But even as the 50-year-old was centre-stage 2,300 feet underground, his tangled domestic arrangements provided an extra spectacle above ground.
For his wife and a woman who claimed to be the lover he has promised to marry only discovered that each other existed when both turned up at the vigil site with pictures of the trapped man.
Since dramatically coming to blows in a cat-fight in a canteen at the site, both women have disappeared from public view. But Mr Barrios is clearly going to have to placate at least one of them when he rejoins the world this week.