Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars | 2,907 ratings

Price: 15.75

Last update: 12-18-2024


About this item

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A harrowing, moving memoir 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

“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 Into the Wild

“In the first hours there was nothing, no fear or sadness, just a black and perfect silence.”

Nando 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.

Decades after the disaster, Parrado tells his story with remarkable candor and depth of feeling. Miracle in the Andes, 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.


Top reviews from the United States

Maura
5.0 out of 5 stars great book and inspiring story
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2024
wonderfully written with the perfect description of events setting up the scene, almost putting you on the mountain with them. very very inspirational story about surviving and perseverance
C
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book for teens!
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2024
Bought it school required summer reading. He loved it. He says is a very interesting survival, teamwork, care for others and he recommends it as it has more details than the movie. ❤️
scaryv
5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't tear myself away from this book!
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2024
A harrowing haunting tale of impossible survival! The descriptions were poetic and so vivid, I felt like I was in the Andes living in Nando Parrado's head.
After seeing "Society of the Snow", the story of flight 571 become a hyperfixation and I knew I had to learn more. I was particularly interested in learning more details, what was happening in the minds of the survivors during the crash, the aftermath, their time in the Andes, and their life afterwards. I chose this as my first look into this perspective and I'm glad I did! I had full body chills, I cried (so many times), I laughed, and my heart swelled! My mind is still trying to understand how in the absolute *expletive* anyone survived any of this and especially how Nando and Roberto (and Tintin for the ascent) managed to scale an incredibly steep 15,000'+ mountain with no equipment nor experience while actively starving and hike to find rescue! I was so immersed in this book, that I accidentally stayed up reading until 3 AM (4 hours of reading).
Savvy-Suz
4.0 out of 5 stars A staggering story....Intense and Incredible!
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2007
When my book club chose this book, I honestly wasn't looking forward to reading it. I had read ALIVE and thought I already knew the story, as it had been told in detail.

Boy, was I blown away! What an amazing surprise MIRACLE IN THE ANDES turned out to be!

Nanado Parrado very skillfully and gently takes you into those mountains with such vivid images and heartbreaking exchanges of dialogue, that you 'feel' the immense cold, your stomach actually churns with their hunger, and your body aches with an emotional empathy.

The calm camaraderie of these astonishing young men amazes with their awe-inspiring courage!

The reader comes to know and care about every man and woman caught in this horrible nightmare of survival at it's bleakest.

So many times throughout the novel, just when hope was gaining or plans were coming together to find a 'way out', a devastating set-back would occur. As hope was dashed once again, the spirit and love of these stranded survivors would not diminish....and another plan was carefully thought out.

Everything in their lives was re-examined; their faith repeatedly tested and the bonds of brotherhood strengthened beyond belief!

This riveting account is sure to elevate and illuminate faith in the love that shines the light on their 'miraculous' journey.

Suz
Alondra Cedillo
5.0 out of 5 stars Love this book!
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2024
I had to buy it for my ENG course and as soon as I started reading the book I was so invested !! It’s a beautiful story and definitely recommend you read it!
Lusine Bizon
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Amazing!
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024
The book serves its purpose to the bits, which is to deliver the story of the events on Andes and Nando’s journey home, from inside out.
You breathe with him a thin mountain air, your feet feel cold under the blanket of your comfortable warm home, you get scared and terrified, angry and hopeless, filled with hope at times and devastated and dispare almost immediately. But one feeling that never leaves you, while you are in his Rugby shoes, is the LOVE he felt for his father that ultimately saved him, his consumption of the beauty and terrifying hugeness of the Andes mountains, his respect and care for his fellow suffering mates!!

Loved every page of this book and highly recommend to everyone!
Thanks to Nando for his inspiring strength and for the journey he takes us with him.
Anne Salazar
5.0 out of 5 stars A Book With Heart
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2006
I read Alive by Piers Paul Read when it came out in the 70s and never forgot the terrible, life-affirming story. A few months ago when I read that Nando Parrado, one of the heroes of the book, had written his own book about the plane crash and miracle of survival, I re-read Alive, just to familiarize myself with the details.

I bought this book by Nando Parrado as soon as it became available, and at times thought that it was a repeat of the Piers Paul Read book, but then began to realize that the facts are what they are, and that Nando Parrado's book is filled with much more than just facts; most of all it is filled with heart.

The horror of the crash and the brotherhood of the survivors is unsurpassed in human survival accounts. I would rank Parrado up there with Shackelton and maybe a couple of other early explorers: men with grit and honor, able to see beyond the horrific facts of the unexpected circumstances they find themselves in. Because of Nando's and Roberto Cannessa's determination to not die on the mountain, and to not let even one more of the survivors perish, the miracle of the book's title occurrs when they walk out of the mountains to get help for the other survivors, who, for a variety of reasons, were unable to save themselves. Parrado's account of his very real struggle, fear and dread is bone chillingly real, but along his trek through the Andes he has fortitude and foresight, and in the realization that no human had ever climed the mountain they were on, he named the tallest mountain they traversed for his father. It is my fervent hope that the name Mt. Seler has stuck and will be printed in history books and on maps from now on.

Parrado says he and the other survivors have made the unconscious decision to not let the plane crash define them, and have all moved forward with their lives for the sake of their families as well as for their own peace of mind. They are to be commended for that; however, the world would not have come to know them were it not for the accident and the miracle in the Andes. I am proud to have met these men through the pages of this remarkable book. It is truly a Masterpiece.

June 22: I am editing my review above, having just finished Terri Jentz's book, Strange Piece of Paradise. Her book also tells of a horrific event that befell the writer, also in the 70s, but there is a huge difference between that book and this one: Jentz has never gotten over her trauma, in fact would appear to be stuck in it. It bothered me. Her book was overly long and exhausting in the extreme. And compared to Miracle in the Andes the event she experienced was very strange, but almost trivial in comparison. I have added the paragraph below to this review ....

Once read, Miracle In The Andes will never be forgotten, not only for the courageous story that is told, but because of the man writing the book. Nando Parrado has to be the bravest and wisest man I have ever come across in the pages of a book. How he has taken the catastrophic event of the plane crash, followed by deaths, freezing weather, broken bodies, hunger, etc. and turn it into the Miracle of the title is just about beyond my comprehension. What a man he is to realize that we cannot let one event define our lives, no matter how painful or horrific that event may be. He also has somehow rallied together, every single year for 30 plus years, his fellow survivors, and they are all smiling in every photo I have ever seen of them. He is my hero. All of these men are heroes. I can't think of enough ways of stating how wonderful this book is, and how fabulous its message is. Please, please read it and recommend it to anyone who wants to be proud to be a human being.

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