The question of Alvarenga’s physical appearance — the observation that he seemed less wasted than some expected — was addressed by multiple experts. Piantadosi noted that malnutrition presents differently in different individuals and that severe emaciation is typically a feature of end-stage starvation. A person maintaining even minimal caloric intake through consistent food gathering, with adequate micronutrients from the food sources available, does not necessarily display the extreme physical deterioration of someone who is simply starving with no food at all.
Tipton put the resting metabolic requirement at 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day. A medium-sized sea turtle, a handful of birds, and several fish per day would, between them, supply more than this minimum. Alvarenga was not eating nothing; he was eating less than optimal but more than the minimum needed for basic biological function.
The psychological dimension was the one that the medical experts were most careful about. Tipton noted that the will to survive is a major factor in survival outcomes — that once the will to live is lost, survival time shortens dramatically regardless of physical resources. Alvarenga maintained the will to survive even after Córdoba’s death and through the subsequent months alone. The mental strategies he employed — imagining meals, taking daily walks around the boat’s perimeter to simulate travel, tracking time through the lunar calendar — were not passive endurance but active psychological management.
## What He Left Behind and What He Came Back To
When Alvarenga departed Costa Azul on November 17, 2012, he left behind a life that was, in some ways, defined by absence: absence from El Salvador, absence from his daughter, absence from his family who had lost track of him in the years since he fled after the bar fight.