Armed with rudimentary Spanish, a
dangerous level of curiosity and a record for poor judgement, I set off to tackle
whatever South America's wilds could throw at me…
After
years as a safari guide in Africa, Peter Allison just couldn't find contentment
with his life back in Australia tied to a desk and with a routine domestic life.
Yet again he dreamt of chucking it all in to revisit his crazy youth and a life
of travel, adventure and dangerous wildlife. How to Walk a Puma is the story of
what happened when he actually did.
Peter had already been
up close and personal with some seriously scary animals in Africa but in South
America he wanted to vary things up by getting involved with conservation projects
as well as seeking out 'the wildest and rarest wildlife experiences on offer'.
From learning to walk - or rather be bitten and dragged along
at speed by - a puma in a Bolivian wildlife reserve, to searching for elusive
jaguars in Brazil, finding love in Patagonia, and hunting naked with the remote
Huaorani people (famous for killing outsiders) in Ecuador, How to Walk a Puma
is Peter's fascinating and often hilarious account of his adventures and misadventures
in South America.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
It
was a love of animals that first led Peter Allison to Africa at the age of 19,
and by the late 1990s he'd worked as a safari guide in South Africa, Botswana
and Namibia - all documented in his hilarious books Whatever You Do, Don't Run
and Don't Look Behind You, But... Back in Australia after such an eventful life
in Africa, it wasn't too long before he got bored and decided that he just had
to seek out more danger in South America. Peter now has the best of both worlds,
globetrotting as a marketeer for Africa's leading safari company, and dividing
his downtime between Sydney and Cape Town.
'How To Walk
A Puma' is available now.
