Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 558: Survival in the Andes Part II - Buried Alive

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

The boys return to the snowy mountains of Argentina and pick back up with the 27 survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 - where after surviving a catastrophic plane crash, freezing temperatures, and having to consume human flesh to survive, the remaining passengers would face another, even more devastating setback on their road to the rescue...

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Reptilian in the morning. Our proprietary blend of light-thieros did coca-yosks. What have you immediately energized about emerging from the pain coacca with all your slippery new aims? Yee-eeh! Thanks, honey! Sssssss not! I'm cold blooded! Mmm! Existing heel jack and last hot gas on the left!

I'm ready to get out now and eat some babies! Get out of the way, Hillary Clinton! There's no place to escape to! This is the last hot gas on the left! What the fuck, Yeah! Oh! Why are you fucking doing the live? That's when the cannonball's started. Oh!

What was that? Oh! Oh! Yeah! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Get the last die of my teeth. Oh! It's Ricardo. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. It's Ricardo. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot. Ricardo, man.

Yeah. Well, stringy fucker. I didn't understand honestly. He looked hot with clothes on. That's the thing with a cardo. He was looking at him before, right? Obviously, we got on the plane. We're gonna let this guy know it's like,

G, this guy a dish. Yeah, right? They're all pretty hot. They're gonna let this guy know it's like, gee, I think this guy a dish. Yeah, right? They're all pretty hot. They're hot guys. Yeah, they're a hot group of dudes. Yeah, and that's kind of nice, honestly. If you're faced with having to eat a bunch of guys, I think it's nice if they're all hot. Yeah, especially with the one chick, you know, like, because you save her for last, like, she's dessert. Yeah, well, she got to like look at all those dudes, you know, for a long time. That is really nice. Our husband was next to her, you know, I'm sure she rubbed a couple out to some of the other dudes.

Yeah, they were rubbing a plenty of everyone was rubbing them out up on the fucking Andy's. I don't know. Rubbing them out. What else would you do? Smoke. Yeah, but they were, they had to have been beaten off, right? I would have.

I mean, they were a bunch of guys like 18 to 25. There's no, there's no way they weren't. They do dudes at that age do it at parties anyway. Yeah. Guys that trip off and please it. You can jerk off on a mountain. Yeah. I'm certain there's many people who've jerked off on a mountain.

I guess it only takes a lot of energy. Yeah, it takes a lot of energy, but the friction will warm you up. And you're making food. Welcome to last podcast. No, it's a gentleman. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski. I know for a fact that you met in her house, snowpacked an environment I am stuck in.

Eventually, I'm going to J off. Yeah. I mean, but that's the thing. The only thing you can do is you can just go behind the fuselage. You can't do it in the fuselage. You can't do it out in the open. They were doing all can just go behind the fuselage. You can't do it in the fuselage. You can't do it out in the open. They were doing all kinds of shit in the fuselage. Man, they were mostly shitting in the fuselage.

Yeah. Whatever happens in the fuselage stays in the fuselage. Unfortunately. So when we last left our survivors in the Andes, 27 people were still alive. And they just begun to consume human flesh for survival. Additionally, they had just heard on their transistor radio that the Chilean government had called off the search to find at least the wreckage of the plane. I actually got some good responses, say, questions

I asked last week. Some of them more scary than others. One is also, you don't get sick from drinking blood. Oh, yeah. According to a listener, a veterinarian, this is a talk about the learn this from the vet. Let's take fucking health advice from the vet. I do, I believe. I just dog blood all the time. No, this came from a Holocaust survivor. Oh, okay. Yeah, so my father, according to an email, my father worked with an older guy.

He had once worked with an even older guy that had survived living in a Nazi concentration camp by drinking Nazi horse. He was alive for thousands of years. Thousands of people see life. Yes. You too. Why you stick? You see, he was a veterinarian and he kept his job as a prisoner taking care of the Nazis

horses. And when he had the chance, he would tap it in one of them with a needle, drain a cup to drink on the spot and another cup to sneak back to his family. If he could risk it at the time, horses have loads of blood. So they've been doing blood. I had a horse when I was growing up called blood bag. Love that. Well, the big sloppy blood bag horse just put a fucking keg spikkin in it. Yeah. This one's tapped. It's like a dead horse on the ground. Never tap a dead horse.

So with no other choice, the survivors were starting to accept that if any of them ever wanted to get off of that mountain alive, they would have to figure out a way to do it all by themselves. Yeah, man. And I do want to stress these guys, I mean, we joked about it. These are all dudes between 18 and 27. Yeah, they're young kids.

I mean, they're, you know, soldier age, but. But still, but if they were in their 30s, I probably would have died. Well, they're strong as hell. Absolutely. I agree. I think that they were ready. They did not see this as we're all going to die here. No, a lot of those guys really were like, no, we're going to, we're going to live. We're going to make it work. As you can see, because they made it work for two fucking months, like they were frosty. The snowman. That's how delusional a young man is. Yes. The biggest problem they have though is that their food source, dead bodies, that was finite.

And the only way to obtain more food was if more people die. That's what's hard. This of course created more urgency because of people started dying of starvation, the meat left behind would be meager to say the least. That's saying about ricotta. Well, that's what the guys and what is it?

That's the guys in the Essex had to deal with in that everyone would die from starvation, but then once they died, they would be hardly anything on their bones left to eat. And then what they ate was not nourishing. You're gonna crack the bones. You're gonna get the marrow at the bones. It's actually very difficult to snap human bones

when you yourself are dying of starvation. Yeah. It's so easy until it's hard bones when you yourself are dying of starvation. Yeah. It's so easy until it's hard. Yeah, that's what I always said. The number of dead bodies at the disposal, however, would nearly double in a matter of minutes. That's because when you're in the Andes, if the cold doesn't get you, the avalanche as well.

This is another reason why I go to hot climates. Yeah. I go, I like to vacation when it's warm sunny. You know what I mean, I like it all inclusive. I had some friends like say we're gonna do a ski trip. No, and I'm just like, first of all, this is expensive. You and I talked about this. I'm a large boy.

All of our dudes, they were all like, oh, we could go skiing. It's me like, dude, you have it jumped in 10 years. You're not going to automatically be an expert skier. You're 39 years old. You're just going to learn how to ski. You're going to die out there. You we both said it. We like see it the lodge. I will be in the fucking hot tub getting fucking hammered drinking spiked eggnog. Yeah. You do whatever you want. Someone's got to cook the chili. Somebody has to and that's you because your chili is fantastic. Very good.

Yeah. Very, very good. Oh, I also got some information about piloting. Yeah. How to get to terrifying. That was terrifying. It is. It's mostly like back in the day. Now it's dry got confirmed from a, I got a, I got a message from one of our, a pilot

a captain from one of our favorite airlines. He said that. He said a favorite amongst you. Oh. And he said that it's basically completely impossible to get lost nowadays. It's completely impossible. Yeah. You have an iPad with the geo locating thing on it. There's like, you're getting pinged five different ways. It's very, it's almost, it's literally impossible to lose an airplane. But at the time, it was not. It was just radio. Like all they have is radio signals. Everything was really done by, yes, they had pre-approved plans.

But if you jump off the plan, you're fucked. Like a couple of degrees, because they used something called dead reckoning. And if you got a couple of degrees off, if the wind blew you off and you just got on the wrong bearing, then yeah, you could end up hundreds of miles from where you wanted to be. That's cool. And you also would be low on fuel and just praying to God that you were near an airport or near your destination. Yeah, this is from a letter from a pilot.

You have to account for crosswinds and altitude, which creates a discrepancy between your course and your heading. The winds also change your true air speed from your ground speed, which is also different from your indicated air speed. Then you factor in your true altitude from your ground speed, which is also different from your indicated air speed. Then you factor in your true altitude from your absolute altitude, accounting for winds aloft reports. It's delicate and precise math using dated equipment where even the decimals matter. All of this while being bumped around in turbulence, all of a sudden you got a bunch of people

screaming behind you, all these kids screaming behind you, you're looking around, figuring out how to shit. And then, you know, yada, yada, yada, you're lost in the air, everybody's dead, you're eating your cousin. See, I think this guy's a liar because he didn't start it by saying, this is your pilot speaking. You ain't my pilot. As I said, there were 27 people still alive by day 17. The last of the holdouts had finally begun to eat at least a little human

flesh, justifying it by saying the drawing life from their friends was like drawing spiritual strength from the body of Christ when they took communion. Yes, that's why I ate. We do, uh, hello fresh for four. And I completed the loop last night. I ate the entire family's worth because I was like I was drawing spiritual strength from our sponsor. Nobody of Gafford. I always do. But while that's what the holdouts said, it was more likely that the urge could no longer be resisted after the holdouts finally smelled flesh cooking.

Yeah, dude. The grill. Yeah, that's her brought them back. Bobby, play. Now while there was little wood for fires, the survivors found some wooden Coca-Cola crates in the luggage compartment. Those were broken up and used to actually cook some of the flesh, which immeasurably improved the flavor from absolutely revolting to something similar to soft beef. Soft beef. My favorite. No chew. No problem. With with please. The smell was also intoxicating.

Oh God. And the scent of cooking meat, no matter what that meat was, made the experience bearable for the holdouts. Oh God. Yeah. It's just that's you know, like because you had smell food so long. And did they always think talk about it. We've had a couple of these instances. We've talked about, well, what is it, the term? Long pig. Not the cannibalism. Legal cannibalism. Anthropology.

Anthropology. And so like, you smell that fucking yum, yum, yum, umami. Your brother's fucking dick. They don't, they didn't, they didn't do the they didn't they didn't do the dicks. They didn't do the dicks. And nobody ate anybody else's brother. There's no dicks. There's no brothers.

It's not funny. I was having fun here. Yeah. I mean, the celebrating light. It's all me. No, Dicks, I'll cartilage. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to eat a dick.

Really? No. No, you want to suck a dick. Oh, I didn't. Now, thank you. But once the wood was gone, those holdouts were finally over the anthropology hump. So they were able to choke down raw flesh when they absolutely needed to, although none of them did so with as much Gusto as the ones who had been doing it from the beginning. You know now that I'm cooking this, I really appreciate if you could eat this with some gusto.

Okay? I hit a perfect medium rare on Artura. I just thought I was sending it back. Yeah. Not for me. Now, when they ate it raw, did they chew it or they just swallow it? They usually just swallowed it. Although sometimes they did,

once the chunks got bigger, at the very beginning, like when they just cut off the raw strips, they just swallow it. But remember the last time the expedition that we talked about, the first expedition out, the first serious expedition out, when one of the guys has teeth started getting loose from the frostbite, one of the other guys remember had to chew the human flesh and baby bird it for. That's right.

Not good. Now, if you'll remember, speaking of that last expedition, that was more of a test to see how far they could get. And that ended with three survivors, damn near dying just their first night out in the elements. But Nando Parado, the man whose mother and sister had died in the crash, he desperately wanted to get off the mountain. So his father would only have to mourn two family members instead of three. Fuck you, mountain.

Actually, there is a fuck you mountain point and it's incredible. Yeah, Nando is, again, we like him. Oh, but he's probably one of my favorite heroes in any story we've covered. Yup, at last podcast on the left. Cause he starts by fucking cracking his head open. Yeah, dude, he started all things start.

He started dead. Yeah. And now he's the most alive. It's a true hero story. He's alive. Yeah. And now he's the most alive. It's a true hero story. Nando also knew that even though there were certainly some brave souls on that mountain, there wasn't anyone else there with the will that was necessary to lead such an expedition. Time to take the Nando. Or at least that's what Nando thought. But from what Roberto Kinesa theorizes, Nando is probably anxious to get off the mountain because the longer they were out there, the more likely it was that they were going to have to eat the bodies of Nando's sister and mother.

He would never, though. He would not have. He would have started it. Yeah, he would starve to death, but everyone else, he would not, but he would not deny everyone else life. I honestly, I'm, I'm with Nando. I'm walking off this fucking mountain. Yeah. I'm getting off the mountain. I don't care if I die out there, but I'm dying lower on the mountain than we are dying here. True, but there's also got to do it smartly. And that's where Roberto came in. And you got to go up to go down.

Yeah, I'm going sideways. I'm going up. I don't know if you know where I'm going. I'm going away from the mountain. Well, Nando began running through a potential list of partners and settled on Roberto Kinesa because Roberto was one of the most intelligent and resourceful people on the mountain. But he was like sarcastic. He was sarcastic.

He was a little bit gruff. You gave that. Yeah. Yeah, he was the he was more of the asshole of the group. He was kind of the task master, you know. And so Nando and Roberto began planning and the final group for a rescue expedition Which included a Dolphos Strouch and another guy named Numa was decided upon whoa Like the dance. Yeah, what dance the new manuma dance

Could you please show us Do you remember the new manuma dance? Numa not not do we are we gonna stop for the new manuma dance? I think we fucking have to you dad you know the new manuma dams. Do we are we gonna stop for the new manuma dance? I think we fucking have to you did you know the new manuma dance Is it like somewhere to the macaramia? No, it's a new man. Hey, here we go. It's like We're actually relatively high. See? Partly because they finally had a semblance of a plan and partly because no one had died in about a week.

Okay, you see this triangle here? That's the mount. We're near the top of the triangle. Our goal is off the triangle. Guys got it. Tap that easy names. None of the fucking forgetting. Don't eat my sister.

No one even looking. When fact Roberto was so jazz that he shot up in his sleep one night and told everyone he'd have them home by Christmas, which was a promise. He was actually able to keep for most of them. Most of them. For the rest though, rescue would never come as Mother Nature was not quite through with the survivors of the Fairchild. No mother is.

Bitch. Now on the night of October 29th, the 27 survivors were sleeping in their designated spots in the cabin. Two of them, Diego Storm and Roy Harley couldn't sleep. Diego Storm is my favorite name in this entire thing. It's incredible. It's like, yeah, he looks like he does the weather out of Krakis. So they switched spots, switch sleeping spots, hoping it would help.

But while it worked for Diego, Roy was still awake that night. Likewise, Adolfo Strouch and Cochet Inciarte were awake as well chatting. Sink starts, we would ruin Zviwa's whole group if we started kissing. Come, Coach, teach me how to love game. Do you think they did that in like, Captain Secret, but like, talked about eating people and kept that a secret? Yeah, yeah.

We could talk about the anthropology as much as we want, but none of the kissing dog. Well, there was a lot of hugging because they had to in order to survive. I am being said not just a not all men trapped in a few sludge don't immediately turn gay just the gay ones. There are times this months. Okay, who knows? No, who knows? But he actually I don't think they kissed.

I don't think they kissed. I don't think they kissed. That was a dramatization. Yes. But even though all three were awake, none of them heard the coming of the avalanche until the very last second. No, if you, avalanches, I read into this as well.

It's a very frightening as well. One of the most frightening and powerful forces of nature in existence. Completely unstoppable. Rip your arms off. Sounds like a stampede of horses. It's what they said. The beginnings of it just, as it comes out and it's like, and you know, it's just not a

good. So you're already in an abandoned fuselage of a plane. Yeah. It's not good. Except the most of a plane. That's the good sound. Yeah. Now, Roy did hear the sound of metal falling to the ground. And when he felt a faint vibration, he left upward in surprise.

At that very moment, the makeshift wall of suitcases came bursting into the fuselage as the wall of snow and ice buried nearly everyone in an instant. Now, since Roy had jumped, he was only buried up to his waist. This quite possibly saved the lives of everyone who eventually survived. Just think about that fucking shit about it. A little incoherent sequential movement. Yeah. Is what saves everyone. Some do go in.

What? As Robert Kinesa put it, the snow instantly became thick as cement once it enveloped. Oh my god, this fucking sketch. I hate this shit, man. Oh my God, this fucking sketch. I hate this shit, man. See, once the snow from an avalanche settles, the weight is such that the victim is unable to move

even their fingers. Now, you're just floating in air, essentially. You're stuck in a 3D, 4D space of snow, like you're just like, it's carbonite. Yeah. Now, at first, the warm breath around your mouth causes the snow to melt, which creates a temporary air pocket. Cool.

Quickly, though, that melted snow freezes again and forms a capsule of ice around the buried victims head. Not cool. This capsule of ice is known to rescue workers as the death mask. Because once all that air is turned to carbon monoxide, the victim asphyxiaates and dies. Very scary. Roy Harley, however, who Roy got kind of a bad rap in the book and in the movie,

because they had to make a villain from the inside, right? For the films, they had it as well. He wasn't necessarily the villain in the films. He was just, he was portrayed as a bit of a worm and Roberto Canessa also later apologized for how he portrayed Roy Harley when he was talking to the author of a live when he was given those first interviews.

I think he was hangry at the time. He was like, I treated Roy unfairly. Roy actually, like, he was very, Roy, what did act very bravely at moments, it's just that Roy was fucking 18. And he lost his shit eventually. He just emotionally, physically, you know, mentally, he was traumatized. He to pronounce it, but like, who wouldn't be? He was basically a child. Yeah. But he prevented at least some of the survivors from having to endure this awful death, mask, death. After the avalanche had settled, Roy saw hands sticking out of the snow. So he got

to work digging in those spots. Three survivors were quickly freed and began to help dig as well. But they soon discovered that not everyone was going to survive this new disaster. Yeah, because this is disaster like number five. Yeah. As far as Nando Pirata went, he was buried deep, but he'd remembered reading an article in Reader's Digest about avalanches that said one could survive under the snow by taking small shallow breaths. Yeah.

He did this for several minutes, but just as he was about to die and a sense of peace overtook him that it was finally over. His face was uncovered and he was pulled back into the land of the living amidst the chaos in anguish that was starting to settle in. Carlitos Paya's, for example, was dug out from his snowy grave quite quickly, but when he went to dig for his two closest friends, he found that both were dead, including the funny guy, Coco. And everybody shits on the funny guy until you find his corpse.

I didn't realize, oh, Coco was kind of essential. Yeah, did I hate his impersonation of Roberto? Absolutely. But it was also anti comedy. He was doing it because it annoyed me. He should have known it was coming because Coco beware. Coco beware. Yeah, yeah, beware of the ambulance. Coco was Coco beware. But why is Coco beware? You never heard of Coco beware? No, it was that.

Any a wrestler? You're talking to the wrong crowd here, friend. Oh, I thought it was a wrestler from the 80s. I don't know. Actually, yeah, Coco be where. Well, he had a parrot. Yeah, a perfect Joe. Well, really, whether someone lived or died, depended entirely upon where they were in the fuselage that night. Roy had only survived because he'd switched spots and the two survivors whose turn it was to sleep next to the suitcase wall were buried beyond immediate rescue. I mean, as soon as that snow came in, I bet you because also you can literally, your

body can be torn apart by an out lunch. You could just, you just be dead just from the sheer force of it. It's so powerful. It's like jumping from a very large height, hitting a fucking body of water. You could be a mile away and get killed by an avalanche. Yeah. Two others, however, got trapped

into the curved door of the airplane. So they had enough air to survive for nearly 10 minutes before they were uncovered, completely by chance. But at the same time, survival also came down to where a survivor arbitrarily decided to dig while Nando Parado was freed, the two people on either side of him immediately to his left and right, they died simply because someone decided to dig on the very spot where

Nando was trapped. If they would have dug one foot to the left, they would have found another person. One foot to the right, they would have found another. That's all it was. And if they would have dug up one of the other ones, they all would have died because Nando fucking said, they're what's life. Exactly. But if you also like think about being those guys floating next to Nando, definitely hearing him get survived. Like they're literally they're saving him. Yeah. And now you're like, I'm next. And then it doesn't happen.

Nope. Another problem is that while you were digging for one person, that snow had to go somewhere. So you could very possibly pile the snow that you're digging out on the body of somebody else, and that person doesn't get saved because they're now under a larger pile of snow. Perhaps the most tragic death though, at least as far as who I was attached to the most, was Enrique Platera. Yeah, inside out, man. Yeah. Enrique was the guy whose guts have been pulled out of his body on the first day. Oh, yeah. His stomach wound had even healed. Like he had tucked it back in.

His stomach wound has healed. He was doing fine. He died in the avalancheese. God, you think your fucking guts be an exposed doesn't kill you and then you get killed by the mountain. And all these fucking guys believe in God. Unfortunately, no, there were a couple who didn't. Oh, okay. Yeah, there were a couple of, they were like, I don't buy into that.

Yeah, there's a couple of camoos in the group just going, yes, and they're an example of the purposelessness of life. You're like, shut up. Where's Coco? I like Coco when he was doing Reagan. Yeah. Where's Coco? And Nando also wasn't religious, like, because when everyone else is like, oh, thank God that we got off this mountain And Nando also wasn't religious, like because when everyone else is like, oh, thank God that we got off this mountain, Nando's like, don't thank God, thank Nando. Thank God.

What would Nando do? What would Nando do? I'm North Raid. No, eight died that night in the avalanche. The last woman to survive, she died in the avalanche the last woman to survive she died in the avalanche her husband did survive wow the survivors now counted 19 down 32 from the day they crashed three weeks earlier and there were still seven weeks to go seven weeks but they don't know that no we do though no in the immediate aftermath the snow in the fuselage was so deep that they only had room to crawl on their hands and knees, and it was still the middle of the night.

Furthermore, they were so buried that going outside was not an immediate option. The dead that could be reached were stacked in the rear of the plane, which left a small clearing near the cockpit where everyone could try to sleep or at least wait out the night. There, 19 people crammed into a space that usually held for. To make matters worse, they were sleeping on wet snow and they were surrounded by wet snow. And all of their makeshift blankets, shoes, and cushions, anything they used to help with the cold was buried at the bottom of the fuselage.

Their skin must have been like tearing off of their fucking bodies. Oh yeah, but this is where the cluddling really comes into play. use a lot. Their skin must have been like tearing off of their fucking bodies. Oh, yeah. But this is, this is where the cluddling really comes into play. Yeah. As Nando put it, the packed snow created a thick muffled silence. Like one would expect if they were trapped in a submarine on the ocean floor. That's what I sound. The soundlessness is something that comes up a lot with avalanches.

They talk about how the snow is a natural sound definer or whatever, whatever that term is. And it's sound killer. Sound killer. It's extremely eerily quiet. The hours after the avalanche were in the minds of every survivor by far, the darkest of the 72 days they spent in the Andes. As everyone wept for the dead, a second avalanche came, and hour later, much louder than the first. But just as everyone prepared to die, the snow swept over the plane, and nobody was killed or even hurt. The problem, though, is that the fuselage was now completely buried in snow. Soon, the survivors began coughing, because the avalanche had cut off all the fresh air, and everyone inside was slowly suffocating.

He hear those sleigh bells. Jingling, jingle, jingle. This is where Santa could help. Yeah. Yeah. Thinking fat. Well, he does nothing. Even the coal would have helped.

Thinking fast, Nando grabbed an aluminum cargo pole and started banging it upwards to drive it through the plane's roof. Finally, he felt it give and the small hole he made above the snow saved everyone's life. Man, these guys, Oh, Nando, like a Starbucks gift card or something every year. Every year, they should all show up and just give them just something. I mean, everyone did their part. That's the thing is that everybody definitely did.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we talking about that's the real difference. That's again, why they survived. It's group think and people working together. Now, after digging their way through the cockpit, the survivors soon discovered that not only had the fuselage been completely covered, but everyone inside was now trapped in the middle of a blizzard. So back down to the fuselage, they went to wait it out.

To bring even the smallest bit of levity during those dark days, and that's days, multiple days. They celebrated Numa Tercardi's 25th birthday by making a cake from snow, using a lit cigarette as a candle. Bye, the heat. Bye, la, oh.

Bye, la, oh. The saddest Philly's Coupiata. Oh, no, no, no. Oh, no. Oh, the saddest Philly's Cupia. Then so their minds wouldn't completely turn into a terrified mush. They started working on an escape plan for when the blizzard inevitably led up and that's the strength to get 21 years old. Just being like, we're going to plan now. We're going to get into this. We're going to plan and move forward.

Mm hmm. Now one survivor named Pedro Algorda, remembered that the last time he was in Santiago, a taxi driver told him that summertime in the Andes comes like clockwork on November 15th, which was only two weeks away. Always believe a taxi driver. That's a thing. While it may seem insane to bet your entire life on the lives of 18 others on the word of a taxi driver. Carolina, my South American wife, informed me that taxi drivers in many South American countries are famous for at the very least having a strong opinion about specifically politics, soccer and the weather. Oh, yeah. Believe me. I met a new driver once who told me that Donald Trump had time traveling goggles. This is real. That he would go into the basement of the White House and that's why everyone was afraid

of him as he got access to these time traveling goggles and they told him what was going to happen in the future. Wow. And you can't have a normal job, sir. And he was just like, nope, I'm my own boss. How many taxi cab drivers I claimed to be the guy who gave this tip to. Oh, Oh,

I was on the taxi driver in Santiago. Yeah, it was I. Well, it's actually it's kind of a joke down there. Like if you don't know something, ask a taxi driver because they're either going to know the answer or they're at the very least going to give you a strong opinion that might point in the right direction. And so going off of this taxi driver opinion, the group decided that they would begin their expedition on November 15th, which was technically the first day of summer

in the Andes. So he was right. He was 100% right. Yes. He was right about this thing. Yeah. Furthermore, since expeditions to the west had only resulted in failure because of the steepness of the slopes, it was decided that they would follow the valleys east, hoping that those valleys would eventually turn into rivers that would bend around and flow into Chile. Nando, however, wasn't sold on the idea of going east. The way he figured it, the only thing they knew for certain was that Chile was West, Argentina was east, and Chile was a hell of a lot closer. You got to go as they knew.

Key is honestly no one saying, you got to go down. Yeah, well, I mean, down is down is understood. Down is where you got to go, but down you're saying South. No, I always have that problem, but I'm not good with direction. This is why you have Google map. This is why you would be bad because down was east. I'd be dead. Yes Right, I am obviously

In a gestures position frozen in the snow and I call his lips Where the most entertaining part of it down was east and east was bad Well additionally the other reason why east was bad. Well, additionally, the other reason why east was bad is that they had no way of knowing how much further into the Andes they'd have to go before the path took them back west to Chile. If it ever took them back west. No, because they're still going to wish I have rations for you guys. Oh, wait. Oh, good. They're warm and hot by our Andes men. Thank you. This is great. I love that they're nice and soft. Oh, wow.

Next year, buzzing for our frozen. They are legitimately soft. Yeah, I mean, your chest. This is my last two. I hope you enjoy. Well, make sure I just just cut to the rest of the trees. Oh, just make sure we're through.

We'll get into the minty treats of the Andes here in a second. But even though they had a plan, they were still stuck in the fuselage until the blizzard lifted. Spirits lifted a little on the second day. It was Halloween. That was Carlitos Piazes birthday. He got a cigarette cake for turning 19. But on the third day, the hunger set in. With no access to fresh water besides dirty snow and no access to their food supply outside, they had to literally dig in to the dead bodies piled at the back of the plane with a piece of glass. The muffled silence at the plane was broken by the sound of the Germans ripping into the flesh of the dead, which was made all the more horrifying because everyone knew

exactly who they were eating this time. The chunks of flesh came off soft and greasy, and even those who ate it were barely able to keep it down. You know what, I hate to say this, but Coco tastes a little funny. I should have left the jokes to Coco. I miss him already. I miss him already. I miss him already. Who will be our J Lennon?

Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? Now, the Blizzard ended on November 1st, but by the end of their time after the avalanche, the food scraps that had been thrown out of the hole may the entrance to the fuselage look like an ogre's layer. It was scattered with bones, appendages, human waste, chunks of human fat. It was horrifying. I mean, I it's bad. That's cool. It's bad. But yes, I mean, I'd said ogre's layer. I knew you were going to love it. I mean, I play ballers, gay three. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, it's you're

enjoying it. Give myself the huge cock. You can choose how big your cock is. Yeah. You can. Yeah. Over the house. I can. Yeah, I played as a woman. I gave her an any. Oh, in the cock. No, in any vagina. Yeah, they got out there. They got out there. They got lips out.

It's in. Yeah. You guys have fun. You can make your own woman. I'm going to stick with my wife. The tempers did run high at times, but when the survivors weren't fighting, they would bond by describing what kind of food they'd eat if they were back home, making competitions out of who could come up with the most tasty menu. This is what I do when

I watch Great British Bake Off when I have nothing but cereal. Yeah. You're like, wouldn't it be nice if we had Napoleon's? We had a Swiss cake roll. Yeah. Yeah. Now at first, the power of imagination made them feel better, but the facade came crashing down every time when they were handed their half pound of human flesh and fat. Yeah, I think it would. Yeah. They also, as I said, chain smoked. And since cigarettes were in great supply, they even tried making tea out of the tobacco

just for a little bit of variety. And that of course did not work. It sounds like something like Mickey Rork. Yeah, like every morning I have a cup of cigarette tea. You know what I mean about tea is you can't smoke a lot. And another desperate hail Mary for variety. Some of them would eat toothpaste, which they saw as a minty treat, almost a dessert. You have in your Andes chocolates, but toothpaste has milk of Magnesia, so most of the people who

ate toothpaste would get diarrhea. But honestly, sounds like that wasn't bad. They kind of needed the movement. Well, speaking about movements, since everyone's diet was raw meat, fat, and melted snow, constipation was a massive issue. This is a big part of their lives now. Like this idea, because once you get down to the little simple, like, terms of life, if you can't shit, it's very bad. And if you tear your asshole up there, you're fucked. We'll get to that here in a second. A lot of them were so backed up that they thought their intestines would split open.

Some were so desperate that they had a butt dig and stick that they used to try and loosen up the works, which I have heard does work. Digital manipulation is the term. Oh, yeah. I remember seeing that episode where Bobby Brown talked about doing that to Whitney Houston. That's how he got his last name. Yeah. Wow. But since these were all young men, they of course made bets on who would shit last.

The final three were Carlitos Perez who went 28 days, Pancho Delgado who went 32 and finally Bobby Francois who went in eye watering 34 days without a bowel move. Couldn't even. Yeah, I think he won more time on the mountain. Interestingly, Bobby Francois was often described as the calmest person on the mountain during the entire or ordeal, despite his intense constipation. Cause guess what? I can't give a shit literally or figuratively.

Now the butt, dig and stick. Yeah. Did they use it on themselves? Or would you be like, hey, would you mind? They didn't get that granular. But I would imagine they use it on themselves. You know, I think you did it yourself. I think a bunch of dudes are me like, let me do it.

I'll do it myself. I can't believe they chose not to light it on fire at some point. Like the butt stick on fire? Yeah. Why? Because it's wood. You need, you know, like you're cleaning resin out of a bowl. No, no, he's saying that they would rather light it on fire rather than use it as the

butt dig and stick. Yeah. But I would argue that the butt, the butt dig and stick was, no, they didn't have plenty of sticks because there's fucking nothing up there. It's just fucking bare and waste. Yeah, they were, they were, they were, co-cola boxes on fire. Yeah. But that's the thing is that you can either be warm for 30 seconds or you can have a butt dig and stick for life. Yeah. That's an important lesson. Teach Amanda for you. Zoomers, you zoomers are listening. It's an important

lesson. Yeah. But if they weren't constipated, they were shit in their brains out, which was a far larger problem for the group as a whole. Yeah, diarrhea is much more dangerous. At one point, Roberto Kinesa, who could at times be a difficult man, he didn't want to go outside for a bit of the old splatter works. So he squatted on a blanket in the fuselage. I'm shit inside. I've got enough today.

I could see this meltdown clear as day. Cause I could see me doing it being like, you plan the fucking expedition. I've been doing this all day. I'm shitting inside my asshole. It's cold. It's just so I just wrestle them because you wrestling and you're covered in shit.

Oh yeah. Now you can shit everywhere. Well, it's greatly angered everyone inside the fuselage. And matters were made worse later that day when someone absent-mindedly picked up the blanket to block some wind and the runny feces flew in their faces as the blanket flapped. I forgot he shit on the drape. Yeah.

You're just jealous of the fact that it's coming out of me. But bowel problems aside, the preparation for the expedition to civilization continued. Backpacks were made by tying off pant legs and threading them with nylon straps, meat was cut and saved and human skin socks made from the area around the elbow were fashion to keep their feet warm. God help me. Now, the skin socks weren't mentioned in either of the autobiographies we read, but I would imagine considering the great detail

they went into with everything else that was horrifying, the human skin socks, I think, were just another piece of the horror show that they just forgot about. I think they wanted to find out about them. It was in a live, but they, I don't think somebody else probably talked about it.

Because the guy that wrote a live interview, like a lot of the survivors while Roberto, Kinesa and Nando Pirado wrote their own books. It is definitely the issue is you don't want to, they wanted, they were already hesitant to about eating human flesh. The idea of then using their friends, their former friends as a parallel. It's just an elbow. Yeah, but I feel that it was a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to think that, you know, but fucking, it is the way you guys, your guys elbows are on your feet. Yeah. It's elbows or my socks. Yeah. What's a lot? I think it's fine. You know, it's a stretchy part.

Elbows, you know, they, you know, you don't feel it. They did it. Yeah, they definitely did it. But to make matters better, the winter was indeed easing up by mid November, just as the cab driver had claimed. And the temperatures during sunny days could be sometimes as high as the mid 40s. You know, if that cab driver was right about this, I guess I shouldn't be putting that plus the up on a pedestal. Thanks, cab driver, for all your wonderful, wonderful terms. Some of the survivors were even forming friendships like Cochee in Siarté, in Tiarté. Like Cochee, this one's a hard one. Cochee in because it's hard, I know it's a Spanish name, but it's hard to not say it

Italian. Cochee in because it's hard. I know it's a Spanish name, but it's hard to not say it Italian. Cochay and Ciar. And Ciar. Yeah. And Carlos Pias. Cochay and Carlitos. They didn't know each other at all prior to the flight. And they didn't even formally introduce themselves to one another and tell they were on the mountain for three days. Three days? Yeah. I mean, you're finally just like, you know what? I'm in. Yeah. You know, it's kind of crazy meeting like this. Name's Ed, rhymes with slend. That's how you're remembering. Remember, you know, there's almost 30 people

after the first night you're wandering around. Everyone's sort of like, you know, grouping up with their people, you're in shock still. And then finally, like, you, hey, what's your name? And then you introduce yourself. Wow. Name Shammy Dingles. Yeah.

I'm a roving tamarind comedian and preacher. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha eat human flesh. So his immune system at the time of the avalanche was greatly compromised. That was the truth with everyone who refused to eat human flesh. Cochets legs became infected soon after, but Carlitos took care of his new friend and kept him alive until rescue, and even refused to board a rescue helicopter until Cochet could come with him. After returning to civilization, Carlito and Cochet remained the best of friends until Cochet died last July at the age of 75. Was it another avalanche?

So he died of being 75. Good for him. Yeah. Great. Because guess where I would never be going again. Anything. I would even go to a hill. Yeah. I would go to a tall flight of stairs.

I would like to think I'd get right back on a plane just to fucking beat that fear out of me. Yeah, I'd like to think so too. You're rarer than me. I don't know, but I'd say I'd like to think who knows. Yeah. Fly from North Raid. But concerning their activities on the mountain, while boredom is debt was definitely an issue as well as the mounting and ever-present sense of red,

the survivors had set up daily routines and schedules, not only to help them survive, but to help them from losing their minds. That's where all of the jobs came into hand. It's like, you're gonna do the water, not only because we need water, but we need you to not just sit there and think about how fucked you are.

Just do something, do something and push us forward. Now, when it came to the expedition, it was decided that it would be Nando, Roberto, Antonio Vizentine, aka Tenten. Not cool, then. And Adolfo Strauss. Yes. Yeah, I should definitely be grateful for the straws, but just as they added Tenten to

the group, Adolfo was struck with a case of hemorrhoids so severe that he'd blood down his legs and couldn't walk without being an utter agony. Oh, my haze berries of birth. Oh, no, my fucking eggs have taken their form. The brats were succumbing out to me. I'm making jam again. And so Adolfo was replaced with Numa Tercot. Yay!

But Numa had to drop out as well when someone trying to make their way across the dark fuselage stepped on Numa's calf and created a deep brew. My calf! Hey man, that ship was serious. Oh yeah, it's actually apparently Numa's very fucking bad. Numa's leg soon became septic,

because he was another one of the survivors who could only stomach a few scraps of flesh at a time. I just wanna dance my way across the world! Not gonna happen, because if his squeamishness, he would die in agonizing death almost a month later, just 11 days before rescue. New my die!

New my die. Oh, they have them remember me, by my song. rescue. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no set out again on November 17th on a calm, clear day, they found the remains of the airplanes tail after just two hours of walking. There, they found socks, sweaters, warm pants, rum, chocolate, empanadas, sandwiches, more cigarettes, and a camera. But on a very human level, the most important find for them was the clean clothes. Oh, I bet. Something that didn't have blood and shit

and sweat and human grease all over it. Yeah. Because that's the things that when you're burning the human fat, like if you are cooking it, that grease fire is also gonna get all over your clothes. We talked about this back in the day during the Black Plague series about the idea of like, when you burn something,

and you see those pure animal fat candles, like one of the hardest parts of being inside of an evil home was the layer of fat and grease that would sort of cake the top of your home. Yeah. Oh, which was also extraordinarily flammable. Yeah. Fuck yeah, I can roll.

Now, these guys, they all got dibs, right? Oh yeah, they got dibs. which was also extraordinarily flammable. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I can roll. Now, these guys, they all got dibs, right? Oh, yeah, they got dibs. They definitely got dibs. Yeah, they got dibs. Oh, they got dibs. They hooked up a light fixture to some batteries. They got light after sunset for the first time.

They spent the night reading magazines and comic books. They ate the empanadas. Yeah, they did this. Yeah, they ate the empanadas. The sandwiches were a little moldy, but they just, you know, took a little mold up the sandwiches. They definitely got dibs. Yeah, we did this. Yeah, they at the empanadas. They the sandwiches were a little moldy But they just you know took a little mold off the sandwiches. They definitely got dips. Yeah. Yeah The next morning Nando took photos of Roberto and Tenton hoping that if they didn't survive Maybe someone would at least find proof someday that they had survived the crack Just at least will make someone feel guilty

Actually, they that camera was used to take a they took a ton of photos up on the mountain. Yeah, absolutely. Because sometimes you'd seem like smiling, smiling, but then you'll see like off in the corner, like a fucking human spinal column, like just sitting there. But I think there's, there, again, there's about saving humanity. Yeah. And this is a part of what helps save some of their humanity. It's taking pictures, taking these little human moments. Yes. After the photo shoot, the three expeditioners continued on, but that night without shelter, it became obvious

that they would not survive another without a better plan. See, they'd noticed that there had been some batteries back at the tail, very huge batteries that work, you know, of course, attached to the airplane. So they figured they could drag them back to the fuselage to hook it up to the Fairchild's two-way radio in the cockpit. Now, Roberto Canessa pushed for this plan specifically, because by this time it was becoming more and more likely that they would have to go west. And even if the radio didn't work, FUTZEN with it would put the expedition further into summer and slow down Nando who always wanted to go no matter what By Roberto's thinking summer met longer days and less chances of blizzards because they had only one chance Yeah, to go west. There's one shot. Yeah, yes to do this because if they don't get they don't make it

Everybody's fucking dead. Yep, and failure meant the deaths of everyone additionally Additionally, Roberto was, he was aware that the meat was going to spoil when the temperature rose, but that just meant that the expedition had to be planned just right. In other words, as Carolina pointed out to me during the massive amount of help she gave during this series. Yeah, they did a lot of work because I read her translated work that she did. It was all great. It's so great. Yeah. And she helps so much to like pick out like the human moments, read the Spanish Berversions of Roberto and Nando's book to like give us like this context. They're in some color. But the way she put it, Roberto Kinesa was the brain while Nando Perado was the heart. It's sort of like Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook from Joy Division,

the brain and the heart. And you can hear all about that on our Joy Division series on No Dogs in Space where you can hear more of Carolinas incredible research skills. Good plug. Thank you. It's my favorite series that we've ever done. It's incredible. If you're going to start somewhere, start with Joy Division. But concerning the radio plan, the batteries were massive and any attempt to even place them on a sled caused the batteries to sink deep into the snow. So they decided to bring Roy Harley back to the plane's tail with the Fairchild's radio, hoping they could hook it all together to call for help.

Now this decision to bring Roy was part of a sort of philosophy that Roberto had come up with called the Society of the Snow. Interesting. It's the name of the new Netflix movie. That's why they call it the Society of the Snow. Basically, if anyone had any experience in anything back in civilization, they were now the best in the world at that particular thing. I got to be. Yeah. You're my guy now.

Yeah. You're the fucking guy. We had two med students or our doctors. Yeah. For example, Roberto and Gustavo before they were first and second near med students. Now we're doctors. You're doctors. We're just fucking doctors. That's it. Kinesa had also gone camping a couple times with his girlfriend. So he's the survival expert. Yeah, I know everything about, you know, how to make sure you're, she doesn't get too hungry, you get to a fight. Fuck, that would have made me the cook. Yeah.

You would have been the go. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You would have been the butcher. Yeah. You absolutely would have been the butcher. It's kind of fun. Like the expeditioners, the people who would go out, they were essentially like the warrior class.

They got the best jobs, they got the best food, they got the best sleeping positions, because they needed them as strong as they could possibly be. And I'm the bard. No, no. No. Pulten is smacked into very, very high. We how will wish off families goodbye?

Oh, Mark, you are the bard. I shall be the chronicler. Oh. I shall be the chronicler. I shall chronicler a story from beginning to end. So you guys are useless. Yeah. You guys are helping it. We're working borders. I wanted borders, a literary shot.

Oh, wait until you see the royalties from the film adaptations. And then we shall talk about who is useless. I'm playing the long game. I was a little film done by the college humor people who I made out with Glenn Houghton from Always Sunny. So I am the romance investigator and I make sure people are loved. Alright, hold this foot while I cut through this tent. Yeah, come again, hurry up. And since Roy Harley was a first year engineering student and he'd once helped set up his cousin stereo.

Yep. He was now the engineer. And remember, Roy was fucking 18. The return of the expeditioners, however, was crushing blow to those back of the fuselage. They'd hope that the expedition would have reached civilization by that point, because remember from what everyone thought, like we're on the western foothills of the Andes, you're going to climb up a mountain and you're going to see fucking green valleys on the other side, right there, right there.

And to make matters worse, Rafael Eshevaren, who said every morning that the mountain would not take him, he was taken by the mountain. Yeah. But while they were gathering strength for another expedition, they had to spend days digging up more bodies. But since the days were getting warmer, the inessence had to make refrigerators to keep the bodies from rotting.

They also had to start eating the pieces of the body they'd previously thrown away, like the hands, the feet, the tongues, the testicles, the pieces of the body they'd previously thrown away like the hands the feet the tongues the testicles the lungs the eyes anything in the head and brains are bad to you should be eating the brains should be in brain brain. We breads. They use the brains. We don't have sweep. Oh yeah, we're it's the what's this but it's the what is the gland the sweep breads are the What is the gland? Sweet breads are the, is this really vital information to stop the show so you can Google it? God, it looks good. It's got to be lymph nodes. It's pancreas.

It's a whole, that you were looking at your armpit. I love sweet breads. I know you love sweet breads, but they use the brains to make a stew sauce. For bowls, some used plates made from aluminum foil, others just use the top halves of the skulls. She's crazy. And bones were used as spoons. Eventually they, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah one kept their promise to not eat the bodies of Nando's mother and sister. If only to hold on to some thin thread of civilization past pure instinctual survival. Now, the problem with the plan to bring the radio to the tail of the plane was that when

they pulled the radio out of the cockpit, there were something like 60 wires sticking out of the back. It seemed to be complicated. I imagine it would be complicated. Likewise, the battery also had 60 or 70 wires sticking out of the back. It seemed to be complicated. I imagine it would be complicated. Likewise, the battery also had 60 or 70 wires sticking out the back. Therefore attempts to connect the two just resulted in a lot of flashes, sizzles, and electrical pops and Roy's stereo installation experience wasn't doing a hell of a lot of good. Yeah.

For five days, they tried getting the radio working. And this is another one of those human moments. Like they had one guy standing out with like a big piece of aluminum attached to the stereo. Like they're static and they're like, move to the left. Oh, yeah, move to the left. You're on their left. Fox viewing positions.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like they're an aerial on an old TV. We used to have to do that. I remember finding the antenna. I remember my dad had fucking around with the thing on the roof. Yeah, it was that same shit. Finally, though, they did pick up radio transmissions, even though they couldn't transmit anything out. At that point, they heard the seemingly good news that a second rescue attempt was about to be undertaken by the Uruguayan Air Force at the encouragement of the survivor's families. This, of course,

was tempered by Gustavo's earlier observation that even with their suitcase cross, their site was an impossibly small blip in the snow from even a couple hundred yards away. In his rage, Roy stomped the radio to pieces and they returned to the fuselage and yet another horrible blizzard, which nearly killed them all.

And that's where the 18 year old thing also kicks in where you don't stomomp the fucking radio to pieces when you got, when you got one. Well, they still had the transistor radio back at the plane, which Roy had set up too. Like Roy didn't figure that out. Yeah, he figured that out. So they still had a back at the thing.

So this radio was basically like, I mean, it was a backup, but you know, what else are you gonna do besides just listen to music sometimes? I get so mad when I try to do like anything technical. That's what I do. I bring shit all the, you know, these probably fingers are bleeding. Oh, yeah.

I've broken up and shit. Oh, yeah. No, it's the fucking electrical pops have been happening in his face all fucking day long. And Roberto sitting there like yelling at Roy because Roy's like getting discouraged. He's like, fuck, and it's five days. Yeah, you get the fucking shit together. Yeah.

You're also an electronic device surrounded by water. Also day three, maybe someone else take a look at it. But then you get mad as fucking you get mad being like, no, no, no, you I'm the engineer. I just couldn't sit there for five days without being, all right, let me take a look. But it's a problem again. It's why we're there. Now, after being away from the fused lodge for just a few days,

Nando could finally take in just how grim the scene at the crash site really was. Got some perspective piles of human bones were scattered outside the shelter. Someone's forearm and a human leg from hip to toes was just laying near the fused lodge for easy access. Strips of fat were drawing on the roof. And for the first time, Nando saw human skulls in the bone pile. Peek clean. Honestly, it's getting kind of dark in here. Yeah, it's getting a little dark. All right, I think that we all should watch Jimmy found one tonight. The transition to radio. and like we should smile.

You know, what if we grab two bones? We'll click clack on the side of the. All right. Now we're going. All right. Now bang those skulls together. Back. Back.

Back. Back. Back with the in there. Oh man, it's incredible. Now they got Blue Man group. Yep. Yep. Literally.

Yeah. They're so cold. Yeah. To make matters worse, two condors appeared in the sky above them. But while you might think, Hey, there's food up there that's not people. These people were not strong enough to even fight off these gigantic birds, much less kill them. And they lived in fear of the scavengers carrying off the last bits of their meat. Got them birds. These birds.

Gimps. Gimps. Gimps. Yeah, you can give them the. I think. No, Got them birds. These birds. These beds. Get them the bones. Yeah, you can get them the bad thing. No, but then you're getting them. Then they're getting, you're getting them used to you. Yeah, let's go point. Now since East had been a bust, Nando finally convinced everyone that even though the slope was steep, West was the way to go.

And so they began preparations for the final expedition in the first weeks of December. Now, even though the days were getting hot enough to burn the skin and the lips of anyone hanging around outside, the nights were still cold enough to kill anyone who dared venture out. But in an extraordinary stroke of luck, Nando had found his mother's purse during his trip to the tail.

And inside that purse, money. Yes, it purse money. Sowing kit. Oh, there was a sewing kit inside. So Carlitos Pies using skills as mother taught him when he was a boy, he got to work sewing together patches of airplane insulation that they'd been stuffing into their clothes. This created a three person sleeping bag. And he taught others how to sew to quicken the pace. He's got to should've worked in like a merch area. Like, you know, they really figured out a lot of stuff at once.

They really did. Roberto, however, still wanted to wait because the last blizzard they'd endured on their way back from the tail made him apprehensive of going back out into the wilderness. The brains. The brains. Yes. Roberto is the brain. He's the brains. Yeah. And that's even if the days were getting worse. Like, yeah, the days are getting warmer, but we're in the Andes. Yeah. He was also somewhat banking on a miracle from a second rescue expedition. Well, this is where his do he knew how difficult it was going to be somewhere down inside of him. He knew that getting off this mountain, it's going to suck. Yeah. It's going to be awful. Nondo was just so full of belief that he was ready to go. Like he really was like,

no, we'll do it because again, I'll die out there. And then Roberto is like, I don't think you understand how bad it's going to be to die out there. Yeah. It's bad. This is bad. Yeah. Out there, it's going to be to die out there. Like it's bad. This is bad. Yeah. Out there, it's going to be worse. But Nando pushed back by saying that the warmer it was, the more likely infection was going to take them all, not to mention the rapidly spoiling meat. And as far as the rescue mission went, they were not searching for survivors. They were looking for bodies and they were not going to be in any rush to do so.

No, because that's just sad. Yeah. And so Nando drew a line in the sand or in the snow. Thanks for the work. And said that he was leaving on December 12th with or without Roberto. Well, finally got Roberto to say yes, was when Numa died of his infection on the 11th. And so the next day, Nando, age 23, 10, 10, age 19 and Roberto, also age 19, ventured West defined salvation. And that is where we'll pick back up for our conclusion to survival

in the Andes. Now, if you wonder if there's enough because in the movie alive, they just caught to the end. It's really weird how they do that. They really do because and that's what I thought. I was like when we were getting to this part of this, even when we were researching and talking about the episodes, I just mean, oh yeah, then it's over. You know, they get off the mountain. And they're like, Oh no, there is a full hobbit like trip. Yes. From the top of that mountain to the bottom

of it, where it is just as brutal as everything else that has happened so far. So we're gonna flesh it out. Ooh, and I said, can I ask a question, real quick, about Numa? He died of infection, does that mean they can't eat him? Yeah, I would not eat him. I wouldn't.

I would imagine you could eat around the infection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, don't eat the calf, but eat the bicep. You know, I couldn't, I could not answer your question for sure. What's, what's our email? It's our stories LPL with gmail.com. Can you eat a body that has died of infection? I imagine that you cannot, but I imagine, you know, I'd imagine it's a bad idea.

Yeah. You can suck on it for the soul. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But a lot of people were dying from infection. So I think they did. They figured it out. Yeah. Life finds a way. So speaking of that, buy Operation Sunshine number three. It's out there. Go to your local chemical store. Watch me and how in the room the holidays. The name is up. You go there, go how to ruin the holidays. I'm in it. Support me. Support independent film. In an era're independent film will become a king once again fun

Funnily enough the how to ruin the holidays is watching the movie He's jealous of what I've done He's jealous of what I've done. He's jealous of it. If you want to hear jokes like that, you can check out January 4th at the Ontario Improv. And Ontario, California, which remained foul, or I'd love to see that. It's been written. I'm going to be at the Galaxy Cod in Raleigh, North Carolina. Cool. I'm going to be here. Good for you, buddy. Yeah. Hellsake. Hell Marcus.

Oh, he's coming. He's coming. Hellsake! Hell Marcus. Oh, see? He said he told you it was coming. Thank you and Hale Geen. You know, read the book if you want to explain to you. Oh no, I'm fine. I'll watch Psycho again. Hale me bo! Hale me bo!

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