Canessa, the physician, has described the specific physical experience of the descent in terms of what his body was doing and what he was asking it to do. The malnutrition had depleted his muscle reserves; each step required more effort than it would have in normal condition. The altitude gave way slowly. The improvement in oxygen availability as they descended was real and measurable — breathing became easier, movement became less exhausting, the mental clarity that altitude suppresses began to return.
Parrado, the businessman and later public speaker, has described the same journey in terms of what it meant. Each step west was a step toward home. The landscape around them, indifferent and enormous, was simply terrain to be crossed. The mountains did not care whether they lived or died. This indifference was not threatening; it was clarifying. The mountains were not an adversary. They were a fact. The question was not whether the mountains would relent but whether the two men walking through them would keep walking.
They kept walking.
The river they reached on December 20 was the Río Barrancas. The man across the water was Sergio Catalán. The note Canessa threw was wrapped around a rock. The note said, in Spanish, something to the effect that they had come from a plane that had fallen in the mountains and that they needed help.
Catalán read the note. He returned with ten carabineros. Parrado and Canessa were taken to Los Maitenes, the nearest town.
Two days later, the helicopters came.