Before the interviews we wanted to ask some close relative about the approach we wanted to present the topic and most of all about the issues we would not mention.

Nacho talked to Madelón Rodríguez mother of Carlitos Páez and friend of him Just by chance we were together in a flight to Buenos Aires. As always, it was worth talking with her. She made me feel at ease and as in other occasions we got deeply involved with the Andes matter. She was an important part of this thus, her point of view seemed fundamental to me.

I’m not surprised when I see her crossing herself before the plane takes off.

Carlos Páez welcomes us with his characteristic kindness. We trust each other due to the years we worked together, which makes everything develop quite naturally.

I believe he did not lose his innocence, the freshness and admiration he feels for himself and for his friends of the “cordillera”. But as he says “I am a public person and I pay the consequences” At times he seems to be trapped in someone who does not seem to be moved by what he says, and nevertheless when I asked him for the photograph on the table his facial expression changes completely.
It is a black and white copy with a white frame. A typical press picture showing Carlitos, toasting who knows what with, in the pot of a thermo flask. It has been a few minutes since the rescue took place and amazingly he shows no malnutrition symptoms as most of his partners.
By his side, one of the Strauchs is bending over something presumably edible. We do not know who the skinny bony hand which appears on one of the sides belongs to, but it does call the attention as much as the policeman’s face behind Carlitos, hearing something he would never forget.
“Take it as it is, (with its frame and glass) and give it back as it is” I recognize in his expression whom I imagine must have been Carlitos at 18 years old. That rebellious and religious believer who unwillingly was becoming an icon of the hope many times men seems to have lost. “Of course” I reply as it goes, it comes back. I put the photograph in my pocket and sit down. It is time to switch on the recorder.

Life before the accident

Which memories have you got of your years at the Stella Maris College?
To be honest I had a good time at school. I studied a little and had great fun. I lived in Carrasco, a true privilege for any kid. We would ride our bikes to school and on the way we would pick up frogs, you know… I have great memories of my whole childhood.

Which was your post in the rugby team?
I was prop and wasn’t that good. I only scored once in my life and it was shared with many others, so I never knew if it was mine really. I was prop in the first XV of the school.

Did you choose that sport or was it the only one they used to practise?
No, we used to play soccer too, but I was awful at it so I went for rugby. The truth is I was a really good sportsman (laughs)

Define in values the meaning of rugby
Basically, rugby means team spirit.

Did your fitness have an influence in your survival in the Andes?
I don’t think so, honestly. I think education played a bigger role. There were many points. First of all, our unawareness .We were all too young and naïve. The fact that we all knew each other was also important; almost all of us were friends, with a similar social and cultural background I think those were influential aspects and the religious component played a most relevant role. But I don’ think it was rugby which had united us; in fact not everybody was a rugby player. I wasn’t going there to play rugby myself. What is more, not everyone was a student at the school. From the 16 survivors there were 7 who were not Stella Maris students.

And what about your religious background?
My religious background did help, obviously. When we had nothing else to hold to……God was the only thing we had, there was no other thing.

Was the God you met there the same you believed in when you attended mass?
No. It was a different God. At school we had an image of God, who was an old bearded man over the clouds…There we met a God which was more related to detachment, to humbleness, to not having anything. As you feel more deprived the figure of God appears more important.

Which were your expectations, your projects, and your dreams?
My project was to work on a farm. As a pretty bad student, and as my family owned a farm I had decided to go for it. I studied at the agricultural school of Strand del Yí and graduated as an agricultural technician, and well, I worked on the farm. Later on I realized it wasn’t the job I wanted for me. I’m more the sort of person who relates well with people and on the farm that is quite limited. I’m very anxious and farm work is too slow. The processes are too slow.

The plane crash

What do you remember of that ominous October afternoon aboard the Air Force Fairchild?
We had set off from Montevideo to Santiago de Chile on October 12th in the morning and we had to stop in Mendoza because of the weather conditions, which were not good to cross the “cordillera”.
We spent the night there and had dinner at the restaurant of another Uruguayan we had met that day. We had split up, more or less according to whom we were friends with and to tell the truth, we were having a great time. It was our first “long” trip.
Eventually, the next day the option of returning to Montevideo was considered as the weather conditions were not improving but in the end the pilots, partly under our own pressure, decided to cross the “cordillera”.
At 2 pm we took off heading for Santiago.
Almost immediately the first clouds appeared and the turbulences started. We noticed the plane had started to descend and one of the crewmembers told us they had started descend towards Santiago’s airport. At that moment we fell into an air pocket and after a while there were two never ending falls. The engines rumbled in what I think was an attempt to lift the plane and one of the wings hit the mountain and then the impact came. I thought everything that was happening was part of regular navigation, I didn’t realize we had crashed and the only thing I dared do was to hold my head between my hands and start praying. Between the Lord’s Prayer, which was the longest, and the Glory, which is the shortest, I chose Hail Mary, an in-between one. I was sure I couldn’t finish the Lord’s Prayer and the Glory was going to be too short and I didn’t want to disappoint God. It’s incredible but I had that way of reasoning. So I started praying Hail Mary and when I had finished the plane stopped. That episode is very well shown in the film.

Didn’t you realize you had crashed and were sliding down the mountain?
I didn’t realize until the plane stopped. It’s not easy to notice because of the speed at which things happen and it’s even harder to realize you’ve had an accident and you’re still alive.

And when the plane stopped?
All the seats moved forward and we were all cramped. It took me about half an hour to get out. It was just then that I started to realize what had happened. Canessa was close and I asked him if anyone had died. “It’s a disaster,” he answered. I stepped out from the remains of the plane and I saw Gordo Françoise sitting very quietly smoking a cigarette. Then chaos started.

How was that first night?
Horrible. There were many people dying and in fact, many passed away that night. If you asked me for a definition of the word “hell” I would say “that night”.

Do you think that the fact of being 19 years old helped in the sense of not being totally aware of what was happening?
Definitely. Everything was reckless. Indeed, what Canessa and Parrado did walking across the “cordillera” without proper equipment after two months almost without food, no one dares to think that can happen.
A short time ago we went to the cordillera and I had a very bad time. We are older, that’s true but I think the recklessness of our age played a very important role. The fact that we weren’t estimating the risks involved in what we were doing, was what led us to leaving that place.

Had you ever thought about death before the accident?
You always think about death.
You think it’s something remote, also because the human being is quite arrogant and somehow we think nothing will ever happen to you. I remember one definition I heard at a wake, one guy asks another ““What do you think of death?” The other answered “it drives me mad”. I think it’s a good way to define it. I’m not scared. The truth is I don’t like it.

How did you manage to change your perspective on this matter so rapidly, from never having considered it to living with it?
In fact, we lived together with life rather than with death. Although there were 29 dead people around us hope and faith in struggling for life made us share more with life than with death, despite being in a cemetery.

What did you talk about?
Food was the talking point. We were so hungry that we talked a lot about food. We had made a list of over 130 restaurants in Montevideo. It was pure masochism.

Was money of any worth there in the Andes?
I had 70 dollars that was all my capital, and I wanted to buy from Gordo Françoise one cigarette. I offered him the 70 dollars for it and he wouldn’t sell it. Does it answer your question?

Did you fight?
Yes, openly. It is said the best way to make two friends fight is keeping them in the same place for a long time. But basically there was unity. Logically the ones who worked were much closer to each other and the ones who didn’t were more isolated, but there was unity.

And why didn’t some of them work?
For different reasons, some were feeling bad, some were too weak. The only thing I know is that I worked like a dog.

After the avalanche the ones who survived thought that after that, they would be saved. How did the deaths of Arturo Nogueira and later Turcatti affect you?
Actually it didn’t affect us as much as it would have if it had happened here in the middle of civilization. Their death and the others as we were struggling to stay alive.
Even what happened to Nando, without my getting involved with his own feelings, I think it’s not the same if your mother dies here as if it happens there, in the “cordillera” where you have to fight for your life. You are in a much more complex situation where your feelings can play hard on you and can kill you.
Those deaths we were so unfortunate to witness were like omens of what could happen to any of us. Honestly the death of my friends there in the cordillera was not as hard to cope with as here in the civilization.

A way of living and a permanent risk.
But look, so many things happened It isn’t written in the book but there were a couple of earthquakes and as a result one of the rocks passed a few centimetres from my head. What happened with the avalanche was something different. We had never imagined it could happen and nevertheless it did.

What did you fear the most, death or insanity?
I didn’t realize I was going to die. We were at 4000 metres height and there was little oxygen, therefore your reasoning is quite slow, I was in a state that wasn’t normal.
I didn’t fear madness.
I remember some specific moments of fear, like after the avalanche when we were literally buried under the snow for three days and I feared being suffocated.

Were you buried for three days?
That’s true, from October 29th to November 1st I spent my birthday down there, But on November 1st I went up to the roof of the plane to pay tribute to my father and sister, it was their birthday. There were others who spent a longer time, in a tiny place without light, wet and -25ºC. We were 19 people one next to the other.

How did the expedition you had to face and return the next day influence you? (With Vizintín and Harley?)
It was really tough. We had to choose the third member of the expedition that would go with Nando and Roberto. Roy Harley and Antonio Vizintín and I left the plane. At midday the snow starts to melt and it’s very difficult to walk. Eventually I couldn’t go any further; I burst into tears and told them “leave me here” they kicked me to keep me going Later on, Roy fell behind too and it was decided that the third one would be Vizintín.
But I had done many expeditions before that one, looking for the batteries to connect the radio. Canessa and Parrado later found those next to the plane’s tail.

Did you get used to those expeditions?
Never, they were too tough. The place was very complicated. We were at 4000 metres with -25ºC and no proper equipment to withstand it.

Could you describe the surroundings?
Bewilderingly shocking. On the one hand, you realized that the place you were in was beautiful but to me it was horrible. I couldn’t live there. It’s a totally inhospitable place. You know, in March, as I told you, we went to the place where the plane is and we did so with all the necessary equipment; tents, appropriate clothes, mobile phones, food. Anyway, I almost passed out. On one hand it’s beautiful, on the other, horrible.

How did group awareness work?
Sometimes I thought, “that’s it, I give up” But the good thing is that when you are in a group, that group helps you. When one is down, the others cheer him up, give him support, and help him.

Do you think that the ones who played rugby instilled group awareness or was it a general thing?
It was general, undoubtedly. From the 16 people who returned only 5 were players. Quite understandably at the time of doing the toughest things it was them who were in charge. They were better trained. But we all knew that the only chance of leaving that place if there was one was by keeping that group awareness up.

Which was the spiritual support?
I got hold to the Rosary. At dusk apart from talking about food and restaurants we would pray, say the rosary, and that was a nice quiet moment.

Did you have a routine?
Yes, naturally. Man is routine-like and that was no exception. But many times the weather made us change it.

What does the phrase “The losers stay” mean to you?
I don’t know if that’s so. Sometimes you stay and you are not a loser.
I’d rather say “the ones who don’t want to live, stay”, the ones who don’t have enough mental health, stay”
Dr Mendilá, one of the greatest names in Psychology in Uruguay once told me “Carlitos, you have a lifelong health certificate”
And it’s true. You had to have a very healthy mind to be able to bear what we bore, to be able to live afterwards without traumas.

But, is it true that certain phrases were used to cheer you up?
I don’t remember having used that phrase. Take into account that the writer’s inventiveness also plays a role, if you have read it.
What I do remember is that Roberto Canessa had the best title for what would end up being “Alive”. That was “Maybe Tomorrow” making reference to that hope of being rescued we had. Undoubtedly that was the best title, but I don’t know what kind of problems there were and that couldn’t be so.

Did you really think you were going to make it?
We always thought of getting away from there. To give you an idea of how optimistic I was, there’s a photo of me outside the plane, I had taken my shirt off and was getting suntanned to look well in Punta del Este.

Life, Afterwards

What do you remember about your return to Montevideo?
The arrival in Montevideo was one of the most beautiful and at the same time saddest things that ever happened to me. There was the happiness of meeting all our friends again but on the other hand the sadness of seeing the parents of the ones who didn’t come back, which were my friends’ parents. So it was rather weird. I was happy on one hand but very sad on the other.

Do you remember the mass at the Stella Maris?
There I cried for all I hadn’t cried in the Cordillera.

And what about that press conference?
We got to the school and we found 300 reporters and many friends that we couldn’t greet because we were kept apart. The only thing I wanted to do was to greet my friends but we had to do so as a matter of form due to the press conference. Well, that was the time we were going to speak to the world, that’s the truth.

How did the media treat you?
Basically well.
After having worked with the mass media I can say that what happened was respectfully treated. A bit of gutter journalism, that always happens. They were the fewest.
It was a matter that shocked the whole world, the whole society of the world, and it was taken with respect.

How were you received by society?
Also, very respectfully.
There was no other way of facing it though I know it could have been thought of in a different way and in fact there were those who did. That caused some misinterpretation or some kind of disrespect but we have to bear in mind the whole picture.

How did you feel when, after having come back, you started to realize all the things your parents had done to find you?
It seemed natural to me. It was no surprise to see my parents again as it were as if I had gone on a trip for two months and a half.
It was a problem for them. I knew they were alive, they didn’t. I think that seeing me again must have been amazing for them.

Although the church does not consider what happened as a communion but as an act of inspiration, what did you feel when you noticed that some people were confusing that “communion” with anthropophagi?
I agree with the church. In my opinion, that was no communion. We ate human flesh so as not to die. It’s that simple and that is the church’s interpretation.
As a catholic it was helpful knowing that there is body and soul and the body is matter. When you die your soul leaves you and only the body remains, which is just matter.

Did anyone condemn you?
Look, when we had to promote the movie we travelled all over the world and the only ones who didn’t understand what had happened were the Koreans. But even Paul VI who was the Pope at that time sent us a telegram with a blessing.
If that happened to me again I would do the same. I might not wait the ten days we waited.

Did it take you ten days to make that decision?
10 days. And those days were decisive for those who got really weak in that time and died later. I don’t know if those deaths happened because of not having made that decision earlier. What I do know is that now I would make that decision earlier. The book “Alive” is called “Taboo” in Italy. You know why? Because there was no precedent. It was like breaking a taboo.

But why did it take you so long? For people who had just had a terrible shock, under those weather conditions and with no food, their weakening must have accelerated.
We broke that taboo and it was not easy at all. We didn’t think we were weakening. We were trying to comprehend and overcome what we were about to do. We thought we would be rescued, that we were being searched for, and that delayed the decision. Later on when we got to know they had stopped the search; that we no longer existed to the rest of the world we had to make a decision and we had nothing to eat. Those are the facts.

In your opinion, was having survived a “miracle” or was it exclusively “man’s work”?
If there is a miracle, that is how human beings are made, being able to endure and adapt to extreme situations. But … a miracle. Some people try to label it and call it “ The miracle of the Andes”, but I think that it’s more of man’s struggle for life.
We carried out the most sacred right, which is fight for our lives. More than a right an obligation I think that God intervened but the miracle would have taken place if the 45 of us had survived after 70 days, This is not the so.

Has that extremely tough test changed tour attitude towards life?
I wish it had, but don’t you think it did to a great extent. It helps as a parameter to reflect upon and not to complain so much about things. But I grumble like anyone else, the thing is, I have to go back to the Andes and say, fuck, there was no electricity there and here there’s a blackout and I start swearing. And I spent 70 days there with no electricity.
People think it did help us and put pressure on us to make us say something, I don’ know what it is. I don’t know if it helped that much. I learned what I’m capable of doing in extreme situations, something I didn’t even suspect.

Was it hard to “come back to daily life”?
It was because in these countries people are too much concerned with other people’s affairs; the society somehow plated the role of a judge of our attitudes. Whether we did right or wrong. In fact we were famous without wanting to and started to be much more exposed. Even more in my case as I worked with something related to the media. It was hard and I assume paying that price, but we learned to live in the world of civilization cannibalism.

When you work with foreign media, do you notice they know about the topic, are they interested?
Always. I realize they try to find the way round to talking about this subject. That’s the same that would happen to me if I met a survivor from the Titanic.

Do you still see each other?
We get together every 22nd December and now that it’s the 30th anniversary we gather every Tuesday at Canessa’s home.

Is the Andes topic always present?
All the time. For many years we were kept apart from the women and we assumed it was a moment for ourselves and remember those moments in la Cordillera, generally with a humoristic approach.

Does the story still give you the creeps?
The most impressive moment, the one I watch the most when I watch the film is the time when the helicopters appears In my opinion that’ the climax of the story. It was the moment when we were leaving one civilization to return to the world.

Did you like the film?
It was made with a lot of respect and I think something better could have been done, but I don’t know if I’m a good judge in this story as I am part of it. Each of us has its own story. The author of “Alive” some time ago challenged any writer to write that story and make everyone agree, and I think he’s right. Each of us lives its own “cordillera”.

If you could, would you change anything of what happened?
No. Besides, I can’t.

Would you like to leave any message for anyone interested in this matter?
I wouldn’t like to leave any kind of message; I’m not arrogant enough to do it. I’m no prophet. The only thing I do is to be available to tell the story and if anybody wants to draw any conclusions, go ahead. I try to draw mine.