MARCUS PARKS
So guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
In 2023-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah?
MARCUS PARKS
We're going to do the Andes challenge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
We're going to eat nothing but raw meat and socks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay!
ED LARSON
That sounds wonderful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, honestly you sound... We're heading into Rogan territory. Because he definitely does the full carnivore diet.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which I think is a mistake.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because also I'm a person who's got really high triglycerides. So I feel like one of the main issues with eating nothing but human meat might be the fat content of your body. If you have some form of lipid malfunction, you can't absorb a lipid.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's gonna be bad out there when you're eating lipido.
MARCUS PARKS
In the Andes challenge you can eat whatever meat you want. It doesn't have to be human meat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's what I'm saying is that the carnivore challenge-
ED LARSON
But it's not a real Andes challenge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. Real Andes challenge is found human meat.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Or you fight a condor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a good Andes challenge. We can put out a bunch of dead meat and then fight birds for it.
MARCUS PARKS
Welcome to Last Podcast on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. I'm fighting a buzzard, my name's Marcus Parks, here with Henry Zebrowski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You fucking fight my buzzard.
MARCUS PARKS
And Ed Larson.
ED LARSON
I'm eating buzzard. Why don't they gang up on the condors?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he said they were weak and they were scared.
ED LARSON
I know they were weak but just to kill something for fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Condors are-
ED LARSON
They're huge.
MARCUS PARKS
Incredibly large.
ED LARSON
And so ugly.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
They really are.
MARCUS PARKS
All the carrion birds are ugly. Although I do find vultures to have an ugly beauty all in themselves.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Character.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My question is, this might be-
MARCUS PARKS
I like a face with character.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People don't like when we talk like this but I feel like birds are easy to kill.
MARCUS PARKS
Certain birds are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like the if bird's attacking you, I think it's easier to get at its fucking head and just kind of break its neck, right, like fucking smash it's head in.
ED LARSON
Its bones are hollow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But then they got the claws, that's the problem.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you're getting jacked up while you're going.
ED LARSON
And the beaks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you still win the fight.
MARCUS PARKS
Unless it's a cassowary. If it's a cassowary, you're fucking dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh you're fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
ED LARSON
Dude, I saw a bald eagle recently at Dollywood, that thing was fucking like half the size of a human.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very long.
MARCUS PARKS
But it's also a scavenger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah it is, isn't it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. It's a paltry bird.
MARCUS PARKS
And not as Benjamin Franklin wanted our national bird to be, a turkey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Stalwart.
ED LARSON
I mean much better bird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Huge tits.
ED LARSON
Yeah. The best tits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why he liked them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. So when we last left the 16 people stuck at the top of the world, Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and Antonio Vizintin AKA Tintin, had volunteered to take the more difficult route west to hopefully reach the green fields of Chile, where they hoped they would find human civilization. Loaded up with the makeshift sleeping bag Carlitos had made along with a rugby sock filled with enough human flesh for 10 days-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
The three expeditioners solemnly said goodbye to the 13 people they left behind, knowing they'd either see them again soon or they would all be dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a good way to do the Andes challenge is that you can only eat as much as you can fit into a sock.
MARCUS PARKS
Exactly. I brought up the socks.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You shove it through, that's all you eat all day.
MARCUS PARKS
And it's gotta be a rugby sock too, no fucking stockings.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No Christmas stockings.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
Rugby socks are long.
MARCUS PARKS
That's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true.
ED LARSON
They go up your calves.
MARCUS PARKS
That is true.
ED LARSON
Did they sew any skin onto the sleeping bag?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, no. It was just airplane insulation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lost opportunity.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
In a touching moment, Nando handed Carlitos a red baby shoe that Nando's mother had bought in Mendoza for her grandson. Nando told Carlitos that he would keep the other one and when they came back they would have a pair once more.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unless of course the baby is born with one leg.
ED LARSON
So Nando was a kid?
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's a sister, his sister's got a kid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
His sister's kid.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So he's got a nephew back home.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he's got a sister, a nephew, and his father.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Then just before walking away into the wild, Nando turned back to Carlitos and gave the group permission to eat the bodies of his mother and sister if they ran out of food. Carlitos agreed but only as a last resort.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you, Nando.
MARCUS PARKS
Now tragically there had been a hotel for rheumatoid patients like 18 miles east of the crash site this entire time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There was a hotel.
ED LARSON
A hotel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right down the mountain.
ED LARSON
Well they burnt all the cash so they weren't gonna be able to get a room anyway.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you imagine showing up being like you have a debit card?
MARCUS PARKS
We can't let you in unless we have a car to put on file.
ED LARSON
There's a danger outside though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, it's Christmas!
MARCUS PARKS
And this was of course the direction Roberto had wanted to go. But any trek east would have been stopped by a giant impassable river before they reached the hotel. So west was the way to go no matter what. They couldn't have reached the hotel, it was just a tragedy that there was a hotel 18 miles away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just wild.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how life works.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as we said in the first episode, the survivors were completely wrong as to where they believed they were in the Andes. They were at twice the elevation and they were much further east, near the middle of the mountain range. Put simply, even the most experienced mountaineers wouldn't have attempted what Roberto, Tintin, and Nando were about to do without an arsenal of supplies, months of training, and more equipment than they knew what to do with.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's the strength of being young, dumb, full of cum, and ready to go out there and do whatever it takes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yup.
ED LARSON
I thought we established they weren't full of cum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't know, no one talks about cum.
MARCUS PARKS
Results inconclusive.
ED LARSON
Inconclusive, okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But as for Tintin, Roberto, and Nando, they'd been near starvation for months, they had only the crudest of tools, and wildly inadequate clothing. Hell, Tintin and Roberto, they'd never even seen snow before the crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This just reminds me of when we started doing podcasting. We had no idea what the living fuck we were doing.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I had an idea, I'd been in broadcasting for like 10 years by that time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've heard that story for fucking a decade.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm just saying, get your story straight. I knew what I was doing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've heard this story a long fucking time, friend.
ED LARSON
I'm willing to say I knew nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Appreciate that. How do you think all of this happened? Because I already knew what to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because it was there!
ED LARSON
The only thing I've learned is to not breathe as heavy into the microphone.
MARCUS PARKS
I did have I have to tell you that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's still there.
ED LARSON
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah, I did. There are still plenty because we used to have to record everything on just one track.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So there was no way to cut out heavy, heavy breathing.
ED LARSON
And we were so hammered too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, so hammered.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You could hear the beer leave your breath.
ED LARSON
Also I was empty of cum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was.
MARCUS PARKS
But by some miracle, they made it through inch by inch. Ironically since they were so inexperienced, they often chose the hardest routes to climb. For example, Nando thought the shortest path was west, so he used a point where the sunset behind the ridges as a path. This of course led them up the mountain's steepest and most dangerous slope. If they were more experienced, they would have gone for the less challenging climb. Now had they been experienced climbers, they would have also used steel anchors driven into the rock and ice and crampons on their shoes would ensure a firm grip. As it was, they had nothing and they had rugby shoes that had been soaking in the snow for two months.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're insane. And then I got into that Ueli guy, I've been talking about this competitive free solo climber. These guys are fucking nuts. But he's the guy that would have done the most difficult route on purpose.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because again, I think he just wants to die. And these guys all still have like girlfriends and stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They show up and there's always some lady being like I know that one day he'll settle down. And be like no dude, he lives his whole life trying to be murdered by a fucking mountain. He's not gonna marry you!
MARCUS PARKS
Did you see Free Solo?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You're waiting for the day when they just don't come back.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's not gonna marry you, he's in love with the mountain!
ED LARSON
Yeah. And don't say down, okay? Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally if they were experienced climbers, they would have known that they should only climb 1000 ft a day to prevent altitude sickness. But Nando, ever the eager beaver, he climbed 2500 ft in five hours and suffered from incredible headaches and an inability to fill his lungs. He had altitude sickness bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like the bends.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Radiohead.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
So he left everyone behind?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He would just fucking go and he'd be like catch up to me when you can. Like I'm just gonna fucking go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This whole thing is kind of like a Radiohead album. It'd be cool. They should do that.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say that when we were driving through that snowy pass between Seattle and Spokane, I did listen to Kid A and it was perfect.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. This is very Kid A.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
They were high and wet instead of High & Dry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, very good.
MARCUS PARKS
I like it. But even after the 2500 ft, the summit was no closer than when they'd started because the sheer size of these mountains create optical illusions concerning how close landmarks are. You have no idea how far away something is because have no idea how big something is. But focusing on one rock at a time, Nando and the others kept moving. They rested shortly to eat and drink water at a level outcrop and looked to see that the fuselage was still well within sight.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
MARCUS PARKS
All of the other survivors were actually sitting down watching them from the airplane seats they'd set outside-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Like it was a movie in which their very lives hung in the balance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate this movie, it's really boring.
MARCUS PARKS
But again, they continued as twilight approached and no shelter was in sight. But just after a rock the size of a cannonball fell and almost killed Roberto, they found a shallow depression in the snow under a large boulder. They huddled into their sleeping bag and the temperature was so low that night that the water bottle they carried shattered from the cold.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think this is good news, man. But at least the water is still solid.
MARCUS PARKS
Continuing on the next morning, they reached an elevation of 15,000 ft and began climbing areas that experienced climbers would have considered killing zones. And this is all while the void below them grew larger. Remember they are climbing up a mountain.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To go over it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And like Denver, they call it the mile high city.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
That's hard, you need to drink water there to survive. 15,000 ft, what's that? That's like 5 miles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
I have no idea, probably.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
This fucking son of a bitch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yell at them.
MARCUS PARKS
But just as they were about to give up, Roberto looked into the distance and saw what he thought was a road. Now even though Nando was nearsighted, he figured it was a fault line. So the two argued for hours as to what to do next. Do we stick with the plan or would we go for the road? Eventually Nando won out. But it is worth saying that it was a road.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It was definitely a road. In fact it's the very road that people now take in order to hike up to the site of the crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's like now where tourists go to go look at where they all died and they go do it for fun.
MARCUS PARKS
But considering how everything did work out, there's no way of knowing how the road plan would have ended.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, man. I mean it wasn't looking good.
MARCUS PARKS
No. So after another night of freezing sleep, they continued their climb. And after hours of agonizing work, Nando made it to the summit of the mountain first where he fell to his knees and for the first time since the crash, cursed god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Damn you, god! That's kind of, I mean not in a good way but it does kind of feel good to scream damn you, god.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That is a lot of love for god to not curse him out early.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At least it's a bunch of neutrality for god.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what Roberto has, he had neutrality for god. He's like yeah, yeah, yeah, god's good. He was Catholic, it's fine. God ain't getting us out of here, guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
No.
MARCUS PARKS
I am. We are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We are.
ED LARSON
Fucking badass.
MARCUS PARKS
He now saw that they were nowhere near the western limits of the Andes. Judging from the mountain peaks he saw in every direction, he finally saw that they had crashed in the middle of a vast range of parallel mountain ranges. Imagine that moment. You're climbing to the top of the summit. You think once I get there, once I get to the summit, it's gonna be good. I'm gonna see Chile, I'm gonna see green fields, we're right on on the other side. And you climb up and you see nothing but more mountains, you see 20 more peaks just like the one you just climbed.
ED LARSON
And you're insane with sickness.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, you're just gone insane. You're yelling at god already. It's not good.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would have died again. This is the 10th time I would have died.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Nando then heard Tintin ask hey, could you see anything green?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See anything green over there?
ED LARSON
Shut the fuck up, Tintin!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just asking if maybe you saw some green.
ED LARSON
Fuck you!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No need to curse.
MARCUS PARKS
No. Nando just had to tell him, he was like just come see for yourself. Just come on. He couldn't even tell them.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But as Roberto and Tintin climbed to meet him, Nando pulled out his mother's lipstick which he'd brought along as a good luck charm.
ED LARSON
I'm so glad you said stick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, his mother's lips. And go like you can do it, Nando. You can do ti, I believe in you.
MARCUS PARKS
He also brought out a plastic bag and on the bag he wrote the name of his father, Seler, and named the peak for him, saying that even though this mountain was now his enemy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate you, mountain!
MARCUS PARKS
Nando would now give it to his father. And whatever happened afterwards, he at least had that small revenge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now you belong to my daddy. That's what you get.
MARCUS PARKS
Three hours later, Roberto finally caught up, looked out and said well-
ED LARSON
I name this Carol.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I now name this place, yeah, because she was the girl with the biggest tits I've ever seen. And there's nothing like a pile of tits that you'd call them, it's Carol.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually we're gonna get to that in just a second.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
ED LARSON
Dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he looked up and he said well, we're finished. Although he probably said something closer like bueno, estamos jodidas. Which means well, we're fucked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Hell yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But then Nando pointed to two smaller mountains without snow. And when Roberto saw them, he said you mean those tits?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What? Qué?
MARCUS PARKS
And Nando said yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Tits?
MARCUS PARKS
The tits.
ED LARSON
Chichis, they call them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, chichis.
ED LARSON
Chichis, yeah. I remember because when I worked in the kitchen, whenever I needed chicken breast, I would say pollo de chichi. And they would laugh and laugh and laugh. And it really worked for years, that joke.
MARCUS PARKS
That's great. But the point is that Nando believed that they should head towards the tits, down the mountain, and along a valley that formed a Y. But even though Roberto estimated that it was at least 50 miles, this is my favorite part of the whole fucking story, Nando told him that he would rather walk to meet death than wait for death to find him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my fucking boy!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And then Roberto answered with an equally fucking awesome line. He said okay, then let's go die together.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah! Yeah! Alive!
ED LARSON
Alive! Alive!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, man. It's fucking so sweet, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do the Aragorn fucking salute, dude. Fucking holding each other's forearms, man. It's fucking awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
And so the decision was made to make it for the Y. Now since they were finally aware of just how long of a distance was still left, they sent Tintin back to the fuselage so Nando and Roberto could split the rations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get the hell out of here, Tintin. We're walking to death.
ED LARSON
You're fucking annoying, all right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And yes, they do look like tits but I wish you hadn't said it.
MARCUS PARKS
And indeed on December 15th, the survivors back at the fuselage saw Tintin sledding down the mountain alone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wee!
MARCUS PARKS
But by the time he returned with nothing but bad news-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, sucks up there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Saw some tints though.
MARCUS PARKS
The only food left was a pair of putrid lungs that no one else would eat. But after Tintin took a bite and didn't get sick, everyone else joined in. But as it got warmer more bodies were uncovered, enough for at least another six weeks. And it was getting hot enough during the day when they could almost cook meat on top of the plane.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
That's how bad it was, like it was like oh shit, more bodies!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow! Yay!
ED LARSON
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
You can fucking put it on the plate and it kind of cooks a little bit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yum!
ED LARSON
Ass, ass, ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ass, ass, ass.
MARCUS PARKS
Ass, ass, ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guys? All right, let's eat some ass.
MARCUS PARKS
The tragedy though is that they were almost rescued before Roberto and Nando. But the aircraft that they heard flying in parallel lines saw everything but them, even after they laid out a pattern of bones to catch the rescue party's attention. The problem is that the bones are white too.
ED LARSON
Yeah, exactly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bones are white.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But there's also some flesh on the bones so they got a little bit of color in there.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but it's still not anything.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
You would have used the bones as the poo poo stick.
MARCUS PARKS
I think maybe the bones were the poopoo stick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think the bones might have been-
ED LARSON
The bones had to have been the poopoo stick.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, I bet the bones were the poopoo stick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. For certain because it's got a rounded edge.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Boner in the ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, there must have been a couple of those. They must have laughed.
MARCUS PARKS
They had to. They're a bunch of fucking 19 year old guys going you put a fucking boner up your butt?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bone in your fucking ass?
ED LARSON
You said that yesterday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am sick! I don't wanna be here anymore. Coco died weeks ago!
MARCUS PARKS
This plane was actually full of the fathers of survivors. They knew the risks of flying through the Andes but they decided to board the plane to look for their sons anyway, even if the chances of them still being alive were impossible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what a father's supposed to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
But you don't need to send all the fathers.
MARCUS PARKS
They all wanted to go.
ED LARSON
You send two.
MARCUS PARKS
They all wanted to go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They all wanna go.
ED LARSON
I would have stayed back.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I would have trusted some of the other fathers.
ED LARSON
I'd be like you know what? You got good eyes, you go.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually fucking Nando's father did stay back. He not only stayed back, he's like he's fucking dead. He sold Nando's motorcycle, he fucking sold all his clothes, like because he just wanted, he's like I want this fucking over. I want this over. I want to move on, fucking my wife and two of my children are dead. Like don't fucking prolong this. They crashed into a mountain!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I know but it was like less than two months. It was like two months.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But two months is a long time to be stuck in a mountain. No one thought that they were alive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I know but to sell a motorcycle and shit? You can keep it around for a year.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Anything that reminded him of Nando. Incredibly, Roberto Canessa said that sometimes he'd look up and actually see the plane and he'd wave at it. Now Roberto and Nando actually spent a lot of time looking up and taking in the fucking inarguable beauty of the Andes. In fact the night after Tintin left, Roberto and Nando were sipping rum and having a little toothpaste as a treat when they saw two shooting stars cross the Andes. In an incredible moment that illustrated just how dire their situation was, Nando turned to Canessa and said can you imagine how nice this would be if we weren't dead?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, it really is. You just sit there and being like ah, god. We should come back here next year.
MARCUS PARKS
But once they continued their journey, Roberto and Nando were discovering that climbing down the slope was just as if not more dangerous than climbing up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've never understood how the mountain guys get down.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do they always get lifted up by a helicopter and shit? Like when they go to-
MARCUS PARKS
No, you can't fly a helicopter up to the top of Everest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait, do you climb all the way back down?
ED LARSON
You have to climb down. But you put the thing in the mountain-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not easy.
ED LARSON
I know!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
When we did the mountain climb, down was fucked up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't even wanna talk, I don't even wanna remember-
ED LARSON
Up was easy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Up was hard.
ED LARSON
All of a sudden I'm on top of the fucking thing, I'm like okay, I'm up here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, down was much worse.
ED LARSON
Terrifying. Down is terrifying.
MARCUS PARKS
I always find down easier.
ED LARSON
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't know who.
ED LARSON
We could have used you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got a bigger butt.
MARCUS PARKS
I guess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true. Honestly the butt helps because that's the motion coming down.
MARCUS PARKS
I could have let you, yeah. Because I'm a pretty good climber.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I could have helped out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You would have been fine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But having no expertise, they relied on luck. But I would imagine that their dwindling strength made every movement a carefully calculated decision. Not only could this rock come loose and kill me but if I don't conserve my strength, I'm gonna die of exhaustion before I get anywhere close to safety.
ED LARSON
Do they have like walking sticks and stuff?
MARCUS PARKS
Nothing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
Damn.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nothing. Nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
The only thing they had was they had snow shoes that they had built out of like seat cushions.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And they might have had walking sticks. But that's the thing, a walking stick is not gonna help because you're walking on snow the whole fucking time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So a walking stick is just gonna go straight down. And also the problem with that is that you want the snow that you're walking on, it's actually better to walk in the morning, like in the predawn hours, than it is to walk in the afternoon because in the afternoon the ice on top of the snow melts and you fucking sink down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
MARCUS PARKS
So you don't want to fuck with the integrity of the ice you're walking on at all.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And not just that, I imagine the only poles they would have would be metal and your hands would just stick to them and fucking rip your fingers off.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That means you're looking to climb down from Everest, apparently it's like 92 people have died just climbing down.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Even so though, a small decision nearly resulted in Nando's death. Always the one to speed things along, Nando decided on the third day that he'd try to sled down a slope on top of one of the seat cushions they used for snowshoes. He immediately realized that this was a terrible idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you immediately become Clark Griswold.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Nando reached by his estimation speeds of up to 60 miles an hour within seconds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Literally he's using that cereal varnish.
ED LARSON
Just going down fucking-
MARCUS PARKS
Ice.
ED LARSON
Miles.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, just miles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he also knows that the faster we get down this fucking thing, the faster we're done with this thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But we also can die in the process but we might die anyway.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he saw a wall coming real fast ahead of him and he tried sticking his heels into the snow to slow himself down. But then he found that his body was thrown forward and he knew that if he tumbled forward, he'd break every bone in his body.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So he decided to hold on for dear life as he sailed towards a wall of snow that either could have been a little bit of snow and some fucking rock on the other end or a big pile of snow. One was life and rescue, the other was instant death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I can't be doing that, there ain't nothing between me and the ground and a piece of government plastic. That's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
ED LARSON
I fucking learned that shit the hard way myself because like all these fuckers, I didn't see snow til I was 18. So I was up in Boston because my parents moved up there after they left Florida. And I was so excited to see snow and there's this giant pile of snow outside their house. So like I ran, I ran, I ran, I threw my back into the snow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god, like a Rottweiler.
MARCUS PARKS
What was underneath?
ED LARSON
I don't know but I just bounced off. I think it was just ice because it's been there for so long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And I just like what I thought was I was gonna go in, I just bounced off it and fucking bruised my entire back on the first day of winter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Being like oh no! Winter's bad!
ED LARSON
So stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm so stupid!
MARCUS PARKS
Stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's not a swimming pool.
MARCUS PARKS
But after slamming into it, Nando discovered that it was snow. So he pulled himself up and waved to Roberto to signal that he was all right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm alive!
MARCUS PARKS
All the way he could hear Roberto above cursing him for being such a goddamn reckless, stupid, fucking idiot. What the fuck are you thinking?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man.
ED LARSON
But now he's got the day off and Roberto's gotta climb down the mountain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's gotta climb down the fucking mountain. I did it.
MARCUS PARKS
But from there, Nando and Roberto's journey, this is pretty much when they enter into Sam and Frodo territory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And if I say-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I cannot carry it but I can carry you.
MARCUS PARKS
If I were to say, Nando is definitely Sam.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Frodo's Roberto.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You actually think it's that way? You don't think Nando's Frodo?
MARCUS PARKS
No because Nando's got the spirit, he's got the heart. He's the one that says come on, we gotta keep going.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's the one in love.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then the other one's the one who's loved.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
ED LARSON
And he has the fat family back home.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. The fat family.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hot girlfriend though.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I always liked that little hobbit woman in that.
ED LARSON
No, she's cute.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I was like all right.
MARCUS PARKS
Rosie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Sam's my fucking boy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Now if he couldn't carry the ring, how could he carry Frodo?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he can't touch the ring but he can carry Frodo.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he can't touch the ring. He can't have the ring in his possession because if he's carrying Frodo-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It'll corrupt him.
MARCUS PARKS
The ring is technically still in Frodo's possession.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And Frodo also refuses to give him the ring.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the other big part about it. Because he'd have to knock Frodo out if he wanted to take the ring. But then who knows?
ED LARSON
Yeah. Sam could have done it on his own.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wouldn't have put on the ring. Everybody gives the fat best friend all these fucking problems. Meanwhile he wouldn't have been tempted. He would have just showed up at Mordor and threw it in the fucking lava flow.
MARCUS PARKS
No, there was a moment after Frodo was attacked by Shelob and the Orcs came and got him and took him up into the tower. Sam did have a small moment where he didn't give the ring back to Frodo but he did it and then they threw it into the pit and that's that, they went off across the shimmering seas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't need to describe Lord of the Rings anymore to everyone. They all know.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're about to get another reboot.
ED LARSON
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Thank god.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's not a reboot, it's a prequel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking suck my fucking cock and balls.
MARCUS PARKS
I can't wait. Well for days on end they traversed jagged, icy boulders that could have broken their ankles at any moment, fractured glaciers melting in the warmer weather, and sharp, loose rubble. You fall down, that shit could stab you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, you'd get ripped the fuck up. It's extremely bad.
MARCUS PARKS
And their shoes are falling apart. They've still got rugby shoes on and they're starting to flop, they can hear like the flip flop, flip flop. And if those shoes fail, they're fucking dead.
ED LARSON
Well they have cleats at least probably.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. But they're still falling off. They're still like the ice and the snow-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're not good for climbing slick rock.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Nando said that he often felt like a ghost, a spirit trapped between the world of the living and the dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck yeah, dude. It's fucking so fucking metal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know how he just didn't go off and just become like covered in pewter after this.
MARCUS PARKS
He used his shadow to prove that he was in fact real amidst a self hypnosis of rhythmic breathing, the steady crunch of his boots, and an almost constant litany of Hail Marys under his breath.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Damn.
MARCUS PARKS
But on December 18th, a week after they left the fuselage, Roberto and Nando heard the roar of rushing water and discovered that they had finally reached the Y that they'd seen from the summit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We have hit the tits.
MARCUS PARKS
Once they found a thick jet of ice water fed by melting snow spouting from an ice wall, they knew they'd found the birth of a river. And a river meant that they finally had something they could follow out of the mountains.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, like a trout.
ED LARSON
Imagine so much water. How much did they drink that day?
MARCUS PARKS
A fair amount but you can't drink too much ice water. But yeah, I mean they finally had fresh water all the time now, they didn't have to worry about it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then other bad things happened.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well they also saw vegetation for the first time and after they first spotted grass, they dropped to their knees and just started eating it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And it was the first thing they'd eaten besides human flesh since their night at the tail of the plane. After that came the first signs of civilization. Roberto spotted cows in the distance and a few hours later they found a rusted can. Nando being cautious, said that someone, maybe they threw that can out of a plane a few years ago. But Roberto said don't be a fucking idiot, people don't roll down their windows over the Andes to litter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They sometimes do. You can see some cigarettes up there, those guys love smoking.
MARCUS PARKS
Now not letting go of Nando's comment about the can, Roberto soon found a horseshoe and some cow patties.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See?
MARCUS PARKS
And he asked like hey, fucking Nando, you think the fucking cow shit came from the plane too?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't need your sarcasm right now! I slid down a mountain.
ED LARSON
They should eat the mushrooms underneath the cow shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Whoa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa, look at these. whoa, we finally got some stuff. Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS
Finally though they found a small herd of cows which told them that they were definitely near a spot inhabited by humans. Now they'd been in warm weather for a while now, so the sock meat was starting to turn.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
So in their desperation, Nando tried coming up with a plan to kill one of the cows by waiting until the cow was asleep. Then he'd sneak up on it and smash it with a rock.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, at this point I believe in anything Nando says.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like if he thinks he can do it, I'd be like go for it, bro.
MARCUS PARKS
But he's the heart. That's why Roberto's the brain. Because Roberto laughed and said that's not gonna fucking work, you idiot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they're gonna fucking snap at us.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
I also think we should start calling feet sock meat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From now on. Oh my sock meat's cold today.
MARCUS PARKS
Nando said hey, well maybe we can make some spears and we can take it down like a bunch of fucking cavemen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
Or we can sneak up behind it and cut its tendons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, hobble it.
ED LARSON
He's an idea man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's an idea man.
MARCUS PARKS
He's an idea man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You always need one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It used to be Coco, now he's dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And when that was also rejected, Nando was like fuck, can we just try to like milk it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What if we suck its dick?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Really big on dick sucking today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And it's a cow, you suck tits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's been a long... Maybe it's just been... It's a holiday season, it's been packed.
ED LARSON
You're udderly disgusting.
MARCUS PARKS
You're udderly delightful.
ED LARSON
Thank you. Moo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Moo. Moo to you.
MARCUS PARKS
Well either way, they figured it'd be a good idea to camp that night next to the cows just in case a rancher showed up. But when no one showed, they decided to continue their journey for day nine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They've been doing this for nine days.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Roberto damn near didn't make it at the very last minute. While climbing a large boulder the size of a two story house that they couldn't get around, Roberto was suddenly struck with a bad case of diarrhea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, just clinging onto a rock, just being like I got a case of the fucking dumps! Fuck!
MARCUS PARKS
But even though he was suffering incredible pain-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just being like let's shoot it over the rock!
MARCUS PARKS
And I'm also by the way, I'm light on the diarrhea in my reading her because there's a lot more diarrhea in this story than I actually told you guys about.
ED LARSON
Oh man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a diarrhea-centered story.
MARCUS PARKS
But he powered through and they continued their journey. Finally they found themselves in a meadow of thick grass with trees, wildflowers, a corral, even more cows. The problem though is that they'd also come to a river that they could not cross. But just as twilight fell and Nando decided to look for firewood back in the meadow, Roberto called up from the riverbank and said that he had seen a man on a horse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or a centaur!
ED LARSON
One or the other. By the way, I'm going cow surfing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm going cow surfing, so excuse me.
MARCUS PARKS
Nando sprinted back the best he could but saw nothing until he heard the sound of a human voice. Lo and behold, across the riverbank was a man. Their first sign of civilization.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Ma-ia-hii, ma-ia-huu...
MARCUS PARKS
This is for you, Numa. Nando started shouting and waving his arms but the river was too loud for him to be heard. But it was obvious that the man had seen them because just before the man turned his horse to disappear into the shadows, Nando heard one word: mañana.
ED LARSON
Tomorrow?!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How about right now?
ED LARSON
What do you mean tomorrow?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For the love of god, what are you busy doing? You gotta go where? We're in the middle of the fucking mountains! Holy shit!
ED LARSON
What do you really have to do?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I will eat you!
MARCUS PARKS
And in that moment they knew they were saved. The next morning on December 22nd, Roberto and Nando woke up to see three men sitting around a fire across the river.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you want to help them now? Mañana.
MARCUS PARKS
Nando again couldn't be heard but he was able to gesture to the sky, like point up to the sky and then make the motion of a plane crashing down with his hands and then like point to himself. Infuriatingly, the men just stared at him.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate mimes. I absolutely hate them.
ED LARSON
What is this charade?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate his frivolous, frivolous motions?
MARCUS PARKS
Everyone fucking made fun of Coco's games of charades. But that came in handy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It came in handy. It was a bird in the sky, I was on the bird! Listen to me! Where the fuck is Coco?
MARCUS PARKS
Finally though one of the guys on the other side took a piece of paper from his pocket, wrote a message, tied it to a rock, and threw it across the river. The message said that there was a man coming but tell me what you want in the meantime. And so after the farmer tossed across a pencil as well, Nando quickly wrote an abridged version of their story before finally asking when is someone coming to get us?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, come.
MARCUS PARKS
The problem now was having enough physical power to throw the rock back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh fucking god. Jesus Christ.
MARCUS PARKS
Had he not made it, who knows what might have happened?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because as far as these guys are concerned, there's just a couple of fucking crazy dudes across the river they know nothing about.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But as it was, Nando used the very last atom of his strength and got the rock across.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(moans)
MARCUS PARKS
Goddamn it. I wrote a fucking, I wrote that... I was so proud of like last atom of strength. Carolina was like hey, that's a really good line. And it's fucking (moans). Wasted. I'm wasted here! Well after reading the note, the farmer made the universal signal for I get it, wait. But before he left, he threw some bread across and Roberto and Nando had their first taste of fresh food in months. Before long, a man arrived on Nando and Roberto's side of the river, riding a mule. And he came bearing cheese.
ED LARSON
Hey, what are you guys doing?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What you guys into? You guys like football?
MARCUS PARKS
He did however tell them that they would have to wait until he tended to his sheep in the pasture above.
ED LARSON
Tomorrow?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good fucking lord. It's these rural people just being like buddy, we are in the some urgency!
MARCUS PARKS
If you are a rancher, if you have animals to take care of, it is a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year fucking job.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I understand. I understand.
MARCUS PARKS
You cannot take a day off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I understand.
MARCUS PARKS
It's there. It's always there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I understand. He's brought his mule cheese.
MARCUS PARKS
So they just had a few more hours to wait, that's it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Made from fresh mule milk. Oh I love a cheese that's like a brown.
MARCUS PARKS
But after the man on the mule returned, Roberto was helped up to share the ride. And within 30 minutes they arrived at a set of wooden huts and the first of the 16 survivors were officially rescued.
ED LARSON
Jeez.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
MARCUS PARKS
By the end of their journey from the fuselage to the river, Nando and Roberto had walked, hiked, and climbed 38 miles.
ED LARSON
It's fucking awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's fucking crazy. They left this all out of the movie.
MARCUS PARKS
But concerning the... Well they did a montage.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A montage.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It was a montage but they didn't even have like the river or the other guys that found them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
It was just like he walked a while, then he was in a helicopter.
MARCUS PARKS
Yup. But concerning the distance, it became obvious after Nando described their 10 day journey that the survivors could not be reached by horseback. Because the guys that had saved them were like fuck, let's go right now, let's go get them.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So word was sent to Santiago for helicopters, meaning that those at the fuselage would have to wait just one more day. Predictably though the press arrived before the helicopters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh great.
MARCUS PARKS
Shoving cameras and microphones into Nando and Roberto's faces to ask over and over again how they survived and more urgently, what did you eat?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, of course.
ED LARSON
Get away from me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck you. I ate a rock. I don't know. Where are my friends?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Roberto and Nando ignored that particular question for the time being. Like when someone asked them what did you survive on? Like they just stared at them. And then finally someone, it would be uncomfortable enough for someone else to ask a question. Pretty soon though, three helicopters arrived with rescue teams and medics who went straight to Roberto who badly needed medical attention due to his dysentery. Nando however ran to the pilots and told them that it was the utmost importance that they leave like now because he wasn't sure how much longer the people still on the mountain could survive. He also knew that the longer they waited, the more likely that the bodies of his mother and sister might be eaten.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god.
ED LARSON
Mañana.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mañana.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as far as finding them again-
ED LARSON
Mañana.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mañana.
ED LARSON
Sorry.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as far as finding them again, Nando very cleverly had looked back quite a bit during their journey, memorizing the mountain ranges and the paths they took. Therefore once he was shown a map, he was able to point to the very spot where the plane crashed. He's like they're right fucking there. They're like what? Are you fucking sure? He's like no, they're there. And the helicopter pilots are like you couldn't have done that on foot. Like I don't give a fuck what you say, you couldn't have done that on foot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking tell me about it, dude!
MARCUS PARKS
And also like they're flying again, it's a very dangerous place to fly in the Andes and this might be like a potentially deadly wild goose chase. But three hours later, Nando was strapped into the helicopter's jump seat, ready to direct the pilots to the exact spot where the Fairchild had crashed 72 days before. Speaking of the Fairchild though, spirits were quite low back at the fuselage. It had been nine days since Roberto and Nando left and six since Tintin had returned in defeat. But then they heard on their transistor radio broadcasting on stations all across South America that Nando and Roberto had been found and rescuers were on their way to find the rest of the survivors. And so the survivors at the fuselage broke out a stash of cigars they'd been saving and they talked about making themselves a little bit more presentable. The problem was that there were piles upon piles of human remains all around them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Which they had neither the time nor the energy to bury. But Eduardo Strauch said that they didn't need to be ashamed of what they had to do to survive. And besides, people were gonna figure it out pretty quickly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was gonna be a main part of the story pretty soon, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And so everyone tried to find their least dirty clothes, they cleaned their teeth with the last of the toothpaste, and they waited for the helicopters. Now while Nando and Roberto took nine days to reach the spot where the helicopters picked them up, it took only 20 minutes to reach the summit which Nando had renamed Mount Seler after his father.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And indeed the helicopter damn near didn't make it to the crash site and almost crashed itself in the high altitudes and dangerous winds.
ED LARSON
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was not supposed to be where... Can you imagine that, getting all the way there and then a helicopter crashes?
ED LARSON
If Nando would have crashed again in the end...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd be like I'm never leaving home ever again.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean you would have been dead.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
There's no way, you don't survive helicopter crashes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
At one point they had to veer off the path that Nando and Roberto had traversed because it was too high for the helicopters to handle. He's like if you fly over that mountain, then I can show you exactly where they are. And they're like that's too fucking high. They tried and the fucking helicopter started shaking. They're like no, fuck you, we're gonna have to find another way. And so when they found another way, fucking Nando lost his bearings, he's like fuck, I have no idea where we are now. But suddenly he caught a familiar ridge and knew that this was indeed their mountain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
Because imagine how much time they spent staring over those fucking months.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Months.
MARCUS PARKS
Months and months of staring. Before long, he looked down and spotted Gustavo wearing the pilot's hat he'd worn almost the entire time they'd been stranded. And he soon saw more waving with joy. And much to Nando's surprise and relief, everyone that they'd left behind 10 days earlier was still-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive!
MARCUS PARKS
And one of the guys who was even so excited to be rescued that he dove into the helicopter, slammed into a pile of skis, and yelled:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"Ow! I think I broke my ribs!" Fuck.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the flight back to civilization was indeed terrifying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But now that they knew the route, it only took 20 minutes each way. Once they arrived at the cabins and their green surroundings, the survivors rolled around on the grass and Carlitos Páez started eating flowers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He ate daisies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think you get sick from that though.
ED LARSON
I don't think that's that weird considering they've been eating people for months.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Nothing else is weird from now on.
MARCUS PARKS
But after noshing on some flowers, Carlitos reached out of his pocket and pulled out a little red shoe.
ED LARSON
Oh like a burrito. This whole time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god, I had this whole pack of granola bars.
MARCUS PARKS
Which was returned to Nando as the pair that they'd promised. Now once they were in the hospital, they admitted they'd survived on human flesh. In response the doctors insisted that no friends and family could visit for a while for reasons I don't fully understand.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They might chew on them.
MARCUS PARKS
They did however allow a priest. And while that might not seem useful, nothing did more to ease the consciences of the survivors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Listen, I'm your dudes, I'll fucking talk to god for y'all. Guess what? Fucking dissolve the shit, bro. Good work, dude. Fucking do what you gotta do, son.
MARCUS PARKS
The priest said that unbeknownst to the survivors, the Catholic Church actually had an official stance on the act of anthropophagy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This comes up a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
It was permissible in extreme situations. Therefore the priest had nothing to forgive because nobody had done anything wrong in the eyes of god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fucking in the book, dude. I'm fucking in that shit, man. Don't worry, friend, you got fucking, your shit is covered, bro.
MARCUS PARKS
That of course didn't stop the press from publishing sensationalist headlines around the world about cannibalism for weeks on end after the story broke the day after Christmas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes. It was irresistible for them to twist this incredible story of bravery into something salacious and horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
ED LARSON
Plus everyone, it's Christmas time, you love a good horrible story right after Christmas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my favorite. That's why we're doing this story.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But as almost every person who survived said, nobody knows how they would react and nobody knows what they would do until they themselves were on that mountain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
In fact many of the parents who had sons who were killed and eaten expressed their support for the survivors, even after rumors started circulating that the avalanche never happened and that the survivors had actually killed one another to survive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good lord. Which is like it's enough!
MARCUS PARKS
It's enough, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They've done enough!
MARCUS PARKS
Does it have to be worse?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Does it have to be worse?
ED LARSON
Also there's no law up there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
If anyone did kill each other up there, who gives a shit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's mountain time, dog.
MARCUS PARKS
I guess it would be Argentina.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What happens in the fuselage stays in the fuselage.
ED LARSON
Until it gets thrown outside to wait to get eaten by the people inside.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Then yes, then of course it is waiting to be consumed.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as far as their behavior after the crash went, many of the survivors would get irrationally angry at the slightest setback, they ate ravenously all the time, and they would oscillate between complete silence and talking compulsively about every detail of their ordeal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Utterly traumatized.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, of course.
MARCUS PARKS
But while most retreated to god and family, Nando Parrado became a playboy celebrity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he should, dog!
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come on, man!
ED LARSON
He's got the energy for it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He'd appear in society magazines with beautiful starlets.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my dude!
MARCUS PARKS
He'd go to nightclubs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
He judged a beauty contest.
ED LARSON
Fuck yeah. And he won!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
One time honestly I saw tits as well and it saved my life. So if you just show me your tits ma'am, maybe you too can be my mountain range.
MARCUS PARKS
But one night as Nando was about to enter a nightclub that he used to frequent with his friend Panchito who had died the first night on the mountain, he broke down and cried for the first time not only since he'd been rescued but for the first time since the crash.
ED LARSON
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, it's like Drake.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Like not even when his sister died, not when he found out his mother died, not when he found out they'd crashed, not when all the other people died, not when the rescued. Nothing.
ED LARSON
It's okay to cry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's hard, man. It's hard. He survived. You push a lot down, you pushed a lot down and then of course you're just sitting at the club, watching people dance back and forth, you got chains on, sunglasses inside. Of course sometimes a tear rolls down behind them reflective shades, man. And no one knows what the man at the table is crying about but he knows because he's a survivor.
ED LARSON
Man, I cried when I saw The Holdovers.
MARCUS PARKS
But after his playboy lifestyle calmed down a little, Nando became of all things a Formula 1 racecar driver.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My thing is shit's real boring for me all the time now.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's what he said is that people thought that he started doing Formula 1 because he wanted like adrenaline. He's like no, I did it because I liked it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like driving.
MARCUS PARKS
And like his dad was a racecar driver I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure.
MARCUS PARKS
It was like a family thing. He's like no, no, no. He's like don't read into it, I like driving cars fast.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's allowed. He's absolutely allowed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Finally though he settled down with his wife to help his father run the family hardware business, which Nando helped turn into the Home Depot of Uruguay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my fucking dude, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Currently he is alive and well at the age of 74 and still gives speeches about the crash.
ED LARSON
(applause) Nando!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(applause) Holy shit, Nando.
MARCUS PARKS
As far as Roberto went, he dove right back into medicine and has since become the foremost pediatric cardiologist in Uruguay.
ED LARSON
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
At one point he even created his own political party and ran for president, although he did lose by a large margin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody should spend one week on a mountain!
MARCUS PARKS
To this day though, Nando and Roberto consider themselves closer than brothers, men who share a bond that nobody else in the world can understand. As far as the crash site went, the people who died there are still buried there. And even some of the survivors make occasional pilgrimages through a route that's only passable during summers. After a grueling three day trip, they arrive at the glacier where a grave built just after their rescue by members of the Uruguayan and Chilean Air Force still stands. Underneath lay the bodies of Nando's sister and mother and everyone else who died on the mountain. And in an incredible coincidence, one week ago today the survivors met just as they do every year on December 22nd to commemorate the day they officially survived the Andes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Alive! Man, this story's fucking... It gets me juiced up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it gets me juiced up too. And also I want to give another thank you to Carolina Hidalgo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh of course.
MARCUS PARKS
My wife and co-host on No Dogs In Space, for the incredible amount of research help that she did finding the human stories in this, helping me with dates, helping me with the script, helping me to edit down a lot of shit to make this a fucking (chef's kiss), a wonderful, absolutely great series.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And she gets paid with your sweet love making.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like this is one of those stories you could take with you. I feel like this is a very rare moment of like hope in the Last Podcast on the Left series which is actually really interesting for the end of the year. Reminder, no matter what the fuck it is you're going through, if you dig deep there is a reserve there.
MARCUS PARKS
Always.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There is something there that could carry you through, whatever the fuck it is that you're going through. Even if it's tits.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what you need to power you off the mountain.
ED LARSON
Tits are life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Everyone knows that.
MARCUS PARKS
Everyone knows that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Full of milk! Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Everyone knows that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's huge, man. But wow, what a fucking story.
MARCUS PARKS
What an incredible story.
ED LARSON
I feel stupid saying it but yeah, great story.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just a great story.
ED LARSON
It really is.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
And it's hopeful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is, yeah.
ED LARSON
Usually everything on the show is so upsetting.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's making it through.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it usually ends with someone in prison.
ED LARSON
Yeah, so much better than the Donner party.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really is. Well Donner party kind of worked out for the people that survived just like this because then now you have a story, you have a story to tell everyone and everyone's interested in your story. And they did it right. They didn't turn into weirdos, they fucking just lived their lives.
MARCUS PARKS
Some of them had a hard time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Like not all of them lived like full lives afterwards. Like there was some-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was mostly Nando and-
MARCUS PARKS
Like Nando and Roberto did great. Some of the other guys did-
ED LARSON
Circus people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
No, they just a lot of like divorces.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Just not being able... Anybody who has PTSD, if you don't treat it, it's hard, it's hard to be in a relationship.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. It is.
ED LARSON
And they're mostly still alive.
MARCUS PARKS
Most of them are, yeah.
ED LARSON
That's the craziest thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's intense, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Only a few of them have died out of the 16. Most of them are still alive, the vast majority.
ED LARSON
Yeah, the old man was one of them of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. But guys, we're coming up in 2024, we have a lot of great stories we're gonna tell.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some stuff that we've been promising a long time, getting into a lot of weird shit which I'm really excited for, getting back to some of our roots and do some hardcore true crime as well. I can't wait. You'll hear very soon.
MARCUS PARKS
Gonna be cool shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And before we do, go rent How To Ruin The Holidays on Amazon.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And ignore Ed's joke from last week.
ED LARSON
I mean what are you gonna do?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You ignore that joke.
ED LARSON
I also bootlegged it, so hit me up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he can send it to you for free on an iPhone, a scrambled iPhone video. Yeah. Well this is it. Hail Satan.
ED LARSON
That was beautiful, guys. Great job, Marcus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Really good job.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh thank you. Thank you, yeah.
ED LARSON
You're welcome.
MARCUS PARKS
And great job to Carolina as well.
ED LARSON
Yeah, Carolina. Of course, of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, did a great job. Hail Gein.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And see you next year!
ED LARSON
Hail Nando.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Nando!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Hail Nando. Fuck yeah.
ED LARSON
Amen.