Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia – Former Hell’s Angel Glenn Heggstad, a self-styled “outlaw on the edge,” was looking for danger on a solo motorcycle trip through Latin America.
He says he found plenty of it in Colombia, where leftist guerrillas took him hostage. Days after being freed in the mountains, the 49-year-old judo instructor from Palm Springs, Calif., is holed up in a Bogota hotel – planning the next leg of his journey while trying to come to grips with the last.
During five weeks as a captive of the National Liberation Army, Heggstad said rebels aimed guns at his head, led him on grueling marches and gave him so little food that he lost nearly 50 pounds.
Colombia’s military announced Heggstad’s release Sunday and officials at the U.S. Embassy confirmed he had been held by the leftist National Liberation Army, the country’s second-largest rebel group.
As he spoke to a journalist on Tuesday, Heggstad – wearing leather hiking boots, gray cargo pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt with the word “Guilty” on the front – trembled, broke down in tears and then hid his face in his hands.
“I wasn’t like this before,” he said. “Not before (the rebels) got to me.”
Heggstad set out Oct. 1 on a planned 20,000-mile trip from southern California to the tip of South America and back, riding his Kawasaki 650 through Mexico and Central America.
On Nov. 2, he flew to Bogota from Panama and had his bike air freighted in. He set out four days later from Bogota on a road heading northwest to Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city.
Six hours into the trip, he says, guerrillas wearing ski masks and wielding AK-47 rifles blocked his path, seized his motorcycle and motioned for him to accompany them into the mountains.
During his captivity, one surly rebel would periodically lead him into the woods and click the safety off his gun, Heggstad said, leading him to fear he was going to be killed.
Heggstad insists he’s not humbled by his experience.
“I’d told my friends when I set out that there was a 50-50 chance I wouldn’t be coming back,” he said. “What doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.”
He hopes to buy his Kawasaki back from the rebels for $2,000.
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