According to the pod for the module, $read->cigar_array returns a reference to an array of arrays. You could print it with Data::Dumper to see its structure. You can dereference it to get at the top array like this: @{$read->cigar_array} . Then you can loop through that array of references, and dereference those to access those subarrays:

for my $toparray (@{$read->cigar_array}){
  my( $operation, $count ) = @{$toparray};
  # do stuff with this CIGAR operation and count
}
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