BEFORE 7,000 MILES. Before the three planes, the two minibuses, the motorcycle, and the cargo ferry. Before the troop transporter, the seven taxis, and the tiny, rattling Lada 4x4. Before Paula. Before the landslides. Before the guerrillas in the mist. Before all this, there is the challenge of the undergarments—namely, which Jockey shorts to take on my trip to Colombia. The sun has long set. Bags containing clean white cotton boxers, my preferred undergarb in hot tropical places, sit ready by the door. Thumbing through Lonely Planet Colombia for a bland passage that might ease the slide into sleep, I happen upon the last paragraph of the What to Bring section.

"Whatever you pack," it says, "don't bring any khaki-colored clothing or any army surplus uniforms. You will look like a soldier, paramilitary, or guerrilla, and shooting is the only form of communication among these three." You don't want to look too norteamericano, either. There's a possibility you'll be kidnapped for ransom.

Now, if I were just winging off to Cartagena for a beach vacation, maybe that would be that. But I'm not. Not even sort of. Guided by a transplanted New Zealander and champion online gambler named Kelvin Leeming, I'll be traveling into a zona roja so dangerous that both the guidebook and the U.S. State Department warn against going there.

After puddle-jumping south from Medellín (population two million) to Cali (population three million), we'll ride a bus 100 miles to Buenaventura (population 300,000), an industrial port through which much of the world's cocaine passes. Then we'll catch some sort of boat north to Bahía Solano, where one of the town's 7,000 residents was kidnapped just two weeks ago. After that we'll hire a cab to take us ten miles south to our final destination, the poor fishing village of El Valle, a once popular vacation spot for Colombians that's just now recovering from the bad PR generated in 2002, when guerrillas snatched 27 tourists at a nearby national park.

Roaming around in territory 50 miles inland, guerrillas with the anti-government Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have terrorized the indigenous Wounaan to the point that 700 just fled their village en masse. A couple of weeks earlier, these combatants laid siege to Quibdó, a city of 140,000, allowing only UN vehicles to pass their machine-gun nests. On top of all this, I'll be in Colombia during Easter week, the lead-up to the presidential elections—which supposedly inspire serious coming-out parties by the guerrillas.

Do they? I have no clue.

Idiot!

I leap out of bed and grope deep inside my backpack, pulling out anything that looks remotely military, tossing it overhead like an erupting geyser. I stuff in fresh clothing, including two monochrome T-shirts with faded J.Crew emblems, one JS-67 gym shirt, one pair of navy-blue BDG pants—all designs that seem vague enough not to arouse suspicion of military or Yanqui associations . . . except—shoot—I see that the labels sound exactly like the names of guerrilla organizations.

I picture myself surrounded by little men with big guns, the littlest guy inspecting my tags.

"FARC?" he asks.

"No," I reply, "I'm with the Gap insurgency."

Underwear proves a stumper. My Jockeys are so white, so gringo! I need imports.

Deep in the bottommost sediment of the laundry hamper, I unearth three pairs of Chinese-made ManSilk. They are polka-dot, paisley, and candy-stripe red, very stiff and smelling tangy, like papaya.

Bingo. I fall asleep, dreaming of the adventure to come.