num_pages: 200
description: On his nineteenth birthday Peter Allison flipped a coin. One side would take him to Africa and the other to South America the two places he wanted to explore before he died. He recounted his time spent as a safari guide in Africa to much acclaim in Whatever You Do Dont Run and Dont Look Behind You. Sixteen years later he makes his way to Santiago Chile ready to seek out the continents best weirdest and wildest adventures and to chase the elusive jaguar. In just the first six months Allison is bitten by a puma (several times) knocked on his head by a bad empanada and surrounded by piranhas while rafting down a Bolivian riverall because of his unusual fear of refrigerators and of staying in any one place for too long. Ever the gifted storyteller and cultural observer Allison makes many observations about life in humid climes the nature of nomadism and exactly what it is like to be nearly blasted off a mountain by the famous Patagonia wind. Allisons self-deprecating humor is as delightful as his crazy stunts and his love for animalseven when they biteis infectious.
language: English
title: How to Walk a Puma: And Other Things I Learned While Stumbling Through South America
publisher: Lyons Press