By Kira Warm Lonsdale of Sarah Lawrence College
After a day of driving, unpacking and setting up camp, we spent our first full day learning how to do transects. The instructors took us out to a flat area of the Patagonia Steppe and showed us how to take GPS coordinates, log our data entries and try our best to guess distance in a very foreign language: meters. That evening we were assigned our partners for the next day and went to sleep a little unsure of what to expect. I was assigned a 3.6km transect with Seth and Claudia. We waited at our drop off spot until 9:30am and began walking North. The transect began in the steppe and we stopped to observe the exotic dandelions and other plants as Claudia helped us study for our upcoming flora and fauna quiz. We ate lunch on the edge of a cliff with views spanning miles across the valley. We were excited about having made five different observations of 19 Guanacos!
The next day I was paired up and placed on a transect that was 5.7km long. We left seeing a Guanaco immediately into our transect, with our confidence boosted, we thought it would be a fairly easy transect; we were wrong. After descending a very steep ridge, we found ourselves at a large marsh. Seeing no way around we took off our shoes, crossed the marsh and then ascended another very steep ridge. What felt like hours of getting through thick bushes and continuously ascending, we realized we reached our turnaround time after only walking 1.7km! All this for only seeing a single Guanaco just seconds into our transect. Either way, I still had a lot of fun getting to know one of the other group members.
With a rest day before the next part of research, we took the day to catch up on our studies, go on an optional fun hike and take in the scenery. Coming from a major that does not include any science, the Chacabuco Valley trip helped build my confidence with my scientific terminology while also getting to know team Mate. Over the next week and a half, I learned how to successfully collect population data, use a GPS, better guess distance, and experience some amazing wild animals up close.
