This guest story is by María and Martin, who came from Europe to seek a special connection with Mother Nature on a 5-Day W Trek. What they witnessed is what any traveler dreams to see while reaching Patagonia. If you do not agree, we know you're lying! We all know a good camera is the only good way to shoot this beautiful (and scarce) animal. Luckily, María and Martin have been brave enough to shoot the feline at the right time. Here is their story (do not miss their video)!
***
We, María and Martin, a spanish-german couple living together in Frankfurt, always had the dream of going to Patagonia.
After many travels to various destinations around the world in Africa, Asia and even South America, it came to our mind in early 2015 that we now, finally, wanted to go to Patagonia to enjoy the legendary beautiful landscapes and natural wonders in the southern regions of Argentina and Chile.
During the phase of preparing and planning the trip, we also thought if there might be a chance to see pumas in Patagonia. We have filmed and photographed lions, leopards, tigers, cheetahs and many other wonderful animals on our trips before and have always thought that these moments are very, very special.
But as we made some research on how likely it is to see pumas in Patagonia we somehow knew that it would be nearly impossible to see them – even if EcoCamp Patagonia offers Puma Tracking Tours, which is a sign that they are around.
We knew the puma was living there but we did not expect to meet him.
So we went to Patagonia and we had the clear goal to enjoy the great landscapes with its glaciers and mountains while doing our really hard trekking tours and not thinking too much about the pumas. We did some hiking and canoeing in Ushuaia, climbed up the mountains in El Chaltén and enjoyed Perito Moreno glacier during our stay in El Calafate, Argentina.
Before going back to civilisation in Buenos Aires and then heading back home we came to Torres del Paine National Park in Chile and luckily had a reservation in our hands for the beautifully located EcoCamp Patagonia.
There we did the 5-day W Trek.
It was quite challenging but in the end we enjoyed it a lot! Luckily we had one more day in EcoCamp Patagonia before we had to leave to catch our plane. We originally booked a horse riding tour for that day but switched to a different programme since we wanted to relax a little bit. So we selected a tour where we had a typical asado (barbecue) as lunch. The asado tasted so good, we already knew we made the right decision! But it even came better…
On our way back to the EcoCamp – we already had totally forgotten our passion for wild animals (especially wild cats) – because we had experienced such a beautiful journey through Argentina and Chile and all the great moments went through our heads. Suddenly, our driver stopped the car and yelled: Puma, puma!
We and our travel companions on that day nearly fell out of the car in big chaos because nobody wanted to miss a puma – a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We ducked down and headed into the direction our driver had pointed before and: we saw nothing! But the closer we came, we suddenly realized a puma was sitting just in front of us, hiding in the surroundings.
If you want to see what happened, how this ended up and how beautiful pumas are – watch our movie:
Enjoy!
-María and Martin
Do you want more information? Visit cascada.travel and learn about our programs