This week’s dream: hunting for ghost cats in Patagonia
It grows up to 9ft from nose to tail, can spring, from a standing start, over a 15ft fence, and is to be found all along the mountain spine of the Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. But despite its size, power and immense range, the puma (or panther, cougar, or mountain lion, as this “graceful” animal is also called) is extraordinarily elusive, says Stanley Stewart in the FT. Known as the “ghost cat”, it is rarely seen in the wild, even by scientists devoted to its study. Except, that is, in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. Owing perhaps to its remote location, and treeless landscape, this mountain fastness at the southern tip of South America is the one place where you can track these animals – and stand a good chance of spotting them, at close quarters.
The Ecocamp Patagonia – made up of comfortable geodomes – lies in the heart of the park, a four-hour drive across “austere steppeland” from the port of Punta Arenas, where Scott posted his last letters home before his fatal trip to Antarctic. Towering over the camp is the massif of Torres del Paine itself, with its fantastical jagged peaks, like those in illustrated books about “wizards and dragons”. Guests usually spend four-and-a-half days tracking pumas in the park, first by vehicle and then on foot.
There are flamingos to spot, in the park’s electric-blue lakes, as well as ostrich-like rhea, and “elegant”, llama-like guanacos, the pumas’ chief prey. But nothing can beat the sight of the great predators themselves, moving with the precision of dancers, their shoulders rolling with muscle. And encounters are made more fascinating by the expert guides, who know most of the cats by sight and regale guests with accounts of their histories – including those of the “infamous” fratricidal Grey Brothers, siblings who returned to live with their mother in adulthood, and first played with, then killed, her three new cubs. Steppes Travel (01258-787508, www.steppestravel.co.uk) has an 11-day Chile trip from £4,985pp, excluding international flights.