In Patagonia, the natural beauty is guaranteed. A puma sighting isn’t – but I got lucky
The Globe and Mail · Lara Pingue ·
Spotting the elusive animal is just icing on the cake, as nature’s marvels distract even the most jaded traveller
The trouble with trying to spot a puma in Chilean Patagonia is that you start to think you’re seeing one everywhere. Lurking behind the rocks on a grassy hill. Stalking the ground right outside your hotel window. Every twitch in a bush, each sway of a branch is suspicious, surely hiding the camouflaged cat in its midst.
Maybe that’s just the disorienting effect of travelling to the edge of the Earth. In April, I traded in a Toronto spring for the autumn of Chile. For the next four days, I’d be exploring Torres del Paine National Park, a sprawling playground for wildlife lovers and hiking buffs, a bucket-list destination for hearty adventurers who aren’t afraid of, say, running into a predator.
Sure, spotting the elusive puma was on my wishlist, but that’s icing-on-the-cake territory here, where all the “wild beauty” – practically a catchphrase in these parts – will distract even the most jaded traveller. Those seemingly ordinary-looking birds flying over the mountain peaks? Those are Andean condors, one of the largest flying birds on the planet with a wingspan of up to 10 feet. (Their sheer size is the only way I can spot them from so far away.) The pink birds dotting the lake? Flamingoes, of course. On a hike one afternoon, a showy armadillo toddles over and poses for photos with the confidence of a supermodel.
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