Her lively evocation of people and place make it difficult to put this book down and the characters, animals, landscape are all drawn with a careful but vivid hand. This is a beautiful book, one that can be taken on several levels – as an adventure travel book as a love story between Coleman and Puma Wayra, the land and the people as an exploration of a country in trouble, dealing with deforestation, illegal animal trafficking and so much more.Ĭoleman’s writing reminds me of the travel books I used to pour over so avidly when I was a kid, desperate to read about foreign locales. Months later, I was at a supper, where I sat next to a woman who was waxing lyrical about Comunidad Inti Wara Yassa, the same sanctuary about which Coleman writes.

I did get to Bolivia, even went to the area Coleman so enchantingly brings to life, but, alas, didn’t volunteer in an animal sanctuary, nor, sadly, walk big cats.

Not just because it sounded exciting and the cover is beautiful, but because it resonated – I’d done exactly the same thing as Coleman, jacked in a job in my twenties to travel around Latin America. When I first heard about Laura Coleman’s The Puma Years, I immediately wanted to read it. She prowls towards us and I’m staring, so overwhelmed, that when Jane slides both her arms carefully through the fence, I almost yelp … What is she thinking? … Then she’s licking. So long that I think she might not move at all, and when she does finally leap from the top of the platform, landing so gracefully it’s almost like she’s not moved, I step back with respect. She looks at us for a long, silent moment. The only part of her that stands out are her eyes, which are as green as the tops of those paddle-shaped plants, and her nose, pink as the tip of a sunset.

The puma years a memoir