{"product_id":"miracle-in-the-andes-isbn-9781400097692","title":"Miracle in the Andes","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER • A harrowing, moving first-person account of the 1972 plane crash that left its survivors stranded on a glacier in the Andes—and one man’s quest to lead them all home—by Nando Parrado, a subject of the Oscar-nominated film \u003ci\u003eSociety of the Snow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeaturing a new introduction by the author to commemorate of the fiftieth anniversary of the crash\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“In straightforward, staggeringly honest prose, Nando Parrado tells us what it took—and what it actually felt like—to survive high in the Andes for seventy-two days after having been given up for dead.”—Jon Krakauer, author of \u003ci\u003eInto the Wild\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“In the first hours there was nothing, no fear or sadness, just a black and perfect silence.”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNando Parrado was unconscious for three days before he woke to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team to Chile had crashed deep in the Andes, killing many of his teammates, his mother, and his sister. Stranded with the few remaining survivors on a lifeless glacier and thinking constantly of his father’s grief, Parrado resolved that he could not simply wait to die. So Parrado, an ordinary young man with no particular disposition for leadership or heroism, led an expedition up the treacherous slopes of a snowcapped mountain and across forty-five miles of frozen wilderness in an attempt to save his friends’ lives as well as his own.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDecades after the disaster, Parrado tells his story with remarkable candor and depth of feeling\u003ci\u003e. Miracle in the Andes\u003c\/i\u003e, a first-person account of the crash and its aftermath, is more than a riveting tale of true-life adventure; it is a revealing look at life at the edge of death and a meditation on the limitless redemptive power of love.“\u003ci\u003eMiracle in the Andes\u003c\/i\u003e is an astonishing account of an unimaginable ordeal. In straightforward,   staggeringly honest prose, Nando Parrado tells us what it took—and what it actually   felt like—to survive high in the Andes for 72 days after having been given up for   dead. If you pick this book up, you will not be able to put it down.” —Jon Krakauer,   author of \u003ci\u003eUnder the Banner of Heaven\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eInto Thin Air\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eInto the Wild\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Unlike the   cloud that obscured the mountainside, there is no haze enshrouding the meaning of   life for Nando Parrado.  It was in the love for his father that Nando found the motivation   to survive for over two months on a Chilean glacier.  As he makes his unbelievable   traverse of the Andes, Nando also demonstrates the depth of his courage, faith, and   perseverance that help him later transform his losses into a source of inspiration   for others. Connecting our struggles to his, we readers can use Nando as our beacon   and see that there is a way out of our ‘own personal Andes.’” —Aron Ralston, author   of \u003ci\u003eBetween a Rock and a Hard Place\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Nando Parrado’s haunting experience in the Andes—grippingly,   honestly, and insightfully told—ranks with the most dramatic survival stories of   the last two centuries.” —Peter Stark, author of \u003ci\u003eLast Breath: The Limits of Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eMiracle in the Andes\u003c\/i\u003e is an extraordinary book. Everybody’s philosophical hypotheticals   were Nando Parrado’s real life experiences. Would I survive an aircrash? Could I   eat human flesh? Would a horrific and life-threatening event affect my religious   beliefs? In the end, this account benefits enormously from the maturity that time   allows. It is a beautifully written and moving story.” —Peter Hillary, author of   \u003ci\u003eIn the Ghost Country: A Lifetime Spent on the Edge\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Given up for dead after an air   crash in the Andes in 1972, Nando Parrado not only survived but showed the strength   and determination that saved his own life and that of his fifteen friends. Now he   gives his own account of his ordeal—enthralling, enlightening, modest, and moving.   An impressive testimony to what love can achieve.” —Piers Paul Read, author of \u003ci\u003eAlive\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eNando Parrado\u003c\/b\u003e was one of the survivors of the 1972 plane crash that killed his mother, his younger sister, and many of his rugby teammates. Nando survived in the Andes for seventy-day days, including a ten-day trek through the mountains with his friend Roberto Canessa to find help. Following their rescue, Nando and other survivors worked with Piers Paul Read to write the #1 bestseller \u003ci\u003eAlive: The Story of the Andes Survivors\u003c\/i\u003e. Twenty years later, Nando served as the technical advisor in the film adaptation, in which he was played by Ethan Hawke. In 2006, he published his own version of events in \u003ci\u003eMiracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home\u003c\/i\u003e. Today, he is a renowned speaker and successful businessman, sportsman, and television producer. He and his wife, Veronique, have two daughters, Veronica and Cecilia, and three grandchildren: Alexia, Máximo, and Thor.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Before\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was Friday, the thirteenth of October. We joked about that—flying   over the Andes on such an unlucky day, but young men make those kinds   of jokes so easily. Our flight had originated one day earlier in   Montevideo, my hometown, its destination Santiago, Chile. It was a   chartered flight on a Fairchild twin-engine turboprop carrying my rugby   team—the Old Christians Rugby Club—to play an exhibition match against   a top Chilean squad. There were forty-five people aboard, including   four crew members—pilot, copilot, mechanic, and steward. Most of the   passengers were my teammates, but we were also accompanied by friends,   family members, and other supporters of the team, including my mother,   Eugenia, and my younger sister, Susy, who were sitting across the aisle   and one row in front of me. Our original itinerary was to fly nonstop   to Santiago, a trip of about three and a half hours. But after just a   few hours of flying, reports of bad weather in the mountains ahead   forced the Fairchild’s pilot, Julio Ferradas, to put the plane down in   the old Spanish colonial town of Mendoza, which lies just east of the   Andean foothills.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We landed in Mendoza at lunchtime with hopes that we would be back in   the air in a few hours. But the weather reports were not encouraging,   and it was soon clear that we would have to stay the night. None of us   liked the idea of losing a day from our trip, but Mendoza was a   charming place, so we decided to make the best of our time there. Some   of the guys relaxed in sidewalk cafés along Mendoza’s broad, tree-lined   boulevards or went sightseeing in the city’s historic neighborhoods. I   spent the afternoon with some friends watching an auto race at a track   outside of town. In the evening we went to a movie, while some of the   others went dancing with some Argentinean girls they had met. My mother   and Susy spent their time exploring Mendoza’s quaint gift shops, buying   presents for friends in Chile and souvenirs for the people at home. My   mother was especially pleased to find a pair of red baby shoes in a   small boutique, which she thought would make the perfect gift for my   sister Graciela’s new baby boy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Most of us slept late the next morning, and when we woke we were   anxious to leave, but there was still no word about our departure, so   we all went our separate ways to see a little more of Mendoza. Finally   we received word to gather at the airport at 1:00 p.m. sharp, but we   arrived only to discover that Ferradas and his copilot, Dante Lagurara,   had not yet decided whether or not we would fly. We reacted to this   news with frustration and anger, but none of us understood the   difficult decision confronting the pilots. The weather reports that   morning warned of some turbulence along our flight path, but after   speaking with the pilot of a cargo plane that had just flown in from   Santiago, Ferradas was confident the Fairchild could fly safely above   the weather. The more troubling problem was the time of day. It was   already early afternoon. By the time the passengers were boarded and   all the necessary arrangements were made with airport officials, it   would be well past two o’clock. In the afternoon, warm air rises from   the Argentine foothills and meets the frigid air above the snowline to   create treacherous instability in the atmosphere above the mountains.   Our pilots knew that this was the most dangerous time to fly across the   Andes. There was no way to predict where these swirling currents might   strike, and if they got hold of us, our plane would be tossed around   like a toy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On the other hand, we couldn’t stay put in Mendoza. Our aircraft was a   Fairchild F-227 that we had leased from the Uruguayan air force. The   laws of Argentina forbade a foreign military aircraft to stay on   Argentine soil longer than twenty-four hours. Since our time was almost   up, Ferradas and Lagurara had to make a fast decision: should they take   off for Santiago and brave the afternoon skies, or fly the Fairchild   back to Montevideo and put an end to our vacation?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As the pilots pondered the options, our impatience grew. We had already   lost a day of our Chilean trip, and we were frustrated by the thought   of losing more. We were bold young men, fearless and full of ourselves,   and it angered us that our vacation was slipping away because of what   we regarded as the timidity of our pilots. We did not hide these   feelings. When we saw the pilots at the airport, we jeered and whistled   at them. We teased them and questioned their competence. “We hired you   to take us to Chile,” someone shouted, “and that’s what we want you to   do!” There is no way to know whether or not our behavior influenced   their decision—it did seem to unsettle them—but finally, after one last   consultation with Lagurara, Ferradas glanced around at the crowd   waiting restlessly for an answer, and announced that the flight to   Santiago would continue. We greeted this news with a rowdy cheer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Fairchild finally departed from Mendoza Airport at eighteen minutes   after two o’clock, local time. As we climbed, the plane banked steeply   into a left turn and soon we were flying south, with the Argentine   Andes rising to our right on the western horizon. Through the windows   on the right side of the fuselage, I gazed at the mountains, which   thundered up from the dry plateau below us like a black mirage, so   bleak and majestic, so astonishingly vast and huge, that the simple   sight of them made my heart race. Rooted in massive swells of bedrock   with colossal bases that spread for miles, their black ridges soared up   from the flatlands, one peak crowding the next, so that they seemed to   form a colossal fortress wall. I was not a poetically inclined young   man, but there seemed to be a warning in the great authority with which   these mountains held their ground, and it was impossible not to think   of them as living things, with minds and hearts and an old brooding   awareness. No wonder the ancients thought of these mountains as holy   places, as the doorstep to heaven, and as the dwelling place of the   gods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Uruguay is a low-lying country, and like most of my friends on the   plane, my knowledge of the Andes, or of any mountains at all, was   limited to what I had read in books. In school we learned that the   Andes range was the most extensive mountain system in the world,   running the length of South America from Venezuela in the north to the   southern tip of the continent in Tierra del Fuego. I also knew that the   Andes are the second-highest mountain range on the planet; in terms of   average elevation, only the Himalayas are higher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I had heard people refer to the Andes as one of the earth’s great   geological wonders, and the view from the airplane gave me a visceral   understanding of what that meant. To the north, south, and west, the   mountains sprawled as far as the eye could see, and even though they   were many miles away, their height and mass made them seem impassable.   In fact, as far as we were concerned, they were. Our destination,   Santiago, lies almost exactly due west of Mendoza, but the region of   the Andes that separates the two cities is one of the highest sections   of the entire chain, and home to some of the tallest mountains in the   world. Somewhere out there, for example, was Aconcagua, the highest   mountain in the Western Hemisphere and one of the seven tallest on the   planet. With a summit of 22,831 feet, it stands just 6,200 feet shy of   Everest, and it has giants for neighbors, including the 22,000-foot   Mount Mercedario, and Mount Tupongato, which stands 21,555 feet tall.   Surrounding these behemoths are other great peaks with elevations of   between 16,000 and 20,000 feet, which no one in those wild reaches had   ever bothered to name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    With such towering summits rising along the way, there was no chance   that the Fairchild, with its maximum cruising altitude of 22,500 feet,   could fly a direct east-west route to Santiago. Instead, the pilots had   charted a course that would take us about one hundred miles south of   Mendoza to Planchón Pass, a narrow corridor through the mountains with   ridges low enough for the plane to clear. We would fly south along the   eastern foothills of the Andes with the mountains always on our right,   until we reached the pass. Then we’d turn west and weave our way   through the mountains. When we had cleared the mountains on the Chilean   side, we would turn right and fly north to Santiago. The flight should   take about an hour and a half. We would be in Santiago before dark.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On this first leg of the trip, the skies were calm, and in less than an   hour we had reached the vicinity of Planchón Pass. I didn’t know the   name of the pass, of course, or any of the flight details. But I   couldn’t help noticing that after flying for miles with the mountains   always off in the western distance, we had banked to the west and were   now flying directly into the heart of the cordillera. I was sitting in   a window seat on the left side of the plane, and as I watched, the   flat, featureless landscape below seemed to leap up from the earth,   first to form rugged foothills, then heaving and buckling up into the   awesome convolutions of true mountains. Shark-finned ridges raised   themselves up like soaring black sails. Menacing peaks pushed up like   gigantic spearheads or the broken blades of hatchets. Narrow glacial   valleys gashed the steep slopes, forming rows of deep, winding,   snow-packed corridors that stacked and folded one upon the other to   create a wild, endless maze of ice and rock. In the Southern   Hemisphere, winter had given way to early spring, but in the Andes,   temperatures still routinely dipped to 35 degrees below zero   Fahrenheit, and the air was as dry as a desert. I knew that avalanches,   blizzards, and killing gale-force winds were common in these mountains,   and that the previous winter had been one of the most severe on record,   with snowfalls, in some places, of several hundred feet. I saw no color   at all in the mountains, just muted patches of black and gray. There   was no softness, no life, only rock and snow and ice and as I looked   down into all that rugged wildness, I had to laugh at the arrogance of   anyone who had ever thought that human beings have conquered the earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Watching out the window, I noticed that wisps of fog were gathering,   then I felt a hand on my shoulder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Switch seats with me, Nando. I want to look at the mountains.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was my friend Panchito, who was sitting in the aisle seat beside me.   I nodded and rose from my seat. When I stood to change places someone   yelled, “Think fast, Nando!” and I turned just in time to catch a rugby   ball someone had tossed from the rear of the cabin. I passed the ball   forward, and then sank into my seat. All around us there was laughing   and talking, people were moving from seat to seat, visiting friends up   and down the aisle. Some friends, including my oldest amigo, Guido   Magri, were in the back of the plane playing cards with some crew   members, including the flight steward, but when the ball began bouncing   around the cabin, the steward stepped forward and tried to calm things   down. “Put the ball away,” he shouted. “Settle down, and please take   your seats!” But we were young rugby players traveling with our   friends, and we did not want to settle down. Our team, the Old   Christians from Montevideo, was one of the best rugby teams in Uruguay,   and we took our regular matches seriously. But in Chile we would be   playing an exhibition match only, so this trip was really a holiday for   us, and on the plane there was the feeling that the holiday had already   begun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was a fine thing to be traveling with my friends, these friends   especially. We had been through so much together—all the years of   learning and training, the heartbreaking losses, the hard-fought wins.   We had grown up as teammates, drawing from each other’s strengths,   learning to trust one another when the pressure was on. But the game of   rugby had not only shaped our friendships, it had shaped our   characters, and brought us together as brothers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Many of us on the Old Christians had known each other for more than ten   years, since our days as schoolboy ruggers playing under the guidance   of the Irish Christian Brothers at the Stella Maris School. The   Christian Brothers had come to Uruguay from Ireland in the early 1950s,   at the invitation of a group of Catholic parents who wanted them to   found a private Catholic school in Montevideo. Five Irish Brothers   answered the call, and in 1955 they created the Stella Maris College, a   private school for boys between the ages of nine and sixteen, located   in the Carrasco neighborhood, where most of the students lived.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For the Christian Brothers, the first goal of a Catholic education was   to build character, not intellect, and their teaching methods stressed   discipline, piety, selflessness, and respect. To promote these values   outside the classroom, the Brothers discouraged our natural South   American passion for soccer—a game that, in their view, fostered   selfishness and egotism—and steered us toward the rougher, earthier   game of rugby. For centuries, rugby had been an Irish passion, but it   was virtually unknown in our country. At first the game seemed strange   to us—so brutal and painful to play, so much pushing and shoving and so   little of soccer’s wide-open flair. But the Christian Brothers firmly   believed that the qualities required to master the sport were the same   characteristics one needed to live a decent Catholic life—humility,   tenacity, self-discipline, and devotion to others—and they were   determined that we would play the game and play it well. It did not   take us long to learn that once the Christian Brothers set their minds   to a purpose, there was little that could sway them. So we set aside   our soccer balls and acquainted ourselves with the fat, pointed pigskin   used in rugby.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In long, tough practices on the fields behind the school, the Brothers   started from scratch, drilling us in all the rugged intricacies of the   game—mucks and rauls, scrumdowns and lineouts, how to kick and pass and   tackle. We learned that rugby players wore no pads or helmets, but   still we were expected to play aggressively and with great physical   courage. But rugby was more than a game of brute strength; it required   sound strategy, quick thinking, and agility. Most of all the game   demanded that teammates develop an unshakeable sense of trust. They   explained that when one of our teammates falls or is knocked to the   ground, he “becomes grass.” This was their way of saying that a downed   player can be stomped on and trampled by the opposition as if he were   part of the turf. One of the first things they taught us was how to   behave when a teammate becomes grass. “You must become his protector.   You must sacrifice yourself to shield him. He must know he can count on   you.”New York Times Bestseller","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304429310181,"sku":"NP9781400097692","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400097692.jpg?v=1767732767","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/miracle-in-the-andes-isbn-9781400097692","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}