A cold dawn rose over Patagonia. Reminiscent of a wilder Wyoming, scrubland and thorn bushes dotted the plains, granite towers rising thousands of feet above. But I wasn’t looking there. My eyes were in my camera’s eye piece, my long lens fastened to a tripod, the red recording dot dully glowing, as I tracked her movement. Seeing her body fill the frame, I glanced up to realize that Petaka, the most famous puma on earth, was walking only fifteen feet away from me.
Yucca and corn farms whipped by as our motorcycle wove around giant jungle trees and rocky earth. I adjusted my grip on the thin plastic handle of my guide’s motorcycle, looking over his shoulder as we followed in suit of the other guide. His motorcycle was laden down with my camera gear and an enormous tripod. Beneath the shade of the tree lined road, the occasional parrot took off startled, its grating squawk contrasting against its beautiful green plumage. Above the checkerboard pattens of farmland, Colombian jungle that had never seen a saw blade rose in the distance. “Stop!” I cried out in Spanish. I could see that my camera bag was shaking loose, the guide’s rope failing to hold the expensive camera gear that was lashed to his bike. I was here to film one of the most endangered monkeys in the world, the cotton topped tamarin, something that would be impossible if my camera gear was left in a smashed heap on the side of the road.
