I was here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Co...!4d-71.4075413
in the middle of the Peruvian Amazon studying spider monkeys. The site is in the middle of nowhere - you fly into Lima, fly into Cusco in the mountains, fly down to the lowlands and land at a grass airstrip cut out of the forest. There is a small village, Boca Manu, there with mainly thatched-roof houses. From there, it was a 13-hr boat ride up a river with only indigenous people save for one tourist camp fairly near the settlement. Arrive at the right spot on the river and then it was a 2-km walk to get to the field station on a small oxbow lake.
The only communication we had was an incredibly expensive satellite phone that sometimes worked and a cb radio to talk to the people in the small village. The night of the 11th people were eating dinner when the radio crackled, telling us that planes flew into the buildings at 9 am that morning, both buildings collapsed, and that each building might hold 50,000 people. That was it, no more info.
The girlfriend of one of the guys I was with worked a couple blocks away. We spent the rest of the night on the satellite phone trying to reach someone's family or friends but that took forever because all of the phone lines were busy and the satellite phone didn't work well anyway. Finally someone got through to someone in (I think) California and gave them instructions to check on the people in New York. It wasn't until the next night that we were able to get an update (everyone was ok).
That night and the next day were surreal - out in the middle of the jungle, sleeping in a tent, following monkeys around and not having any idea how many people were lost, whether there were additional attacks, who was responsible, etc. We got a bit of news over the phone (I think calls were like $5 or $7 per minute) but not much.
A few weeks later a new group of researchers came in and brought some magazines and newspapers and they were all read cover to cover by everyone there (Americans, Colombians, Peruvians, Brits, and Canadians). I remember sitting there and staring for minutes at a fuzzy picture of someone who had appeared to have jumped head first from one of the towers (Newsweek perhaps).
On my trip home in November, long hair, worn out field clothes and boots, worn backpack, I was searched more times than seemed possible and still remember the soldiers with machine guns in the airport in Texas as I entered the US. It was also surreal returning home - I was moved by what had happened but still short on details and had neither really lived through it nor been subjected to constant coverage, discussion, and worry. I got home to find that everyone had changed and that I was on the outside a bit.
Sorry for the long post, I thought some might like to read this.