In early April, a young couple in their twenties disappeared in the Colca Canyon in Arequipa, Peru. On April 13th, they found Rosario Ponce López severely dehydrated. She had been eating insects and drinking her own urine to survive. They are still searching for her boyfriend, Ciro Castillo Rojo, to this day.

The mystery of Ciro’s continued disappearance has grown in fervor with contradictions and secretiveness arising from Rosario’s stories.

• She said that her cell phone lost its signal and ran out of battery during the days they were lost, but a mutual friend of the couple confirmed that he received phone calls and text messages from her mobile.
• One of the cryptic text messages that she sent to the friend said: “Hurry, they haven’t found me yet.” She spoke only of herself and not of Ciro.
• Rosario first told reporters that she and Ciro had walked off in different directions. Later, she changed her story, claiming that she was in a state of shock and didn’t know what she was saying. She now stands by the tale that Ciro went off to find help, but she couldn’t go with him because she felt really weak. When she woke up, he had disappeared.

People are suspecting homicide.

The President of the Committee of Attorney Generals in Arequipa says that Rosario has really important information for this case (link in Spanish), implying that she may not be sharing what she knows. Reinaldo Dos Santos, “The Prophet of America”, said in an interview a couple weeks ago that, “she’s trying to collaborate and she’s doing all that she can, but there are also things she’s not saying because of fear.”

When humans are deathly afraid of certain consequences, they react in different ways. In reflecting on my past, I handle similar situations by becoming painstakingly organized. I meticulously plan how I’ll manage all conceivable outcomes to the point of insomnia and losing my appetite.

How do you handle extreme fear? How have you seen people close to you handle extreme fear?