climbed back out, holding one end of the rope.
“This might hurt a bit, kitty, but do not fuss.” He started pulling me up. My body careened from side to side, banging into the concrete walls. I may have been paralyzed, but somehow I could still feel the pain.
Finally, I was outside. The concrete cell was buried, only a few inches of it showing above the jungle floor. Heinrich waved to the two surviving captives, locked the hatch, bound my hands, and started dragging me along a narrow muddy path. I tried to struggle, tried to scream, but I couldn’t.
After what seemed like hours, we arrived at a clearing. There was a flat gray rock, stained by what must have been blood.
“Let us see if the kitty is ready,” Heinrich said. He took out a small, bloodstained knife from his pocket and jabbed it into my buttocks. I had never felt pain like that before, but still I could not scream.
The German laughed. “I have time. I want to hear you scream. Nothing brings me such joy as listening to a kitty’s screams.”
He watched over me in silence. The sun was setting, and the jungle was coming to life with the sounds of birds. I heard that strange hooting again. I just hoped that I would catch a glimpse of the blue-eyed owl before I died.
After an hour, one flittered to the branch of a nearby tree. Its eyes looked like they were glowing in the dim light. Then another flew down next to it. Then another. Soon, there were hundreds in the surrounding trees. Strange behavior for an owl—most species are solitary.
Heinrich looked at them and laughed. “Ah, it turns out that they are real. I thought it was just some ignorant superstition. You got your wish kitty, and soon I will get mine.”
I could feel that I was starting to gain back control over my muscles. I struggled against my bonds, but they held tight.
“I think you are ready,” Heinrich said, as he jabbed the knife back into my buttocks. I let out a muffled cry.
“Almost,” the German said. “In a few minutes, your vocal cords will be as loose as a goose and the fun will begin.”
Heinrich paced around the clearing, rubbing the knife against his filthy pants. One of the owls flew towards him and he batted it away. A few more flew towards his face, and, as before, he swatted them away. Suddenly, the entire flock swarmed him. He waved his knife madly but there were too many and he fell to the ground.
The German screamed as the owls pecked out his eyes, as they gnawed at his flesh. Soon all that remained of Heinrich was a pile of bones. Then the owls turned their attention to me. Their beaks were small, but sharp. They gnawed at the bonds that held my arms and legs, and soon I was free. Weak and bleeding from my wounds, but alive.
The owls took flight and I followed the reddish cloud in the moonlight. After several hours of hobbling through the jungle, I emerged at the Emberá village. An old woman rubbed a salve on my wounds and gave me some herbal tea to drink. With Bernicio interpreting, I told them what happened. The next morning, a posse was formed and we set off. I was still weak, very weak, but I wanted to save the other two captives.
After nearly six hours, we located the bunker. We pried the hatch open, but it was empty save for the bucket and some animal bones. We searched the jungles, calling out, but found no sign of them. No trace of them was ever found. The jungle is vast.