In this rapturous memoir, writer and activist Laura Coleman shares the story of her liberating journey in the Amazon jungle, where she fell in love with a magnificent cat who changed her life.
Laura was in her early twenties and directionless when she quit her job to backpack in Bolivia. Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.
They weren't alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in their own way: a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly dedicated volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. Most of all, there was the jungle—lyrical and alive—and there was Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming.
Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.
Review: The Puma Years
This lyrical and intimate look into a woman drifting rudderless through her life brings us into an unexpected venture into something she never imagined - a connection to the people and animals in a Bolivian jungle wildlife sanctuary. We follow her along travel over the years as the jungle begins to shrink around the sanctuary as the outside world presses ever closer. Laura gives herself over into surrender to something greater than herself - a love and union with "her" puma, Wayra.
The author is also a talented artist. If you care about the environment and our relentless attack of it, if you are tired of people saying things like, "It's only a animal", take this journey into the jungle and the people who live there or just drift through on their way to someplace else.
This was a remarkably good book to get for free from Amazon First Reads, most of which are not terrible, but not outstanding. This was compelling on many levels. It is first, a love story between a woman and a disfunctional puma named Wayra, that is so well-written that you can at least sort of identify with the author's compulsive attraction to the cat, much like Anne Rice's masterful writing in Interview with the Vampire brought you under the spell of the vampire Lestat.
More broadly, it sheds light on the dedication of many people to devote large chunks of their life and survive under the most physically wretched conditions to bond with and care for wild animals in the the reserves of Bolivia. Many of them struggle to reintegrate into conventional society and live any semblance of "normal" lives, which probably lack the intensity and sense of purpose they experienced in the jungle. On another level, it chronicles the destruction of the rainforest and the progressive ravages of climate change on a sensitive ecosystem. Highly recommended.
