Jaguar Woman

Tonight I finished a similar book, called Jaguar Woman, by Canadian Melanie Watt, written in 1989. She did field work in Belize in the mid 1980's, for her MSc in Zoology at the U of T. The book starts out describing the Cross-Country Classic, a 144 mile cycling race on rough roads in the heat of April, from Belize City to San Ignacio near the Guatemalan border, and back. Since the first one in 1929, no woman had ever finished the race. Melanie did it in 10 hours, to raise funds for the Jaguar Preserve. That in itself is an amazing story, but she goes on to photograph and track jaguars in the Cockscomb basin; her struggles and resourcefulness, the incidents and characters she meets, make for good reading.