HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get the last of it out of my teeth. It's Ricardo. Yeah. Got it.
MARCUS PARKS
Ricardo, eh?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Stringy fucker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I didn't understand honestly. He looked hot with clothes on. That's the thing with Ricardo is looking at him before, right, obviously when we got on the plane, I'm looking at this guy and I was like gee, ain't this guy a dish.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right?
ED LARSON
They're all pretty hot.
MARCUS PARKS
They are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They are hot guys, yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, they're a hot group of dudes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
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.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Especially with the one chick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He saved her for last like she's dessert.
ED LARSON
Yeah well she got to look at all those dudes for a long time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is really nice.
ED LARSON
Even though her husband was next to her I'm sure she rubbed a couple out to some of the other dudes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they were rubbing plenty. Everyone was rubbing them out up on the fucking Andes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Just rubbing them out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What else would you do?
MARCUS PARKS
Smoke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, smoke. But they had to have been beating off, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would have.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean they were a bunch of guys like 18-25, 27.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's no way they weren't.
ED LARSON
Dudes at that age do it at parties anyway.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, man. Guys jerk off in prison.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You can jerk off on a mountain.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm certain there's many people who've jerked off on a mountain.
MARCUS PARKS
I guess.
ED LARSON
Probably takes a lot of energy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it takes a lot of energy but the friction will warm you up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you're making food.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Welcome to Last Podcast on the Left. My name is Marcus Parks, I'm here with Henry Zebrowski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know for a fact that no matter how snow packed an environment I am stuck in, eventually, I'm gonna J-off.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
ED LARSON
They were doing all kinds of shit in the fuselage.
MARCUS PARKS
Man, they were mostly shitting in the fuselage.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever happens in the fuselage, stays in the fuselage.
ED LARSON
Unfortunately.
MARCUS PARKS
So when we last left our survivors in the Andes, 27 people were still alive and they'd 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually got some good responses to questions I asked last week.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some of them more scary than others. One is also you don't get sick from drinking blood.
ED LARSON
Oh.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
According to a listener, a veterinarian, this is talking about they learn this for a fact-
MARCUS PARKS
Oh cool, yeah. Let's take fucking health advice from the vet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do. I believe-
ED LARSON
He drinks dog blood all the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, this came from a holocaust survivor.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. So my father, according to an email, my father worked with an older guy who'd once worked with an even older guy that had survived living in a Nazi concentration camp by drinking Nazi horse blood.
ED LARSON
He was alive for thousands of years but he couldn't see light.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. You chose wisely. 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 into 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-
ED LARSON
They really do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So he was able to supplement his diet.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, Blood Bag. Like I had a horse when I was growing up called Blood Bag. Love that horse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Love the big sloppy Blood Bag horse.
ED LARSON
Just put a fucking keg spigot in it, on tap.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This one's tapped. It's like a dead horse on the ground. Never tap a dead horse.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep, man.
MARCUS PARKS
And I do want to stress these guys, I mean we joked about it, these are all dudes between 18- 27.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Like they're young kids. I mean they're soldier age but still.
ED LARSON
But if they were in their 30s they probably would have died.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they're strong as hell.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree. I think that they were ready. The they did not see this as we're all gonna die here.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot of those guys really were like no, we're gonna live, we're gonna make it work. As you can see because they made it work for two fucking months like they were Frosty the Snowman.
ED LARSON
That's how delusional a young man is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
The biggest problem they have though is that their food source, dead bodies, that was finite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And the only way to obtain more food was if more people died.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what's hard.
MARCUS PARKS
This of course created more urgency because if people started dying of starvation, the meat left behind would be meager to say the least.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying about Ricardo.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's what the guys in, what is it? That's what the guys in the Essex had to deal with.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Is that everyone would die from starvation but then once they died, there would be hardly anything on their bones left to eat. And then what they ate was not nourishing.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta crack the bones, you gotta get the marrow out the bones. It's actually very difficult to snap human bones when you yourself are dying of starvation.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It's so easy until it's hard.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I've always said.
MARCUS PARKS
The number of dead bodies at their 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 avalanches will.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is another reason why I go to hot climates.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like to vacation when it's warm, sunny. You know what I mean? I like an all inclusive.
ED LARSON
I had some friends like say we're gonna do a ski trip.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
And I'm just like first of all, this is expensive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You and I talked about this.
ED LARSON
Second of all I'm a lodge boy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All of our dudes, they were all like oh we could go skiing. And just being like dude, you haven't jumped in 10 years. You're not going to automatically be an expert skier. You're 39 years old, you're just gonna learn how to ski. You're gonna die out there. We both said it, being like see you at the lodge.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I will be in the fucking hot tub getting fucking hammered, drinking spiked eggnog.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do whatever you want.
ED LARSON
Someone's gotta cook the chili.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Somebody has to.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's you because your chili is fantastic.
ED LARSON
Award winning.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very good. Very, very good. I also got some information about piloting and how to get lost.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Which is terrifying, that was terrifying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is. It's mostly like back in the day. Now it's confirmed from, I got a message from a pilot, a captain from one of our favorite airlines. He said that, he said a favorite amongst you. And he said that it's basically completely impossible to get lost nowadays. It's completely impossible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have an iPad with the geolocating thing on it. There's like you're getting pinged five different ways. It's literally impossible to lose an airplane. But at the time it was not, it was just radio, like all they had was these radio signals. Everything was really done by... Yes, they had pre-approved plans. But if you jump off the plan, you're fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
Like a couple of degrees. Because they use something called like dead reckoning.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And if you got like a couple of degrees off, like if the wind blew you off and you just got on the wrong bearing, then yeah, you could end up like hundreds of miles from where you wanted to be.
ED LARSON
That's cool.
MARCUS PARKS
And you also would be low on fuel and just praying to god that you were near an airport or near your destination.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, this is a letter from a pilot. You have to account for crosswinds at 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 absolute altitude, accounting for winds aloft reports. It's delicate 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 yada, yada, yada, you're lost in the air, everybody's dead. You're eating your cousin.
ED LARSON
See I think this guy's a liar because he didn't start it by saying this is your pilot speaking.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You ain't my pilot!
MARCUS PARKS
But 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 that drawing life from their friends was like drawing spiritual strength from the body of Christ when they took communion.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, that's why I ate. We do 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 the body of-
MARCUS PARKS
From our sponsors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I always do.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude. The grill.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what brought them back. Bobby Flay.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh, soft beef.
ED LARSON
My favorite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No chew, no problem.
ED LARSON
Wiz wit, please.
MARCUS PARKS
The smell was also intoxicating.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
And the scent of cooking meat, no matter what that meat was, made the experience bearable for the holdouts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god yeah, it's just that. Because you hadn't smelled food in so long. And they always talk about it. We've had a couple of these instances where we've talked about, well what is it? The term?
MARCUS PARKS
Long pig?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not cannibalism. Legal cannibalism.
MARCUS PARKS
Anthropophagy.
ED LARSON
Anthropophagy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Anthropophagy. Yeah. And so like do you smell that fucking yum yum yum umami of your brother's fucking dick?
ED LARSON
No. No brothers.
MARCUS PARKS
They didn't do the dicks. They didn't do the dicks. And nobody ate anybody else's brother. There was no dicks, there was no brothers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just having fun.
ED LARSON
They should have ate the dicks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just having fun here.
ED LARSON
Yeah. I mean the dicks-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm celebrating life.
ED LARSON
It's all meat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, dick's all cartilage. You wouldn't like it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah, you don't wanna eat a dick.
ED LARSON
Really?
MARCUS PARKS
No. No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. You wanna suck a dick.
ED LARSON
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
But once the wood was gone, those holdouts were finally over the anthropophagy 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
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 Arturo.
ED LARSON
Imagine someone sending it back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Being like ugh, not for me.
ED LARSON
Now when they ate it raw, did they chew it or they just swallow it you think?
MARCUS PARKS
They usually just swallowed it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Although sometimes, once the chunks got bigger... At the very beginning like when they just cut off the raw strips, they'd just swallow it. But remember the last time, the expedition that we talked about?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The first expedition out, the first serious expedition out, when one of the guys, his teeth started getting loose from the frostbite, one of the other guys remember had to chew the human flesh and baby bird it for him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not good.
MARCUS PARKS
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 in just their first night out in the elements. But Nando Parrado, 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck you, mountain!
MARCUS PARKS
Actually there is a 'fuck you, mountain' point and it's incredible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Nando is-
ED LARSON
I like him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's probably one of my favorite heroes in any story we've covered at Last Podcast on the Left.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep.
ED LARSON
Because he starts by fucking cracking his head open.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
ED LARSON
That's how this whole thing starts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He started dead.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now he's the most alive.
ED LARSON
It's a true hero story.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's alive!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes it takes a Nando.
MARCUS PARKS
Or at least that's what Nando thought. But from what Roberto Canessa theorizes, Nando was 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He would never though. He would not have, he would starve to death.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he would starve to death but everyone else... But he would not deny everyone else life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly I'm with Nando. I'm walking off this fucking mountain.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm getting off the mountain.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't care if I die out there but I'm dying lower on the mountain than we are dying here.
MARCUS PARKS
True. But you also gotta do it smartly and that's where Roberto came in.
ED LARSON
And you gotta go up to go down.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm going sideways. I'm going up, out, down.
ED LARSON
I don't know if you know how mountains works.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm looking at the sun, I'm going away from the mountain.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Nando began running through a potential list of partners and settled on Roberto Canessa because Roberto was one of the most intelligent and resourceful people on the mountain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he was like sarcastic.
MARCUS PARKS
He was sarcastic, he was a little bit gruff.
ED LARSON
But you need that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he was more of the asshole of the group.
MARCUS PARKS
He was kind of the taskmaster.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
and so Nando and Roberto began planning. And the final group for a rescue expedition which included Adolfo Strauch and another guy named Numa was decided upon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like the dance.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. What dance?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Numa Numa dance.
ED LARSON
Could you please show us?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, you don't remember the Numa Numa dance?
MARCUS PARKS
Are we gonna stop for the Numa Numa dance?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think we fucking have to, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
He knows the Numa Numa dance.
ED LARSON
Do I? Is it like similar to the Macarena?
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Numa na-ha, numa na-hey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Here we go, one second. (audio of Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone plays) And he's like we cannot die on this mountain!
ED LARSON
We must go back to Hawaii.
MARCUS PARKS
Spirits were actually relatively high.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See?
MARCUS PARKS
Partly because they finally had a semblance of a plan and partly because no one had died in about a week.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, see this triangle here? That's the mountain. We're near the top of the triangle. Our goal is off the triangle. You guys got it? Yep, that easy. Name's Nando. Don't fucking forget it!
ED LARSON
Don't eat my sister! No one even look at my-
MARCUS PARKS
Well in fact, Roberto was so jazzed 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Most of them.
MARCUS PARKS
For the rest though, rescue would never come, as mother nature was not quite through with the survivors of the Fairchild.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No mother is.
ED LARSON
That bitch.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's incredible. Yeah, he looks like he does the weather out of Caracas.
MARCUS PARKS
So they switched spots, switched sleeping spots, hoping it would help. But while it worked for Diego, Roy was still awake that night. Likewise, Adolfo Strauch and Coche Inciarte were awake as well, chatting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) You think that we would ruin the vibe of the whole group if we started kissing? Come, Coche. Teach me how to love again.
ED LARSON
Do you think they did that and kept it secret but talked about eating people and kept that a secret?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. We can talk about the anthropophagy as much as we want but none of the kissing and hugging.
MARCUS PARKS
Well there was a lot of hugging.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, of course.
ED LARSON
A lot of hugging.
MARCUS PARKS
They had to in order to survive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All men trapped in a fuselage don't immediately turn gay.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just the gay ones.
ED LARSON
But this is months.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, who knows? Actually I don't think they kissed.
ED LARSON
I don't think they did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think they kissed, that was a dramatization.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. But even though all three were awake, none of them heard the coming of the avalanche until the very last second.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now avalanches, I read into this as well. It's very frightening as well.
MARCUS PARKS
One of the most frightening and powerful forces of nature in existence.
ED LARSON
Completely unstoppable.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It'll rip your arm off. Sounds like a stampede of horses is what they said, the beginnings of it just as it comes down. And you know it's just not a good sound. You're already in an abandoned fuselage of a plane.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, any noise is bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not good.
MARCUS PARKS
Except for the noise of a plane.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the good sound.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now Roy did hear the sound of metal falling to the ground and when he felt a faint vibration, he leapt 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just think about that fucking shit, about a little inconsequential movement.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is what saved everyone.
MARCUS PARKS
Some dude going woop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah!
MARCUS PARKS
As Roberto Canessa put it, the snow instantly became thick as cement once it enveloped him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god, this is fucking sketchy. I hate this shit, man.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
See once the snow from an avalanche settles, the weight is such that the victim is unable to move even their fingers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now you're just floating in air essentially. You're stuck in a 3D/4D space of snow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you're just like welp.
ED LARSON
It's carbonite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now at first the warm breath around your mouth causes the snow to melt, which creates a temporary air pocket.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Quickly though that melted snow freezes again and forms a capsule of ice around the buried victim's head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not cool.
MARCUS PARKS
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 asphyxiates and dies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very scary.
MARCUS PARKS
Roy Harley however... Roy got kind of a bad rap in the book and in the movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they had to make a villain from the inside, right, for the films, they had to do something.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he wasn't necessarily the villain in the films. He was just 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 'Alive', when he was giving those first interviews.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think he was hangry at the time.
MARCUS PARKS
He was like I treated Roy unfairly, Roy actually... Roy did act very bravely at moments. It's just that Roy was fucking 18.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And he lost his shit eventually, he just emotionally, physically, mentally-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was traumatized.
MARCUS PARKS
He was traumatized.
ED LARSON
I'm sure he was super annoying but who wouldn't be?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was basically a child.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because this is disaster like number five.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. As far as Nando Parrado 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. 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 and anguish that was starting to settle in. Carlitos Páez 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And everybody shits on the funny guy until you find his corpse.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you 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.
ED LARSON
He should have known it was coming because Koko B. Ware.
MARCUS PARKS
Coco beware?
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, beware the avalanche.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who's Koko B. Ware?
MARCUS PARKS
But why is Coco beware?
ED LARSON
You never heard of Koko B. Ware?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, who's that?
ED LARSON
Isn't he a wrestler?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're talking to the wrong crowd here, friend.
ED LARSON
Oh, I thought there was like a wrestler from the 80s.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually yeah, Koko B. Ware. He had a parrot.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A perfect joke.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I bet you because also you can literally, your body could be torn apart by an avalanche.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like you could just be dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just from the sheer force of it.
ED LARSON
It's so powerful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like jumping from a very large height and hitting a fucking body of water.
ED LARSON
You could be a mile away and get killed by an avalanche.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Two others however got trapped under 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 Parrado 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
If they would have dug 1 ft to the left, they would have found another person, 1 ft to the right, they would have found another. That's all it was.
ED LARSON
And if they would have dug up one of the other ones, they all would have died because Nando fucking saved everyone's life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exactly. But if you also think about being those guys floating next to Nando, definitely hearing him get to survive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like they're literally saving him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now you're like I'm next and then it doesn't happen.
MARCUS PARKS
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 Platero.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, inside out man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because Enrique was the guy whose guts had been pulled out of his body on the first day.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
His stomach wound had even healed, like he had tucked it back in, his stomach wound was healed, he was doing fine. He died in the avalanche.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jeez. God! You think your fucking guts being exposed doesn't kill you and then you get killed by the mountain itself.
ED LARSON
And all these fucking guys believed in god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unfortunately.
MARCUS PARKS
No, there were a couple who didn't.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, there were a couple, they were like I don't buy into that shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, there was a couple of Camus in the group just going ah yes, another example of the purposelessness of life. And they're like shut up. Where's Coco? I liked Coco when he was doing Reagan.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where's Coco?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And Nando also wasn't religious. Because when everyone else was like oh thank god that we got off this mountain, Nando was like don't thank god, thank Nando.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank Nando. What would Nando do?
MARCUS PARKS
Now eight died that night in the avalanche. The last woman to survive, she died in the avalanche. Her husband did survive.
ED LARSON
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
The survivors now counted 19, down 32 from the day they crashed three weeks earlier. And there were still seven weeks to go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Seven weeks.
ED LARSON
But they don't know that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We do though.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now 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 four. 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.
ED LARSON
Their skin must have been like tearing off of their fucking bodies, man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
It was bad. It was real bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is where the cuddling really comes into play.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. As Nando put it, the packed snow created a thick muffled silence, like one would expect they were trapped in a submarine on the ocean floor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The soundless is something that comes up a lot with avalanches. They talk about how the snow is a natural sound deafener or whatever that term is.
MARCUS PARKS
Sound killer!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sound killer! It's extremely eerily quiet.
MARCUS PARKS
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 an 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
MARCUS PARKS
Soon the survivors began coughing because the avalanche had cut off all the fresh air and everyone inside was slowly suffocating.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) You hear those sleigh bells jingling, rin tingle tingling too. This is where Santa could help.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Thinking fast-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he does nothing.
ED LARSON
Even the coal would have helped.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, these guys owe Nando like a Starbucks gift card or something.
ED LARSON
At least.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every year. Every year they should all show up and just give him just something.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean everyone did their part. That's the thing is that everybody definitely did their part.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We talk about that's the real difference, that's again why they survived.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's group think and people working together.
MARCUS PARKS
Now after digging their way through the cockpit, the survivor 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-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Multiple days.
MARCUS PARKS
They celebrated Numa Turcatti's 25th birthday by making a cake from snow, using a lit cigarette as a candle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(whispering) (singing) Ma-ia-hii, ma-ia-huu, ma-ia-hoo, ma-ia-haa.
ED LARSON
The saddest feliz cumpleaños of all time.
MARCUS PARKS
It really is. 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's the strength again of being 21 years old.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just being like we're gonna plan now, we're gonna get into this, we're gonna plan and move forward.
MARCUS PARKS
Now one survivor named Pedro Algorta 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always believe a taxi driver.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the thing. While it may seem insane to bet your entire life and 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Believe me, I met an Uber 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 is he got access to these time traveling goggles. And they told him what was gonna happen in the future.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
ED LARSON
And you can't have a normal job, sir?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was just like nope, I'm my own boss.
ED LARSON
How many taxi cab drivers like claim to be the guy who gave this tip to...
MARCUS PARKS
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everyone. I was the one that told them.
MARCUS PARKS
Every taxi driver in Santiago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. It was I.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's actually kind of a joke down there. Like if you don't know something, ask a taxi driver.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Because they're either gonna know the answer or they're at the very least gonna give you a strong opinion that might point you 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.
ED LARSON
So he was right.
MARCUS PARKS
He was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was.
MARCUS PARKS
He was 100% right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's amazing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was right about this thing.
MARCUS PARKS
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 as far as they knew.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The key is, honestly, no one's saying you gotta go down.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well I mean down is understood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Down is where you gotta go.
MARCUS PARKS
But down-
ED LARSON
So you're saying south.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I always have that problem. I'm not good with directions, okay? I have Google Maps.
MARCUS PARKS
This is why you would be bad because down was east.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd be dead.
ED LARSON
Yeah, you're Coco.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm Coco. All right? I'm obviously Coco. Me with a smile on my face in a jester's position, frozen in the snow.
ED LARSON
I call his lips.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I call his lips! Those were the most entertaining parts of him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Down was east and 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
If it ever took them back west.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No because they're still-
ED LARSON
Speaking of which, I have rations for you guys.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wait, oh good. They're warm and hot.
ED LARSON
Andes Mints.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow!
ED LARSON
I have two left.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you, this is great. I love that they're nice and soft from being next to your bosom for hours.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh wow.
ED LARSON
They were frozen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They are legitimately soft from the heat of your chest.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah. Those are my last two, I hope you enjoy.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll make sure I just cut-
ED LARSON
Just a little piece.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just make sure we're through.
MARCUS PARKS
Well 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 Páez's 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 into the dead bodies piled at the back of the plane with a piece of glass. The muffled silence of 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? I hate to say this but Coco tastes a little funny. I should have left the jokes to Coco.
MARCUS PARKS
I miss him already.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I miss him already. Who will be our Jay Leno? Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?
MARCUS PARKS
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 made the entrance to the fuselage look like an ogre's lair. It was scattered with bones, appendages, human waste, chunks of human fat. It was horrifying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck yeah, dude. I mean it's bad but it's cool.
MARCUS PARKS
It's bad but yeah. I mean I said ogre's lair, I knew you were gonna love it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I play Baldur's Gate 3.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. You're enjoying it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Gave myself the huge cock.
ED LARSON
You can choose how big your cock is in this game?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come over, I'll show you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah you can, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come over to the house, I'll show you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I played as a woman, I gave her an innie.
ED LARSON
Oh, an innie cock?
MARCUS PARKS
No, innie vagina.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because they got-
ED LARSON
They have lips out vaginas?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They got lips out, yeah.
ED LARSON
You guys have fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can make your own woman.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I'm gonna stick with my wife.
MARCUS PARKS
Now 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is what I do when I watch Great British Bake Off when I have nothing but cereal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like wouldn't it be nice if we had Napoleons?
MARCUS PARKS
If we had a Swiss cake roll?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I think it would.
MARCUS PARKS
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. Then that of course did not work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It sounds like something like Mickey Rourke.
MARCUS PARKS
I wake up every morning and I have my cup of cigarette tea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(gagging)
ED LARSON
You know what I hate about tea is you can't smoke it.
MARCUS PARKS
In another desperate hail Mary for variety, some of them would eat toothpaste, which they saw as a minty treat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Almost a dessert. You having your Andes chocolates. But toothpaste has milk of magnesia, so most of the people who ate toothpaste would get diarrhea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But honestly sounds like that wasn't bad. They kind of needed the movement.
MARCUS PARKS
Well speaking of bowel movements, since everyone's diet was raw meat, fat, and melted snow, constipation was a massive issue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a big part of their lives now.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because once you get down to the most simple terms of life, if you can't shit, it's very bad for you.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And if you tear your asshole up there, you're fucked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
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 digging stick that they used to try and loosen up the works.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which I have heard does work. Digital manipulation is the term.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, I remember seeing that episode where Bobby Brown talked about doing that to Whitney Houston.
ED LARSON
That's how he got his last name.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
But since these were all young men, they of course made bets on who would shit last. The final three were Carlitos Páez who went 28 days, Poncho Delgado who went 32, and finally Bobby François who went an eye watering 34 days without a bowel movement.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good lord.
ED LARSON
What did he win?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I think he won more time on the mountain.
MARCUS PARKS
Interestingly, Bobby François was often described as the calmest person on the mountain during the entire ordeal, despite his intense constipation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because guess what? I can't give a shit literally or figuratively.
ED LARSON
Now the but digging stick.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Did they use it on themselves or would you be like hey, would you mind?
MARCUS PARKS
They didn't get that granular.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But I would imagine they'd use it on themselves.
ED LARSON
They'd probably need some help.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You might. I think you did it yourself.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think a bunch of dudes are being like let me do it, I'll do it myself.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I'll do it myself.
ED LARSON
I can't believe they chose not to light it on fire at some point.
MARCUS PARKS
Light the butt stick on fire?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Why?
ED LARSON
Because it's wood, you need-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not like you're cleaning resin out of a bowl.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, no. He's saying that they would rather light it on fire rather than use it as the butt digging stick.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But I would argue that the butt-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They have plenty of sticks.
MARCUS PARKS
The butt digging stick was... No, they didn't have plenty of sticks.
ED LARSON
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Because there's fucking nothing up there. It's just fucking barren wasteland.
ED LARSON
Yeah, they were lighting Coca-Cola boxes on fire.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But that's the thing is that you can either be warm for 30 seconds or you can have a butt digging stick for life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. That's an important lesson.
ED LARSON
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Teach a man to-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For you zoomers, you zoomers that are listening, that's an important lesson.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But if they weren't constipated, they were shitting their brains out which was a far larger problem for the group as a whole.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, diarrhea is much more dangerous.
MARCUS PARKS
At one point Roberto Canessa, who could at times be a difficult man, he didn't want to go out for a bit of the old splatter works. So he squatted on a blanket in the fuselage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm shitting inside! I've done enough today! I could see this meltdown clear as day.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I could see me doing it, being like you planned the fucking expedition! I've been doing this all day! I'm shitting inside, my asshole is cold.
ED LARSON
Yeah, someone just wrestle him. Because you wrestle him, you're getting covered in shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now you're getting shit everywhere.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this greatly angered everyone inside the fuselage. And matters were made worse later that day when someone absentmindedly picked up the blanket to block some wind and the runny feces flew in their faces as the blanket flapped.
ED LARSON
I forgot he shit on the drapes!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man. You're just jealous of the fact that it's coming out of me.
MARCUS PARKS
But bow 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 fashioned to keep their feet warm.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God help me.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think they wanted-
ED LARSON
So how did you find out about them?
MARCUS PARKS
It was in 'Alive'.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But somebody else probably talked about it.
ED LARSON
At some point, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because the guy that wrote 'Alive' interviewed like a lot of the survivors, while Roberto Canessa and Nando Parrado wrote their own books.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Definitely the issue is you don't want to... They were already hesitant about eating human flesh. The idea of then using their friends, their former friends as apparel also-
ED LARSON
It's just an elbow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but I feel that it was a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to think that fucking your guy's elbows are on your feet.
ED LARSON
It is the right part of the body.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
His elbows are my socks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a lot.
ED LARSON
I think it's fine. It's a stretchy part, elbows. You pinch them, you don't feel it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no judgment.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know if that cab driver was right about this, I guess I shouldn't be putting that pussy up on a pedestal. Thanks cab driver, for all your wonderful, wonderful terms.
MARCUS PARKS
Some of the survivors were even forming friendships like Coche Inciarte, Inciarte, like Coche... This one's a hard one. Coche... Because it's hard, I know it's a Spanish name but it's hard to not say it Italian. (Italian accent) Coche Inciarte.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Inciarte.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And Carlos Páez. Coche 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 until they were on the mountain for three days.
ED LARSON
Three days?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Three days, finally it was just like you know what? I'm Ed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Kind of crazy meeting like this, name's Ed, it rhymes with sled. That's how you remember it.
MARCUS PARKS
Remember, there's almost 30 people after the first night, you're wandering around, everyone's sort of like grouping up with their people, you're in shock still.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And then finally you're like hey, what's your name?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And then you introduce yourself.
ED LARSON
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Name's Shammy Dingles. Yeah, I'm a roving tambourine comedian and preacher. (jangling) I have our first body.
MARCUS PARKS
Coche however had been one of the guys who was reticent to 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. Coche's 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 Coche could come with him. After returning to civilization, Carlitos and Coche remained the best of friends until Coche died last July at the age of 75.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. Was it another avalanche?
MARCUS PARKS
No, he died of being 75.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good for him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Great. Because guess where I would never be going again. Anything, I wouldn't even go to a hill.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wouldn't go to a tall flight of stairs.
ED LARSON
I would like to think I'd get right back on a plane just to fucking beat that fear out of me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I'd like to think so too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're braver than me.
ED LARSON
I don't know but I'd say I like to think. Who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But concerning their activities on the mountain, while boredom was definitely an issue as well as the mounting and ever present sense of dread, 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's like you're gonna do the water like not only because we need water but we need you to not just sit there and think about how fucked you are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, just do something, do something to push us forward.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when it came to the expedition, it was decided that it would be Nando, Roberto, Antonio Vizintin, AKA Tintin-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool name.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And Adolfo Strauch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Yes. Ja! I should definitely be bored.
ED LARSON
(German accent) I go for the strolls with you.
MARCUS PARKS
But just as they added Tintin to the group, Adolfo was struck with a case of hemorrhoids so severe that he bled down his legs and couldn't walk without being in utter agony.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Oh, my hate berries have burst! Oh no, my fucking eggs haven't taken their form!
ED LARSON
(German accent) The bratwurst are coming out to feed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(German accent) Oh, I'm making jam again!
MARCUS PARKS
And so Adolfo was replaced with Numa Turcatti.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
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 bruise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My calf!
MARCUS PARKS
Hey man, that shit was serious.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Actually apparently Numa was very fucking bad.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just want to dance my way across the world.
MARCUS PARKS
Not gonna happen. Because of his squeamishness, he would die an agonizing death almost a month later, just 11 days before rescue.
ED LARSON
Numa died?
MARCUS PARKS
Numa died.
ED LARSON
Aw.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(whispering) Have them remember me by my song.
MARCUS PARKS
Now within an hour of their first serious expedition to get help, a blizzard drove them back to the fuselage, the worst they'd had in weeks. Their timing was actually lucky that day because if they'd left a few hours earlier, all three would have died. But when they set out again on November 17th, on a calm clear day, they found the remains of the airplane's 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I bet.
MARCUS PARKS
Something that didn't have blood and shit and sweat and human grease all over it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Because that's the thing is 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 the Black Plague series about the idea of like when you burn stuff like that, and they used to use pure animal fat candles, like one of the hardest parts of being inside of a medieval home was the layer of fat and grease. It would sort of cake the top of your home.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From burning the candle.
MARCUS PARKS
Which was also extraordinarily flammable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Fuck yeah. Rock and roll. Now these guys, they all got dibs, right?
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, they got dibs. They definitely got dibs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they got dibs.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they were like we did this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they ate the empanadas. The sandwiches were a little moldy but they just took a little mold off the sandwiches. They definitely got dips.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The next morning, Nando took photos of Roberto and Tintin, hoping that if they didn't survive, maybe someone would at least find proof someday that they had survived the crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This at least will make someone feel guilty.
MARCUS PARKS
And actually that camera was used to take a ton, they took a ton of photos on the mountain.
ED LARSON
I've seen them, they're fucking haunting.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they're absolutely... Because sometimes you'd see them like smiling.
ED LARSON
Yeah, they're all having a good time.
MARCUS PARKS
They're all smiling but then you'll see like off in the corner like a fucking human spinal column like just sitting there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude. But I think again there's about saving humanity.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And this is a part of what helps save some of their humanity is taking pictures, taking these little human moments.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. After the photoshoot, the three expeditions 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 were 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, futzing 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 to go west.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. There's one shot to do this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because if they don't make it, everybody's fucking dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep. And failure meant the deaths of everyone. Additionally, Roberto was aware that the meat was gonna 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-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they did a lot of work.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I read her translated work that she did, it was all great, it's so great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And she helped so much to like pick out the human moments, read the Spanish versions of Roberto and Nando's book to like give us like this context.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some color, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So we would have some color. But the way she put it, Roberto Canessa was the brain while Nando Parrado 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 Carolina's incredible research skills.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good plug.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you. It's my favorite series that we've ever done.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
If you're gonna 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the name of the new Netflix movie. That's why they call it The Society Of The Snow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Basically if anyone had any experience in anything back in civilization, they were now the best in the world at that particular thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Got to be, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're my guy now, you're the fucking guy. We had two med students who are our doctors.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. For example, Roberto and Gustavo. Before they were first and second year med students, now we're doctors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're doctors.
MARCUS PARKS
Like we're fucking doctors, that's it. Canessa had also gone camping a couple of times with his girlfriend. So he's the survival expert.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I know everything about how to make sure she doesn't get too hungry and you get into a fight.
ED LARSON
Fuck, that would have made me the cook.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you would have been the cook.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you would have been the cook.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, buddy.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely. You would have been the butcher. You absolutely would have been the butcher.
ED LARSON
Wow. That's kinda fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Like the expeditioners, the people who would go out, they were essentially like the warrior class.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I'm the bard. (singing) Up on this mountain so very, very high. We all will wish our families goodbye!
MARCUS PARKS
And while you are the bard, I shall be the chronicler.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah! You get the quill.
MARCUS PARKS
I shall chronicle our story from beginning to end.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you guys are useless. So you guys are not helping anything.
ED LARSON
I used to work at Borders.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hello! I worked at Borders, a literary shop.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh wait until you see the royalties from the film adaptation, sir.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And then we shall talk about who is useless. I'm playing the long game.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was in a little film done by the College Humor people where I made out with Glenn Howerton from Always Sunny. So I am the romance investigator and I make sure people are in love.
ED LARSON
All right, hold this foot while I cut through this tendon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, cut it! Yeah, I'm hungry!
MARCUS PARKS
And since Roy Harley was a first year engineering student and he'd once helped set up his cousin's stereo-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
He was now the engineer. And remember Roy was fucking 18. The return of the expeditioners however was a crushing blow to those back at the fuselage. They'd hoped that the expedition would have reached civilization by that point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS
Because remember from what everyone thought, like we're on the western foothills of the Andes, you're gonna climb up a mountain and you're gonna see fucking green valleys on the other side.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's gonna be right there. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's gonna be right there. And to make matters worse, Rafael Echavarren, who said every morning that the mountain would not take him, he was taken by the mountain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
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, they in essence 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 lungs.
ED LARSON
Eyes?
MARCUS PARKS
The eyes, anything in the head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And brains are bad too. You shouldn't be eating the brains.
MARCUS PARKS
You shouldn't be eating brains.
ED LARSON
Sweetbreads?
MARCUS PARKS
They used the brains as-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't have sweetbreads. Oh it's the what's his putz, what is the gland? The sweetbreads are the...
MARCUS PARKS
Is this really vital information to stop the show so you can google it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, it looks good.
ED LARSON
It's gotta be lymph nodes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pancreas.
ED LARSON
Pancreas. You were looking at your armpit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love sweetbreads.
MARCUS PARKS
I know you love sweetbreads. But they used the brains to make a stew sauce. For bowls, some used plates made from aluminum foil, others just used the top halves of the skull.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jesus Christ.
MARCUS PARKS
And bones were used as spoons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
MARCUS PARKS
Eventually they-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Gein ware.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Whatever works, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Gein ware, now for sale at Macy's. Eventually they even got to the point where they were cracking bones for the marrow contained within. But even through it all, everyone 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It seemed to be complicated, I imagine it would be complicated.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
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 there's static and they're like move to the left. Your other left!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, FOX viewing positions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's like they were an aerial on an old TV.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We used to have to do that. I remember finding the antenna. I remember my dad fucking around with the thing on the roof.
MARCUS PARKS
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 survivors' 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 100 yards away. In his rage, Roy stomped the radio to pieces and they returned to the fuselage in yet another horrible blizzard which nearly killed them all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God. And that's where the 18 year old thing also kicks in where you don't stomp the fucking radio to pieces when you got one.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they still had the transistor radio back at the plane.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Which Roy had set up too. Like Roy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, he did figure that out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he figured that out. So they still had it back at the thing. So this radio was basically like, I mean it was a backup but what else are you gonna do besides just listen to music sometimes?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I get so mad when I try to do like anything technical.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why I don't do it.
ED LARSON
So it get it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I break shit all the time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
You know his probably fingers are bleeding, all burnt up and shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, he's frozen.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, no. The fucking electrical pops have been happening in his face all fucking day long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
MARCUS PARKS
And Roberto's sitting there like yelling at Roy because Roy's like getting discouraged. And he's like fuck, because it's five days.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's like get your fucking shit together!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also an electronic device surrounded by water.
ED LARSON
Also day three, maybe someone else should take a look at it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe someone else should look at this, right? But then you get mad, being like no, no, no, I'm the engineer.
ED LARSON
I just couldn't sit there for five days without being like all right, lemme take a look.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well this is the problem again, this is why we aren't there.
MARCUS PARKS
Now after being away from the fuselage 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 fuselage for easy access, strips of fat were drying on the roof. And for the first time, Nando saw human skulls in the bone pile, picked clean.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guys, honestly it's getting kind of dark in here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's getting a little dark.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right? I think that we all should watch Jimmy Fallon tonight.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right. We can listen to the transistor radio and like we should smile.
ED LARSON
Why don't we grab two bones, we'll click clack on the side of them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now we're going, all right. Now bang those skulls together. (beat boxing) It's incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Now they got Blue Man Group.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
ED LARSON
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Literally.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they're so cold.
MARCUS PARKS
And to make matters worse, two condors appeared in the sky above them. But while you may 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Goddamn birds.
MARCUS PARKS
These birds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These birds.
ED LARSON
Give them the bones.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you can give them the bones.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, then you're getting them used to you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh that's a good point.
MARCUS PARKS
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-
ED LARSON
Money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, look at all of this money!
MARCUS PARKS
Great!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Incredible!
MARCUS PARKS
50 bucks! Wow! A sewing kit.
ED LARSON
Oh.
MARCUS PARKS
There was a sewing kit inside. So Carlitos Páez, using skills his mother had 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.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
And he taught others how to sew to quicken the pace.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These guys should have worked in like a merch area. Like they really figured a lot of stuff at once.
MARCUS PARKS
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.
ED LARSON
The brains.
MARCUS PARKS
The brains, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Roberto is the brains.
ED LARSON
Yeah, Roberto's the brains.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's the brains.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's even if the days were getting warmer. It's like yeah, the days are getting warmer but we're in the Andes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He was also somewhat banking on a miracle from a second rescue expedition.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is where he knew how difficult it was gonna be, somewhere down inside of him he knew that getting off this mountain is gonna suck.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's gonna suck.
MARCUS PARKS
It's gonna be awful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nando was just so full of belief-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
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's like I don't think you understand how bad it's gonna be to die out there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like it's bad. This is bad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Out there is gonna be worse.
MARCUS PARKS
But Nando pushed back by saying that the warmer it was, the more likely infection was gonna take them all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
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 gonna be in any rush to do so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, because that's just sad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And so Nando drew a line in the sand, or in the snow as it were-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you, thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
And said that he was leaving on December 12th with or without Roberto. What finally got Roberto to say yes was when Numa died of his infection on the 11th. And so the next day, Nando age 23, Tintin age 19, and Roberto also age 19, ventured west to find salvation. And that is where we'll pick back up for our conclusion to Survival in the Andes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now if you wonder if there's enough, because in the movie Alive, they just cut to the end.
ED LARSON
It's really weird how they do that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They really do. 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 was just like oh yeah and then it's over. They get off the mountain. And you're like oh no, there is a full hobbit-like trip-
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
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.
MARCUS PARKS
Ooh, very nice.
ED LARSON
Can I ask a question real quick about Numa? He died of infection, does that mean they can't eat him?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I would not eat him. I wouldn't.
MARCUS PARKS
I would imagine you could eat around the infection.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, don't eat the calf but eat the bicep.
MARCUS PARKS
I could not answer your question for sure.
ED LARSON
What's our email?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com. Can you eat a body that has died of infection? I imagine that you cannot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I imagine...
MARCUS PARKS
I'd imagine it's a bad idea, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can again suck on it for the salt.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But a lot of people were dying from infection. So I think they did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They figured it out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Life finds a way. So speaking of that, buy Operation Sunshine #3, it's out there. Go to your local comic book store. Watch me in How To Ruin The Holidays on Amazon. You go there, go How
To Ruin The Holidays, I'm in it, support me, support independent film. In an era where independent film will become king once again.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Funnily enough, the How To Ruin The Holidays is watching the movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't you listen to him.
MARCUS PARKS
You've been keeping that in your back pocket.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't you listen to his review! He doesn't know. He's jealous! He's jealous of what I've done! He's jealous of me!
ED LARSON
If you wanna hear jokes like that, you can check me out January 4th at the Ontario Improv in Ontario, California with Jermaine Fowler. I'd love to see you there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I'm going to be at the GalaxyCon in Raleigh, North Carolina.
MARCUS PARKS
Cool. I'm gonna be here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Enjoying your life.
ED LARSON
Good for you, buddy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan.
ED LARSON
Hail Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
Aw.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, he's nice.
ED LARSON
I told you it was coming.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you. And hail Gein. Read the book if you want it explained to you.
ED LARSON
Oh nah, I'm fine. I'll watch Psycho again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI Hail me, motherfucker!