By Lori Greene
Court TV

For more than a decade I had wanted to visit the famed Incan city of stone deep in the Andean mountains. But I hesitated. Machu Picchu seemed a dangerous place for Americans. Peru was ravaged by terrorism.

The Shining Path guerillas were in the midst of a Maoist-inspired war with the government wreaking havoc through kidnapping, murder and general mayhem. After the guerillas' leader was arrested in 1992, Peru still had to contend with the less well-known Movimento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA), a Marxist guerilla organization that was less ruthless than the Shining Path, but very well-armed. After a major MRTA crackdown that included the arrest of a young American woman, the country slowly started to recover from the political turmoil.

By the time I made plane reservations in March, I no longer had concerns about my safety. No banditos, no bombings, no cholera, no huge challenges to conquer — until I remembered another New Yorker named Lori.

I was fascinated by the plight of Lori Berenson. We both grew up miles from each other in a similarly Jewish, middle-class household. In my twenties, I, too, was fascinated with Latin culture and lived for a while in both Venezuela and Argentina. But I wondered how this Lori ended up serving a life sentence in some of the toughest prisons in Peru.

Planning a prison visit

Mark Berenson’s voice was kind and pacifying as he explained how difficult it would be to get government permission for shooting video, stills, or audio inside Santa Monica Prison. A small handful of journalists had snuck their way in on visiting days before, but nobody could promise access.

I got advice on how to get in undetected. It involved ripped off pieces of paper, questions in oddly numbered sequences, and illegible handwriting. As I threw strangely-shaped pads into my bag it dawned on me that I should beware of the prison’s fashion police. Rhoda Berenson gave me the drill: no pants, no black, no navy blue, no Army green, no red. I had just finished reading her book, Lori: My Daughter, Wrongfully Imprisoned in Peru, and her actual voice was tougher than her narrative and more severe than her husband's.

Courttv.com's Lori Greene in Machu Picchu (Photo: Debra Duchin)

With seven days of Peruvian hiking and Spanish culture under my belt, I called him the night before my planned rendezvous. He sounded down. I thought of my own parents and felt sorry for the toll that Lori's situation must be taking on her family. He launched into a story about the government stalling, the ruling being delayed, journalists being denied access, and Lori being too busy with her case to see me.

But I was on a mission and needed a plan.

By the time I checked into the sprawling, old-world Country Club Hotel in Lima's tony San Isidro neighborhood the next day, there was a mere three and a half hours left of visiting day at the prison. I called one of my Lima contacts to find out what was really going on and he advised me to be bold and just show up. I put on a dress, ripped pages out of a notebook and had no problem making my writing indecipherable because my hands were shaking.

If Lori is as innocent as her parents claim, maybe I could end up in jail for impersonating a friend? Graphic reels of "Midnight Express" spooled through my thoughts. I ask the hotel clerk how long it would take to get to Santa Monica Prison in the Chorrillos neighborhood and she looks at my outfit and states unequivocally, 'You have to wear pants.' She calls the prison to confirm and discovers that Rhoda Berenson is correct — a dress is indeed appropriate.

The polished black BMW cab cruises down by the Pacific Ocean beach front, where even the mist of crashing waves seems overwhelmed by the filthy Lima sky. So many Peruvians I met claimed that Lima is a great city, but I find it glum.

We leave the shore and end up in a neighborhood of ramshackle tire stores, a hodgepodge of bodegas and a pastry shop next door to the penitentiary’s river of curled barbed wire. The enormous block-long building with peeling aqua-colored paint dwarfs everything around it. There is no door that I can make out, but men in full military garb with submachine guns ask my driver who I’m there to see. I take a deep breath — Lori Berenson. The driver smiles, the guard glares, and I pay.

The mustachioed gatekeeper knocks on a steel box and a pair of eyes on the other side peer out of a tiny window with bars on it. "Visitor for Lori," is how I translate what is said.

Inside the prison walls

As the door opens slowly, I look around behind me so I can memorize freedom. I step up to hand a middle-aged man my passport and notice that he’s perched a good foot above me on a narrow ledge. I do my best to decode a U.S. passport for him, but he still ends up ripping his first form and starting again.

When I tell him who I'm visiting, he inquires — amiga (friend)? I twinge. 'Si, amiga.' He grabs my index finger, rolls it on to an ink pad the size of a sheet cake and presses it back in a box over the word llegada (arrival).

A view of the Andean mountains (Photo: Debra Duchin)

Seated behind him is a pretty woman in civilian dress who holds the visitor roster. I’m 167 but I can’t see if that’s for the day, the week, the month, or the year. She looks at my form and locks eyes — 'amiga?' 'Amiga.' I get an official stamp on my right wrist where she tattoos my number on my arm, signs her name below it, keeps my passport and sends me on my way.

I'm now in an office facing a modern metal detector several feet away. I walk toward it and an overweight man in civilian clothes who is lounging around on a bench points me toward a midriff door that looks like the entrance to a toilet. It's locked. He jumps up and leaps out of there like a gazelle.

A minute later the hinge swings open and I'm locked in an area no bigger than the handicapped bathroom stall at my office with a large female guard. She pats me down on every single part of my body. As she snatches, shakes, and turns my water bottle upside down, she stares at me suspiciously.

I try to say "dehydration," but manage only to blurt out "for drinking."

Next she finds my notebook papers. "Amiga?" "Si." She starts reading the questions I intend to ask Lori when I'm inside. Does she understand English? What’s the punishment for posing as a friend when you're really a journalist? I maintain my composure as she takes my measure, folds my papers exactly how she found them, slips them back into my pocket and sends me out among the prison population.

Inside the institutional hallway, I'm told to wait by a stairway.

A 'chat' with Berenson

Out she comes. I'm face-to-face with convicted terrorist, Lori Berenson. Only she doesn't look the part at all.

Young, healthy, well-groomed, bespectacled with her long hair swept up high in a pony tail, she reminds me of a freshman on her way to study hall. She eyeballs me distrustfully.

"Hi, I'm Lori Greene from Courttv.com," I finally say. I’m lulled by her appearance.

"I thought I made it clear that I didn't want to speak to you." Boy, is she tough.

"Well, I was only in Lima today and this was my one opportunity to meet you so I thought I'd take the chance."

"I can't do any television right now."

"I'm not here for the network, I'm writing an article for the Web site."

"Well, now that you're here," she observed impatiently, "I suppose we can chat." She pauses. "Wait a minute, I'll go and get my mother." There is not a scintilla of warmth in her voice. She walks back to her cell.

Chat, chat, what does that mean? Out walks her mother and the chill in the air is palpable. I introduce myself and Lori leads us out to the concrete "yard," where we sit with our backs to a towering cement wall. Lori is on my left; her mother, Rhoda, is on my right.

Lori Berenson (Photo: AP)

"Do you mind if I take notes?" I ask.

"No, we're having a chat," Lori admonishes me.

I suppose a good place to start a "chat" is 'How are you doing?'

"Fine," is the frosty one-word reply. The message comes across loud and clear and my dreams of any meaningful dialogue are dashed.

"What's up with the weather in Lima?" There's no warmth in her voice as she answers.

I don't think I could ever use the word warm to describe Lori Berenson. But as we continue our "chat," she does become increasingly polite and engaged in the conversation. Is it the wasted years spent in a foreign prison or has she always had an intimidating air?

We talk on about what I had seen in Peru and discuss the location of Lake Titicaca, one of the few spots I really wanted to hit on the trip but didn't have time for. It was there, at Yanamayo Prison in frigid Puno, that the cold and the soaring elevation had a deleterious effect on Lori’s health. At an altitude of over 12,000 feet, even the alpacas must have a hard time breathing. But during this visit, Lori's red, turgid hands are the only physical hint of her half-decade long ordeal.

"It's a bad time, we’re still right in the middle of this," says her mother, by way of explaining why I won't be getting a full interview this time. I start to ask a question about the trial but bite my tongue. An election that could spell Lori's freedom is just four short days away, and the Berensons are worried a published article might upset the balance.

Young girls loll about on benches in groups of twos and threes looking bored. The secure facility for women is so casual it could be a college campus, with girls wandering about and guards nowhere in sight. Dead-ahead is a table stacked with pink frilly dolls, dainty purses and books for sale. Doesn't seem much like a maximum security prison for terrorists.

"It's usually less depressing here on Saturdays, when there are more people visiting and kids around," Lori explains.

I'm shocked at the informality of it all, but Lori explains that the prison officials have relaxed the rules a bit.

"When women are in charge, they go more by the book," Lori continues. "They're stricter. I've had men guarding me and they're normally much easier."

"There were times when I couldn't hug Lori or touch her at all," Rhoda adds.

"Yeah, visiting day would come and we would talk to each other through windows," Lori says, giving a rare laugh. "We would all be stacked one on top of another and it was so noisy that you couldn't hear a thing."

"They changed the rules often," Lori continued. "One day my mother could wear a watch, the next day she couldn’t. Now, they try to keep the rules straight so the families know what to do. At one point, we weren't allowed watches either, so you'd be in 23-hour lock-up and you wouldn't know if you were out in the yard for 10 minutes or 40 minutes."

Saying good-bye

I can barely make out the hushed tones of others talking and I question what language Lori thinks in. "Well, it was Spanish, but my mother comes to visit so often it's screwing me up," she says. I think about her parent’s giving up both their careers to dedicate their lives to freeing Lori and I wonder about her sister Kathy’s involvement. "Does your sister come to visit often?" I ask.

By the way she replies, I can’t help but think that I might have hit a nerve. I find it's best to change the subject.

"How do you all communicate?" I ask them both.

"When I leave I tell her when I'm coming back again," Rhoda laughs. That works. How about mail? "I get less mail here than I did in Puno," Lori explains. "They seem to 'lose' more letters here and they read everything."

I sneak a good look at the inmate. Lori Berenson is no frail soul on the verge of starvation. When I tell Lori that I’m glad to see that she looks healthy, her mother shoots back, "Well, I bring her food."

"It's a bad time, we’re still right in the middle of this," says Lori's mother, Rhoda

"When I was in other prisons, sometimes visiting day was only once a month, so my mother would bring food, but if it was perishable it would only last a few days and then you'd have to throw it out. There was no refrigeration."

"But in Puno it was good," Rhoda adds, "because it was so cold that everything stayed. I would bring a big chunk of cheese that would last."

"Now that my parents are here, I get food all the time, so I share," the inmate says. "When my parents aren't here, other women give me food." I see those other prisoners coming outside with bowls of nourishment and notice Lori looking, too. I assume it's lunchtime and ask if I‘m keeping her. "I really need to get back to my case," she says unwavering.

I say thank you to Rhoda, get up to leave and am amazed when Lori offers to walk me out. I retrace my steps, get frisked, have my fingerprint placed on the salida (exit) box, grab my passport, then hail a cab from the traffic-choked thoroughfare.