Alive The Story Of The Andes Survivors Quotes

Oh, God," he prayed once again, "by all means test us to the limit of our endurance, but please make it humanly possible to go on. Please let there be some sort of path".

There was one question, however, which Inciarte had asked him and he could not answer. Why was it that he had lived while others had died? What purpose had God in making this selection? What sense could be made out of it? ‘None,’ replied Father Andrés. ‘There are times when the will of God cannot be understood by our human intelligence. There are things which in all humility we must accept as a mystery.

It’s like Holy Communion. When Christ died he gave his body to us so that we could have spiritual life. My friend has given us his body so that we can have physical life.

To Pedro, God was the love which existed between two human beings, or a group of human beings. Thus love was all important.

You can make it tough, God,’ he prayed, ‘but don’t make it impossible.

He felt triumphant. His conscience had overcome a primitive, irrational taboo. He was going to survive.

Chilecito

he who has received from the community has also the duty to give to the community

It looks as if Páez Vilaró is the only father for all those boys. No one else is with him …’ She paused, then spat out, ‘Or must we women go to Chile?

a good doctor always instils confidence into his patient.

To draw out the conversation, and dredge everyone’s memory for the smallest scrap, they would categorize. Each boy would have to describe a dish that was cooked at home, then something he could cook himself. After that came the novia’s speciality, then the most exotic food he had eaten, then his favourite pudding, then a foreign dish, then something that was cooked in the countryside, then the oddest thing he had ever eaten.

He did not think of God nor of his family but remarked to himself, ‘Okay, I’m dying.

It is meat,’ he said. ‘That’s all it is. The souls have left their bodies and are in heaven with God. All that is left here are the carcasses, which are no more human beings than the dead flesh of the cattle we eat at home.

He turned his head and saw a daisy growing by his nose. He picked it, sniffed it, and then handed it to Carlitos, who lay beside him. Carlitos took it from him and was about to smell it too, but instead he crammed it into his mouth and ate it.

The closeness of the relationship between Fito Strauch, Eduardo Strauch and Daniel Fernandez gave them an immediate advantage over all the other in withstanding not the physical but the mental suffering caused by their isolation in the mountains. They also possessed those qualities of realism and practicality which were of much more use in their brutal predicament than the eloquence of Pancho Delgado or the gentle nature of Coche Inciarte. The reputation which they had gained, especially Fito, in the first week for facing up to unpalatable facts and making unpleasant decisions had won the respect of those whose lives had thereby been saved. Fito, who was the youngest of three, was the most respected not just for his judicious opinions but for the way in which he had supervised the rescue of those trapped in the avalanche at the moment of greatest hysteria. His realism, together with his strong faith in their ultimate salvation, led many of the boys to pin their hopes on him...

What they would do was to take the small intestine, squeeze out its contents onto the snow, cut it into small pieces, and eat it. The taste was strong and salty. One of them tried wrapping it around a bone and roasting it in the fire. Rotten flesh, which they tried later, tasted like cheese.

They also ate the blood clots which they found around the hearts of almost all the bodies. Their texture and taste were different from that of the flesh and fat, and by now they were sick to death of this staple diet. It was not just that their senses clamoured for different tastes; their bodies too cried out for those minerals of which they had for so long been deprived – above all, for salt.

The last discovery in their search for new tastes and new sources of food were the brains of the bodies which they had hitherto discarded. Canessa had told them that, while they might not be of particular nutritional value, they contained glucose which would give them energy; he had been the first to take a head, cut the skin across the forehead, pull back the scalp, and crack open the skull with the axe.