Kidnapped on an orchid hunt

Published: April 1, 2021, 10:19 a.m.

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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)

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