Encounter and Kidnapping

Imagine the jungle, deep jungle - no sun overhead - trudging along. At night you hear sounds, animal sounds and what you think are human sounds. Each day you hear more of the sounds that you are sure are not animals - but humans. You know there are hostile tribes in the area you are traveling through - the most dangerous being the Tagaeri Tribe (more here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagaeri ). We have had encounters with them before and felt lucky to escape.

In this case - there were tribal indians stalking the expedition crew and around 12 PM on August 4 - they made their move. It was not the feared Tagaeri - but instead the a group Huaorani tribesmen and soldiers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huaorani . The presence of soldiers does not mean safety - in the jungle, the tribe and the military are pretty much the same people. It does mean well-armed, though. The expedition crew was quickly surrounded, searched, led to 2 waiting boats and taken to a "secure" location.

Mickey has been in these types of situations before. He quickly hid his beacon satellite tracker on his body, and got a message off to Noga - his wife. If the tribe took his other equipment, he could at least be tracked on beacon. Of course anyone who has ever relied on beacon knows that it has a mind of its own, and for 2 hours Noga watched an unmoving satellite tracking screen with no updates.

Here is the message:

"I have been captured few minutes ago by a military unit and by the Haurani tribal men on location deep in the jungle. They surrounded us with aimed guns and searched our gear and are taking me and my expedition team under guns to a secluded location! I need you to track me on Google map to the location I'm being taken to and follow me to assure my and my team safety"

Meanwhile back in the jungle, Mickey and crew were being guarded by about 15 armed men (it is kind of hard to count guards while they keep moving and have guns). Also when guarding a group it is a good idea to not have the group know exactly how many people are there and where they are. The group gave the team about 300 feet to set up camp. Mickey decided not to put up tents, to sleep in hammocks - and also keep all equipment packed up. Unfortunately, the team did not want to use the cameras (understandably) - but this did not stop Mickey who wanted to keep filming away (and he did).

A night in the jungle under guard can be scary, however back in the rest of the world - news of the kidnapping had gotten out and was on the news and quickly making its way through Facebook and the social media. Also with an Israeli-American involved - it had the potential of becoming an international incident. To make it even more suspenseful - we knew exactly where Mickey was (thanks to the beacon tracker). There would be no news until the next day, and you my friends get to hear about that tomorrow too.