CHILE


ABOVE: Guanacos in Torres del Paine National Park Credit: Shutterstock/Dmitry Pichugin


During a sheep shearing demonstration in one of the farm’s barns, he complains about the number of cats, insisting populations have spiralled out of control and attacks are damaging livelihoods. “I grew up here,” he says, deftly removing pelts with a single drive of the blade. “Don’t think you can change reality in a place like this.” His words prove Pia has her work cut out. In partnership with Panthera, she’s creating a heat map of puma movements to assist with the placement of Maremma mountain dogs to protect sheep and deter pumas. On a hike to the top of Bosque del


Cerro, a fairytale forest of stunted lenga beech trees bent and burnished by the wind, Pia shows me the spot where a wire puma trap was removed only a few years ago. Dos de Oro (a female puma whose eyes shine like two golden coins) is often


seen here, snoozing on a bed of wispy lichens. Trees sway and creak like the doors of


a derelict house as we rummage through nature’s elegant debris of fallen tree trunks and dried turmeric-toned bromeliads withering from branches. A great horned owl whooshes through the canopy, but there are no signs of any pumas. Instead, we sit and enjoy their living room. “There’s so much oxygen here, it makes me


`iââÞ]» l>Õ}hà *i>] Ãiiâin} > mominÌ Ìo ÀiyiVÌ° In a conservative environment where living is far from easy, she has plenty of challenges ahead. For now, the only thing to do is take a big breath.


BOOK IT: Abercrombie & Kent offers a seven-night stay in Chile including five nights at Tierra Patagonia and two nights either side in Santiago from £5,699 including


flights and transfers. ABERCROMBIEKENT.CO.UK


OPPOSITE: FIRST ROW: Torres de Paine, Chile; pumas SECOND ROW Hot tub with a view, Tierra Patagonia; writer Sarah Marshall; rooms with a view at Tierra Patagonia THIRD ROW Lake Pehoe FOURTH ROW A puma stalking its prey; glacier in Torres del Paine National Park FRONT PAGE: Laguna Torre Credits: Unsplash/Anqi Lu; Shutterstock/David Ionut, Ignacio Javier Bidart, SCStock, saiko3p, Charlie Low; Cristina Harboe T; Pia Vergara


aspiretravelclub.co.uk SEPTEMBER 2022 ASPIRE 65


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