Kidnapped on an orchid hunt
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2021
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In March 2000, two young English travellers, Tom Hart-Dyke and Paul Winder, were kidnapped by Colombian guerrillas while attempting to cross the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap region on the border with Panama. Hart-Dyke is a gardener who was on a mission to collect orchids, and he survived a nine-month ordeal by building a nursery in the cloud forest and planning his own dream garden for the family castle back home in Kent. He talks to Simon Watts.
PHOTO: Tom Hart-Dyke (l) with Paul Winder shortly after their release (Press Association)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:40.0 | Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service with me Simon Watts. |
| 0:48.0 | Today I'm taking you back to the year 2000 and the story of how two young Englishmen were kidnapped in the remote |
| 0:55.8 | rainforest between Panama and Colombia. I've been speaking to one of them, Plant Collector |
| 1:01.9 | Tom Hart Dyke. |
| 1:03.2 | In March of the year |
| 1:14.1 | two Englishmen, one a gardener, the other an adventurer, took a bus from Panama City |
| 1:17.8 | to the northern tip of the Darien Gap. |
| 1:20.6 | This narrow strip of land is the junction between Central and South America and one of the |
| 1:26.4 | most lawless places in the world. |
| 1:29.4 | The road just fizzles out and we got off the bus donned our rucks our three foot long |
| 1:35.6 | machetes mosquito nets and we just crossed this bridge across this absolutely |
| 1:41.3 | roaring river and you are just a wall of green. |
| 1:45.8 | Civilization is behind you Simon. |
| 1:47.9 | You are in the middle of absolutely nowhere. |
| 1:52.4 | Tom Hart Dyke was with Paul Winder, a friend he'd made while traveling. |
| 1:57.0 | They were entering an area crawling with drug traffickers, paramilitaries and Colombian guerrilla groups. Paul wanted the thrill of completing |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.