Parrado and Canessa continued west.
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## Ten Days, Then a Herdsman
The western descent from the ridge took them through another snowfield and then into lower terrain where the snow began to give way to rock and then to grass. The air became thicker. The temperature rose. After weeks at altitude, the sensation of breathing easier and walking in warmer air was physically striking.
After approximately seven days of descent and travel through the foothills, Parrado and Canessa began to see signs of human presence: fencing, animal tracks, evidence that livestock had been in the area. On approximately the ninth day of their trek, they found cattle. Cattle meant herders. Herders meant people.
On December 20, 1972 — nine days after they had left the crash site, sixty-nine days after the crash — Parrado and Canessa reached the Río Barrancas in the Chilean foothills near Los Maitenes. Across the river, on the opposite bank, was a man on horseback.
His name was Sergio Catalán. He was 51 years old, an arriero — a herdsman who drove livestock through the Andean foothills — from the area near Puente Negro in Chile’s O’Higgins Region. He had been in the area with cattle.
The river between them was too loud and too wide for voice communication to work. Catalán could see the two men across the water. He could see that they were not in normal condition — they were emaciated, wearing makeshift clothing, and clearly in distress. He threw them bread across the river. They ate it.
Communication across the river was possible only by writing. Canessa wrote a note, wrapped it around a rock, and threw it across the water to Catalán. The note, as recorded in accounts of the rescue, said something to the effect that they had come from a plane that had crashed in the mountains and that their friends were still up there waiting to be rescued.