so... Oh God, we were still de pending on Your mercy, weren't we?!
We all once more sat down as close to each other as possible, in a space no biggger than six square feet, with a long straight down pit at the right side, and a two by two foot, forty foot deep window on the other.

Randall had in his left-over gear some honey, which gave us extra energy, and I still had a few cigarettes, so we weren't that bad after all. It was then around seven P.M., and one thing was for sure; we were very close to the surface, only about -130 feet, sixty-five of them straight up! And from then on, it was only about three hundred and fifty feet of "walkining distance"; three short climbs, a couple of crawls, and the rest was just "easy going" passages and rooms.

STILL SUNDAY THE 23RD, AROUND 22:OO HRS.

We had been holding that same position for at least three hours, staying as much as possible away from the spray and the wind produced by the waterfall, with someone checking it's condition every half hour or so. Luckily, we had managed to deal with hypothermia very well, with noone at any moment going past grade one without the rest of us noticing it and taking prompt action. Everything, was actually routine; NOT falling asleep, NOT falling down the pit or the window, NOT dropping the space blanket, NOT pushing the others, and yelling and shining a strong light around and up the pit from time to time. Some of us talked, some dozed a little bit, someone told a joke every so often, and all of us kept a stream of prayer flowing up, because we all felt very, very small, considering the size of the circumstances surrounding us.

Somewhere around 9:30 to to 9:45 P.M., it became a definite fact that there was no longer any spray falling on us, and that the waterfall's wind had gone down to almost nothing, and the fall itself shrank to just a constant dripping. The only noise was that of another incoming side- spring that cascaded down into the nothingness below.

And just about then it happened!!! It was almost exactly 10:00 P.M. when, all of a sudden, a very powerful beam of light shone down from above, followed instantly by our yells. "Hey!... Who's up there?... We are down here, all six of us! It was three of the members of the Alfaro family: the father and two older brothers of José Alfaro, the one with us. They had brought an extra ninety feet of brand new PMI rope (Bryan's) and at least three very powerful flashlights, the type professional divers use. And after some back and forth question-answering, someone asked, "and Bryan, what do you know about Bryan? Did he ever make it out?" It seemed that many hours had gone by when the answer came, just about three seconds later. "By God! Whom do you think came down to tell us, and gave us his flashlights, and told us to bring extra rope? Yes! They are well, both he and Lorry, but very, very tired!!! They are staying at the house, trying to get in touch with the Red Cross, the fire brigade and other cavers, both at Ciudad Neilly and San José."

We all jumped up in joy, and cheered, and shouted, and whistled, after exactly five hours and thirty five minutes of not knowing in any form what on earth could have happened to him